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Providing alternative images if Adobe Flash isn't available

Answer 1

+5 A:

I don't know why you want to avoid javascript, it is the best solution when dealing with Flash.

using the SWFObjects Library (the best known so far for the matter) you can do this:

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" 
            "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"&gt; 
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"&gt; 
<head> 
 <title> My Home Page </title> 
 <meta name="viewport" content="width=780"> 
 <script type="text/javascript" src="swfobject.js"></script> 
</head> 
<body> 
 <div id="splashintro"> 
   <a href="more.html"><img src="splash_noflash.png" /></a> 
 </div>
 <script type="text/javascript"> 
   var so = new SWFObject("csplash.swf", "my_intro", "300", "240", "8", "#338899"); 
   so.write("splashintro"); 
 </script> 
 </body> 
</html>

what the script does is replace the splashintro div with the flash file, if the browser does not support Flash, then does nothing and the splash_noflash.png will be shown.

P.S. With this technique you are ready for the iPhone, instead of showing the blue cube, it will show the image :)

balexandre 2009-01-16 08:23:01

Some people allow Flash, but have Javascript turned off. Why depend on Javascript when you can have the best of both worlds?

Raithlin 2009-01-16 16:51:02

And still others turn both off because they don't have enough bandwidth or don't like scripts running without their knowledge.

cdeszaq 2009-01-16 17:02:14

thx for pointing me to the SWF Object Library. one up vote for this.though i didn't choose it as the perfect answer as the usage of the JS library isn't necessary in my particular case.

Gerhard Dinhof 2009-01-19 13:10:09

no worries, always glad to help :)

balexandre 2009-01-20 19:18:01

there is some changes with swfobject 2.0 : http://code.google.com/p/swfobject/wiki/documentation

Niklaos 2010-06-14 12:37:50

Answer 2

+1 A:

Actually having flash installed but javascript turned off is a valid scenario. This should work across most browsers:

<object classid="clsid:D27CDB6E-AE6D-11cf-96B8-444553540000" width="800" height="600" id="flashContent">
  <param name="movie" value="flash.swf" />
  <!--[if !IE]>-->
    <object type="application/x-shockwave-flash" data="flash.swf" width="800" height="600">
  <!--<![endif]-->
      <img src="(...)" alt="Put your alternate content here" />
  <!--[if !IE]>-->
    </object>
  <!--<![endif]-->
</object>

Kristian J. 2009-01-16 08:40:10

if in my example the javascript is turned off, then the script does not run, and for that does not replace the image, and ... you will see the image ! :) so: same thing at the end ;)

balexandre 2009-01-16 09:04:31

that is way I do love SWFObjects library ;) runs everywhere perfectly

balexandre 2009-01-16 09:05:05

Since when do other browsers do anything with conditional comments? That is not part of any w3c spec I've seen.

cdeszaq 2009-01-16 17:03:44

well, in my opinion it doesn't matter if all non-IE browser will ignore the [if !IE] tag. they'll do exactly what the command tells us: interpret the second object tag. only IE will skip the tag.

Gerhard Dinhof 2009-01-19 13:22:20

The conditional comments are only for IE. That's the whole point.

bzlm 2009-02-19 13:24:25

Answer 3

+1 A:

I use the following code for graceful degradation. It works well.

<!--[if !IE]> -->
<object type="application/x-shockwave-flash" data="flash.swf" width="500" height="100">
<!-- <![endif]-->

<!--[if IE]>
<object classid="clsid:D27CDB6E-AE6D-11cf-96B8-444553540000" 
    codebase="http://download.macromedia.com/pub/shockwave/cabs/flash/swflash.cab#version=6,0,0,0" 
    width="500" height="100">
  <param name="movie" value="flash.swf" />
<!--><!--dgx-->
  <param name="loop" value="false">
  <param name="menu" value="false">
  <param name="quality" value="high">
  <img src="flash_replacement.png" width="500" height="100" alt="No Flash">
</object>
<!-- <![endif]-->

Raithlin 2009-01-16 16:55:12

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Providing alternative images if Adobe Flash isn't available

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