Tip: Detect whether Flash is available

Monday, June 09, 2008 at 1:58 PM

Posted by Benjamin Schirmer, Gadget Developer

Before you a embed a Flash movie into your gadget, check whether the Adobe Flash plugin is indeed available on the user's machine. Here's a function that returns true if you can use Flash.

function flashAvailable() {
  if (framework.system.machine.manufacturer == "Apple") {
    // It's pretty safe to just assume that Flash is on the Mac;
    // it's preinstalled with Safari.
    return true;
  }

  var flashCode = "<object x='0' y='0' name='flashCheck'
visible='false' classid='progid:ShockwaveFlash.ShockwaveFlash'
width='1' height='1'><param name='movie' value='none.swf' /></object>";

  var tmpEle = view.appendElement(flashCode);
  if (tmpEle == null) {
    return false;
  } else {
    view.removeElement(tmpEle);
    return true;
  }
}

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