Flash Plug-in Detection

To use this help file, you should be comfortable with editing your page's code with Dreamweaver. Contact Web Help if you need assistance.

IRT has comprehensive scripts that ensure that users who don't have the Flash plug-in can get it within a few moments and quickly return to your Flash content. We recommend the use of these scripts whenever any Flash object, including Flash Video players, is embedded on a page. The scripts determine if the user has the appropriate version of the Flash Player plug-in, then serve the Flash content to those who do, and alternate content linking to the Flash Player installer for those who don't.

Note for Flash video: Dreamweaver offers a simple built-in Flash plug in detection JavaScript for those using its native video player. We recommend that you use IRT's detections scripts instead. To do so, do not select the plug-in detection option when you embed the file on your page following the Guide to Installing Video with Dreamweaver. Simply save and put the page, and associated .swf and .flv files, to the server. After checking your installation in a browser, proceed with the Flash plugin directions below.

Step 1: Place the following code between the <head> and </head> tags of your page, after the  comment which marks the only editable area of the head.

Notes

This code references an external JavaScript that lives here; this is the version for Flash 8
The version you detect should match the minimum version of your flash object (ask the provider of the object if you are not sure what version is required) or newer; Flash Video files (.flv) are also encoded to a specific version of Flash Player, and you must detect for the highest version required by either the video or player object file
A previous script for Flash version 7 is here; to use the above code for a Flash object or video that requires version 7, change "/Templates/checkFlashV8.js" to "/Templates/checkFlash.js"
A newer script for Flash version 9 is here; to use the above code for a Flash object or video that requires version 9, change "/Templates/checkFlashV8.js" to "/Templates/checkFlashV9.js"
If picking up this technique for pages on a non-IRT server, you can copy the external script to your server or reference it by absolute URL.

Step 2: Copy the following code, and paste it into your page's HTML code, just before the embed code you installed for your Flash video in Step 1.

See the above demo code in action:

Step 3: Replace the ALL CAPS text between the single quotes with your embed code, and remove all carriage returns between the single quotes. Save and put the page.

Step 4: Test your installation in a browser. It's helpful to have two different browsers, one with the Flash plug in installed, and the other without, so you can test both positive and negative plug in detection. You can obtain a free tool to uninstall the Flash plug-in from the Adobe/Macromedia site for this purpose.

Demo video page with plug-in detection scripts

View the page's source through your browser to see the example HTML code.