Question

I launch an Actionscript function through javascript via ExternalInterface.

<script type="text/javascript">
var flashvars = {};
var params = {};
params.allowscriptaccess = "always";
var attributes = {};
swfobject.embedSWF("/img/tts_langx.swf", "tts_lang", "1", "1", "9.0.0", false, flashvars, params, attributes);
</script>

However, when flash doesn’t load, or player isn’t available, everything breaks. So I want to check for flash and if it is not loaded for some reason kill that part of the process only.

I make the check through:

function thisMovie(movieName) {
 if (navigator.appName.indexOf("Microsoft") != -1) {
     return window[movieName];
 } else {
     return document[movieName];
 }
}

and then I make:

if(thisMovie('myFlash').theActionscriptFunction==null){...}else{}

which is a very ugly way, but works in firefox and safari, not in Chrome.

How can i make this check in the best way and know for all the browsers, if flash is available for functions in it?

Answer 1

A very simple way would be to change the Flash movie in this manner:

When the movie loads (in the load listener in AS), add this

if(ExternalInterface.available) {
    ExternalInterface.call(flashReady);
}

and in the javascript, have a function called flashReady which does the thing it needs to

function flashReady() {
    //Your awesome function body here
}