SWFFix/SWFObject Encounters Stubborn Active Content Challenge
Alternate SWF embedding techniques like SWFObject and UFO have many benefits over the Object/Embed method; plug-in detection, accessibility, an SEO solution without the use of NOSCRIPT, and valid HTML, to name a few. But the main solution these techniques provided for many was avoiding the ActiveX Content Activation box, or what some termed the ‘gray box of death.’
The box of death can be found frequently dwelling around flash content in the bane of many a web developer’s existence, Internet Explorer. Yes, I’m referring to that annoying white border containing the rectangular box beckoning the user to “Click to Activate” the Flash content. This ugly beast was born of the infamous lawsuit between Microsoft and Eolas.
In short, Eolas and the University of California claimed they invented the first web browser that supported plug-ins, produced a patent for it, and got a District Court to rule in their favor forcing Microsoft to pony up a half-billion dollars. Rather than paying to license the technology, Microsoft decided to ban it altogether and the gray box of death, er, ActiveX Control Prompt, was born. In fairness, the complaint is not applicable to Microsoft only, they’re just the company that was sued. All browsers using plug-ins, including Firefox, Safari, and Opera, are infringing on the patent.
SWFObject and UFO use javascript rather than Object and Embed and therefore Flash is loaded without interruption or interaction from the user. The only problem that comes with these methods is lack of graceful degradation for users that have the Flash plug-in but also have javascript disabled.
This problem along with the possibility of improved page performance is the reason that the creators of SWFObject (Geoff Stearns) and UFO (Bobby van der Sluis) embarked upon a mission to develop “a hybrid solution that uses standards compliant markup like that used in the Flash Satay method to embed both Flash content and alternative content while employing an unobtrusive DOM script that serves as an add-on to fix problems and add services to modern browsers. ”
On October 1st that solution, formerly known as SWFFix was released as SWFObject 2.0 beta 1 (as of yesterday they were up to beta 4). The new SWFObject offers many improvements, but cannot seem to overcome the gray box of death.
Unfortunately for those seeking a true gracefully degrading standards compliant solution, the situation looks bleak. In a recent post by Bobby van der Sluis, it sounds like they’ve just about given up: “unless we find a better method later on (and I doubt that) does the static publishing method not offer a solution for the ‘click-to-activate’ active content problem.”
While he suggests that it may be a moot issue, that remains to be seen. Have no fear about continuing to use SWFObject, though. While graceful degradation may not be achievable, the new SWFObject will continue to offer a ‘Dynamic Publishing’ option that works much like the old SWFObject.
Regardless of whether or not they overcome the Active Content issue, the SWFObject team deserves a giant THANK YOU from the Flash community for their relentless pursuit of SWF embedding perfection. While the ActiveX Content issue is one of the more popular advantages that draw developers, SWFObject provides many other lesser known features that make developing easier.
Did you know that SWFObject 1.5 comes with a function named getQueryParamValue() that reads URL variables? I just found that one out myself the other day! 
-rG
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I’m interested in what you think of a noscript-based approach that I’ve implemented at work. It relies on conditional comments to serve noscript tags to IE, and then a bit of javascript swoops in and strips the noscript tags back out after page load.
It degrades gracefully and has no effect on other browsers. I rather like it, of course, but I’m a bit biased.
What are your thoughts?