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Editorial Team
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Asked: 2026-05-16T03:38:02+00:00

Like most people I use SWFObject to embed Flash (swf) files to my Web

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Like most people I use SWFObject to embed Flash (swf) files to my Web projects.

As you know SWFObject offers 2 ways to embed Flash: Static publishing and Dynamic publishing.

Static publishing uses regular markup to embed the file to the document and also do checks with JavaScript that you can’t make with regular markup alone. This is good as if you have customers that can’t have JavaScript turned on (search engines, some portable devices…), the file will still show up (if they have the correct Flash plug-in installed). But if you have people on legacy/unpatched Internet Explorer (between April 2006 and April 2008) they will have the dreaded "click to activate" to interact with the Flash.

Dynamic publishing uses JavaScript to embed the Flash. This will get rid of the "click to activate" feature on old IE but if JavaScript is off the Flash will not be there at all.

Both methods have its advantages and inconvenients. In an utopic world we would all use the dynamic publishing method, but we (or at least some of us like me) are stuck with customers using really old systems with IE 6 (they would like to upgrade but they can’t because of badly designed software that would cost 10K+$ to upgrade). I need to support legacy IE and want to get rid of the "click to activate" feature while supporting people with JavaScript off.

What about combining static and dynamic publishing methods? What about something like:

<!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>SWFObject 2 static+dynamic publishing example page</title>
        <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1" />
        <script type="text/javascript" src="swfobject.js"></script>
        <script type="text/javascript">
        swfobject.embedSWF("test.swf", "myContent", "300", "120", "9.0.0", "expressInstall.swf");
        </script>
    </head>
    <body>
        <div id="myContent">
            <object id="myId" classid="clsid:D27CDB6E-AE6D-11cf-96B8-444553540000" width="300" height="120">
                <param name="movie" value="test.swf" />
                <!--[if !IE]>-->
                <object type="application/x-shockwave-flash" data="test.swf" width="300" height="120">
                <!--<![endif]-->
                <div>
                    <h1>Alternative content</h1>
                    <p><a href="http://www.adobe.com/go/getflashplayer"><img src="http://www.adobe.com/images/shared/download_buttons/get_flash_player.gif" alt="Get Adobe Flash player" /></a></p>
                </div>
                <!--[if !IE]>-->
                </object>
                <!--<![endif]-->
            </object>
        </div>
    </body>
</html>

I showed that to an integrator and he told me I should use <object> and <embed> tags…

What would be the ultimate way to embed Flash to Web projects? A solution that:

  • Will work with JavaScript off (Flash embedded in alternate content)
  • Will pass the W3C validator
  • Will remove the "click to activate" on legacy/unpatched IE
  • Will use the Flash detection/auto-install of SWFObject

EDIT: Added bounty. Please, I don’t want to see answers like "don’t bother no one have JavaScript off nowdays" or "if javascript is off most likely Flash will be off too".

EDIT 2: The answer I’m looking for is the best way to embed Flash statically (with regular HTML tags). Over that, I will add dynamic publishing. Something like this that will work in all major browsers since IE 6 and that will pass W3C validation.

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1 Answer

  1. Editorial Team

    Here it is:

    <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/strict.dtd">
<html lang="en">
    <head>
        <title></title>
        <script type="text/javascript" src="swfobject.js"> </script>
        <script type="text/javascript">
            swfobject.embedSWF('test.swf', 'myFlash', '320', '240', '9.0.0', '/swfobject/expressInstall.swf', 0, 0, 0);
        </script>
    </head>
    <body>
        <div>
            <object id="myFlash" classid="clsid:D27CDB6E-AE6D-11cf-96B8-444553540000" width="320" height="240">
                <param name="movie" value="test.swf">
                <!--[if !IE]>-->
                <object type="application/x-shockwave-flash" data="test.swf" width="320" height="240">
                <!--<![endif]-->
                    <p>Version ???</p>
                <!--[if !IE]>-->
                </object>
                <!--<![endif]-->
            </object>
        </div>
    </body>
</html>
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