[thelist] Flash - what happens it plugin not installed?

[Juha Suni]

Tim Burgan wrote:
> Hello,
>
> If a user comes to my site that requires Flash 8, what happens if they
> have Flash 6 or 7?
> I heard something special about Macromedia's Flash 8 deployment that
> makes these scenarios easier for users, but I'm not sure.
>
> Is anyone able to clarify for me?
>
> My perfect world scenario: The user visits the page, flash player is
> updated with little intervention, then the user gets the content.

Thats pretty much what happens. The html code that contains the flash will 
tell the client what version of Flash player they need, and contains the 
address from where the client can get the newer version.

IE just asks the user if they wish to install the new version ("yes","no"), 
and if they do it takes only about a second or two and then the page opens.

What sucks though, is that if the user clicks "no", the flash is still 
shown, but since the new features of flash 8, most of the objects that 
contain flash 8 -specific features just disappear! I'd rather that if they 
dont have it, it would not show at all. No information at all for the client 
is still better than complete misinformation. This already almost caused a 
lot of problems when I did the sketch-demo with flash 8 for a production 
company about an tv-ad for our client. The version they saw was completely 
different that it was supposed to be. Luckily we spotted it in time before 
they went through producing something that was not meant to be (yeah, James 
and Lars rule).

-- 
Suni