This problem has me tearing my hair out.
The Symptoms: pop ups intermittently blocked/let through from external interface and navigateToURL combinations.
The Problem: Flash (or the browser..not sure) wont let pop ups be triggered outside of a time range and/or an event duration.
The Environment: I have an app that needs to send data via zendAMF, do some processing and be sent back to the flash player. On the response, if certain conditions are met true - then trigger a pop open window. The same code that gets blocked on response, works directly from a mouse event trigger.
So i set up a basic situation: 6 buttons, calling 3 methods. 3 buttons would call the method directly (all open the window perfectly) the other three would get the value of a numeric stepper, and use setTimeout(openWinMethod, NumericStepper.value) to simulate a delayed call from the zendAMF response.
UPDATE : if i select the 'navigateToURL, no delay' button first, close that window, then try any of the other delay calls - they work. its like the browser accepts that you have clicked to open a window at some point and therefore are allowed to call from a delay then on. (firefox only)
All three using the delay would be blocked (firefox and chrome) whereas all three directly would open. Safari - as well documented, would only work on the 2 methods using navigateToURL
Of interest: the js function in the html wrapper would be called be external interface to open a window. Without a delay this worked. With a delay, the js function would be called (as verified by some alert statements) but a new window was never spawned.
There are two options i am faced with: 1 - change the process to require a user click to continue once i receive my response from the zenAMF, or 2 - find out why this is happening and fix it (preferable)
the demo can be found here: http://www.digital.leskiwis.com/as3/popup/
here is my as3 class:
package
{
import fl.controls.Button;
import fl.controls.NumericStepper;
import flash.display.Sprite;
import flash.events.*;
import flash.text.TextField;
import flash.utils.*;
import flash.net.*;
import flash.external.ExternalInterface;
public class Main extends Sprite
{
private var but1:Button;
private var but2:Button;
private var but3:Button;
private var but4:Button;
private var but5:Button;
private var but6:Button;
private var reporting:TextField;
private var dlay:NumericStepper;
private var url:String = 'http://www.google.com';
private var target:String = "_blank";
public function Main()
{
if (stage) init();
else addEventListener(Event.ADDED_TO_STAGE, init);
}
private function init(e:Event = null):void
{
removeEventListener(Event.ADDED_TO_STAGE, init);
// entry point
dlay = new NumericStepper()
dlay.minimum = 0
dlay.maximum = 5
dlay.stepSize = 0.1
addChild(dlay)
but1 = new Button()
but1.label = "External interface window.open, use delay"
but1.addEventListener(MouseEvent.CLICK, onOpenDelay, false, 0, true);
addChild(but1)
but1.width = 300
but1.y = 50;
but2 = new Button()
but2.label = "External interface window.open, no delay"
but2.addEventListener(MouseEvent.CLICK, onOpen, false, 0, true);
addChild(but2)
but2.width = 300
but2.y = 80;
but5 = new Button()
but5.label = "External interface JS, use delay"
but5.addEventListener(MouseEvent.CLICK, onJSOpenDelay, false, 0, true);
addChild(but5)
but5.width = 300
but5.y = 110;
but6 = new Button()
but6.label = "External interface JS, no delay"
but6.addEventListener(MouseEvent.CLICK, onJSOpen, false, 0, true);
addChild(but6)
but6.width = 300
but6.y = 140;
but3 = new Button()
but3.label = "Navigate to url, use delay"
but3.addEventListener(MouseEvent.CLICK, onNavUrlDelay, false, 0, true);
addChild(but3)
but3.width = 300
but3.y = 170;
but4 = new Button()
but4.label = "Navigate to url, no delay"
but4.addEventListener(MouseEvent.CLICK, onNavUrl, false, 0, true);
addChild(but4)
but4.width = 300
but4.y = 200;
reporting = new TextField;
reporting.y = 230
reporting.width = 300;
reporting.height = 170
addChild(reporting);
}
private function onOpen(e:MouseEvent = null):void {
ExternalInterface.call('window.open',url, 'myWin','height=700,width=900,toolbar=no,scrollbars=yes');
tracer('opening window with window.open')
}
private function onOpenDelay(e:MouseEvent):void {
tracer(('opening window in ' + dlay.value + ' seconds...'))
setTimeout(onOpen, dlay.value * 1000)
}
private function onJSOpen(e:MouseEvent = null):void {
tracer('opening window with external js function ...')
var success : Boolean = ExternalInterface.call( "openURL", url, target );
if (!success) tracer('pop up blocked..');
}
private function onJSOpenDelay(e:MouseEvent):void {
tracer(('opening js external in ' + dlay.value + ' seconds...'))
setTimeout(onJSOpen, dlay.value * 1000)
//setTimeout(function():void { ExternalInterface.call( "openURL", url, target ); }, dlay.value * 1000)
}
private function onNavUrl(e:MouseEvent = null):void {
tracer('opening with navigateToURL')
try {
navigateToURL( new URLRequest(url), '_blank');
} catch (e:Error) {
tracer("Error occurred! " + e);
}
}
private function onNavUrlDelay(e:MouseEvent):void {
tracer(('opening navigateToURL in ' + dlay.value + ' seconds...'))
setTimeout(onNavUrl, dlay.value * 1000)
//setTimeout(function():void { navigateToURL( new URLRequest(url), '_blank'); }, dlay.value * 1000)
}
private function tracer(msg:String):void {
trace(msg)
reporting.appendText(msg + '\n');
}
}
}
and here is the html:
<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd">
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" lang="en" xml:lang="en">
<head>
<title>popup test</title>
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1" />
<script script language='JavaScript' type='text/javascript'>
function openURL( url, target )
{
try
{
var popup = window.open( url, target );
if ( popup == null )
return false;
if ( window.opera )
if (!popup.opera)
return false;
}
catch(err)
{
alert('errr...');
return false;
}
return true;
}
</script>
<script type="text/javascript" src="js/swfobject.js"></script>
<script type="text/javascript">
var flashvars = {};
var params = {wmode:"opaque",allowScriptAccess:"always"};
//var params = {allowScriptAccess:"sameDomain"};
var attributes = {};
attributes.id = "popupTest";
attributes.name = "popupTest";
swfobject.embedSWF("swf/popup2.swf", "altContent", "400", "400", "9.0.0", "swf/expressInstall.swf", flashvars, params, attributes);
</script>
</head>
<body>
<div id="altContent">
</div>
</body>
</html>