Flash Activation in Microsoft Internet Explorer

Microsoft recently released a security update to Microsoft Internet Explorer through Auto Update that disables Flash and other Applets by default.

This can be seen by a box around the Flash object (on mouse over) and a tooltip that says "Click to activate and use this control". More information can be found on the Microsoft website at http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms537508.aspx

The problem with this new Internet Explorer fix is that the menu will become inactive if it falls on part of a Flash object and will require 2 clicks in order to follow a link inside a menu item. Obviously, this will cause usability problems and navigating your website using the menu becomes very difficult and very tedious. We are shocked that Microsoft took this drastic approach and it's given us quite a lot of problems, we also see this causing problems for many months to come. Please note that this problem does not just affect Milonic products, it will affect ALL other DHTML Menus, in fact, any DHTML Object that fall on top of a Flash object will be inactive until the Flash object has been manually activated

So far, we have discovered that the objects that are inactive are:

• Adobe Acrobat Reader
• Adobe/Macromedia Flash
• Microsoft Windows Media Player
• Real Networks RealPlayer
• Sun Java Virtual Machine
• Virtools™ Web Player from Virtools SA
• Macromedia Shockwave Player™ from Adobe Systems Inc.
• QuickTime™ from Apple Computer, Inc.

After several complaints from our customers we have now released two fixes for this issue in the form of a Java Script Modules that should help to activate your Flash objects by default as before, thus re-enabling the menu to work without clicking a menu item twice.

Please note that the first method is not supported by Microsoft but the second method is support by Microsoft

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Note that you can only use ONE of these methods. If you try and use both neither will work. We have had users add both the supported and the un-supported method and stated that it doesn't work. This was always because the user had tried to add both methods found on this page.

Here's the quick and dirty fix:

If you are using the menu, all you need to do is add the following code to a new file called flashactivator.js

if(ie55){
_miO=_d.getElementsByTagName("object");
for(var x=0;x<_miO.length;x++)_miO[x].outerHTML=_miO[x].outerHTML;
}

Then you just need to call this file. To do this, place the following inside your HTML just before the closing </BODY> tag with something like this:

<script src="flashactivator.js"></script>

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Here's the Microsoft supported fix:

Milonic have created a Java Script Module that you can insert into your HTML to automatically activate Flash objects, this module needs to go before your FLASH object declaration, we recommend placing this toward the top of your HTML file possibly near the menu script files.

Here is what you should put inside your HTML file:

<script src="insert_active_flash.js"></script>

The above code is referencing a Java Script file that you need to download before you can use this technique, the location of this file is http://www.milonic.com/insert_active_flash.js



The next thing you need to do is add a DIV container, with a unique ID, where your Flash object can reside. Something as simple as the following will be fine:

<div id="myFlashDiv">

</div>

The next step is to add the properties of your Flash object to the container DIV.

First you need to create an empty Java Script OBJECT, then declare your Flash properties. Finally, once this properties have been declared you need to commit the Flash object to the web page using the commitFlashObject function. A sample of this can be seen in the following code:

<script>
myFlashObject=new Object
myFlashObject.movie="flashfile.swf"
myFlashObject.quality="high"
myFlashObject.wmode="transparent"
myFlashObject.width=850
myFlashObject.height=550
myFlashObject.version="5,0,0,0"

commitFlashObject(myFlashObject, "myFlashDiv")
</script>

There is a sample page using the above code at http://www.milonic.com/over.php where you can view the source and download the code.

There's also an older page, demonstrating how the Flash object used to be called where you can see the surrounding box and popup message when viewed using the latest release of Internet Explorer at http://www.milonic.com/old_over.php

Please Contact us if you require further help or see any problems with the above page.