detect Flash-accessible camera without prompting user for access to camera if one exists

Answer 1

I don't think there exists a workaround right inside the flash or for any web application as the whole point of security (by restricting access to user's devices) would be lost from that.

As far as I know, the only solution for your problem is to ask the user before prompting the camera detection function.

I might sound like a bummer but something like :

• Show Dialog "Do you have a camera?" - Yes/No
• If yes show Dialog "Please grant the flash player to access camera..." - OK
• Detect Camera (using the getCamera method)
• If failed show Dialog
• else start showing all the several dialogs you intended to.

Also sometimes the camera might be present physically & not installed. So if a user does not know or the camera is inaccessible for any reason you might need to figure that out. So for that use

flash.media.Camera.names

and check if it is empty or not. Or better you could simply pull a few bytes of data from the user's camera & see if it really exists & is accessible.

Answer 2

This works with haXe but should be possible with ActionScript 3 too.

if (Camera.names.length != 0) {
  // user has camera
  // this triggers the access dialog
  var camera:Camera = Camera.getCamera();
}
else {
  // user has no camera
}

Answer 3

This might work too: Capabilities.hasVideoEncoder;

The Camera.names.length approach though seems more reliable (as suggested by Hippo).