Simple little flash button requires visitors to download update

I don't want my visitors distracted

[mikeycorn]

Hello, I'm new to this site and appreciate any help I can get. :)

I'm using dreamweaver and I put a simple little flash button in and I think no big deal, right? On visiting the site, I'm prompted to download shockwave flash 8.5.1 just to see a stupid little button. Has anyone found the work around? Here's the dreamweaver generated code when you add the flash button, in red are the parts I've either tweaked (tried lowering the version to 4,0,0,0) or removed. Neither approach prevented this attempted hijacking of my visitors.

 <object classid="clsid:166B1BCA-3F9C-11CF-8075-444553540000"
  codebase="http://download.macromedia.com/pub/shockwave/cabs/director/sw.cab#[color=red]version=8,5,0,0[/color]" width="105" height="21">
 <param name="src" value="about.swf"><param name="BGCOLOR" value="#000000">
 <embed src="about.swf" width="105" height="21" [color=red]pluginspage="http://www.macromedia.com/shockwave/download/[/color]" bgcolor="#000000"></embed>
 </object>

[mikeycorn]

Sorry, I tried to put the stuff in red, but the two parts I tried to tweak were the version to 4,0,0,0 and I tried removing the plugins page.

This is very annoying, they're just little flash buttons. Any help is greatly appreciated.

[korkus2000]

You embedded the swf as a director file. Go back into dreamweaver and delete it and embed it as a flash movie.

Oh and Welcome to WebmasterWorld! :)

[mikeycorn]

Korkus - thank you, thank you, thank you! As you can tell I have no idea what I'm doing, but learning as you go is an adventure I guess. You helped me out big time there.

[mikeycorn]

Okay, with every answer comes another question (is there a roll eyes graphic around here?) Can you give me just a quick little idea on what the difference is betweeen shockwave and flash other than the fact that one is like a 10MB download and one is less than a meg?

[korkus2000]

Shockwave is created by director. Director makes compiled applications for computers. You mainly see them for CDRoms. Director is an old Macromedia app and people wanted multimedia for the web several years ago before Flash. So Macromedia created shockwave to publish director movies to the web. It is quite large but has more functionality.

Flash was designed to bring multimedia to the web. It is vector based (Math) and not sprite based (Rastor) like director. These movies are much smaller and ment to create web content and not application content, although Flash MX is starting to blur what you would use director for.

[mikeycorn]

Thanks again, Krokus. In my mind it was all just "Shockwave Flash," baby. I guess I just looked up at the Insert ¦ Media menu in Dreamweaver and saw Shockwave first (which is weird because it's listed second, but whatever.)

Thanks for the explanation.

[HughMungus]

Why do the buttons have to be flash buttons? Some people don't have or don't have the latest version of Flash, and some actively uninstall Flash from their system so they don't have to see Flash ads (FYI). If your website repeatedly asks these visitors to install the Flash player, how long do you think they'll stick around?

[korkus2000]

HughMungus I really think we are at a point where Flash is pretty well supported. That being said with flash you can show an alternative image if Flash is not installed. I try to save stuff a version lower to avoid download promps for the newest version.

[HughMungus]

HughMungus I really think we are at a point where Flash is pretty well supported. That being said with flash you can show an alternative image if Flash is not installed. I try to save stuff a version lower to avoid download promps for the newest version.

Well, really I was talking about using Flash buttons. Why bother if some of your users are going to get tired of being prompted (with no way of opting out completely) and leave?

[grahamstewart]

Some points...

Will search engine spiders see your flash buttons?

Will people using accessibility tools (like screen readers) see them?

Will cut-down browsers on PDAs and phones be able to display them?

Are they actually doing something that is fancy enough to justify the use of flash - or could you just do it with CSS or image rollovers instead?

[edit_g]

A good idea when saving any flash work: there is an option to save as flash 4 - try to make your flash stuff using only flash 4 features and save it in flash 4 format. This way - even people with older versions of the flash player will be able to see it without downloading any new versions.

[PatrickDeese]

really think we are at a point where Flash is pretty well supported

I have configured IE with Active X and plug-ins turned off, and it asks permission to run them.

I do this, as HughMungus, suggested, to defend myself against the irritating multimedia ads that certain news sites have. I find it very difficult to read an article with something blinking all the time.

If I check my yahoo email account, I have to tell it "no" everytime I load a new page, but frankly I would rather have that than the stupid adverts.

I would serious reconsider implementing any form of navigation in your site that required a download. I find the "97% of browsers have flash" statistic highly suspect.

FWIW - I have an informational site that attracts "all kinds" of visitors - and has 8% of its visitors using browsers/OSes that don't support flash - and that would be assuming that 100% of the other visitors had flash installed. The site in question gets 1200+ uniques daily. ~ 100 people per day is a lot of potential lost sales, or what have you.

[HughMungus]

Yeah, I wish there was a way to trick your computer into thinking that flash is installed when, really, it isn't (to eliminate the nag to install Flash - there should be a "don't ask me again" option on that stuff). Maybe a registry edit?

[amznVibe]

I disable activeX and java calls for all remote pages on all our pcs and for our clients. Alot of personal firewalls do too. Novices are just too quick to click on "yes" when they get an annoying dialog.

I've never regretted missing a single Flash based ad. If there is some kind of exciting Flash animation going around, I simply download it and run it locally.

If you are doing a simple button, I am sure most here like myself, will recommend using a simple javascript/dHTML or CSS2 rollover instead.

As far as disabling Flash more easily, try Googling for "jTFlashManager" and you'll find it as well as many other solutions...