[thelist] Activating ActiveX Controls

[John Dowdell]

Magnus Jönsson wrote:
> Microsoft wants us to tweak our pages, and it's making me nauseous.
> I read some disturbing news about IE's Active X controls today, due to some legal issues with a patent Microsoft has changed the way of implementing active x controls which no longer allows for automatic start of an Active X control. The user will forced to an extra click for a Flash file to start playing.
> I'm hoping I have misunderstood this but it doesn't look like it. Sounds like a nightmare to me, apparently the only way to get around it would be to use an external JavaScript which is more or less outrageous to do if you ask me.
> This update will be available through Microsoft Security patches and they expect the majority to have this update within 6 months.

True. I didn't know they'd be shipping this morning, as an option on 
Windows Update, but the build has been on MSDN for awhile.

What changes? Controls will display as before, but will need to be 
clicked on before interactivity takes place. I haven't installed that 
version of Internet Explorer yet, but it sounds similar to what you'd do 
for keyboard focus within the browser.

(Many people already use external JavaScript to write OBJECT/EMBED tags, 
to make documents which pass the W3C validators, and in most such cases 
the browser change will have no effect on their existing sites.)

For more info, with specifics on Adobe-related browser extensions, see 
the FAQ in the Adobe Active Content Developer Center:
http://www.macromedia.com/devnet/activecontent/faq.html
http://www.macromedia.com/devnet/activecontent/

jd



-- 
John Dowdell . Adobe Developer Support . San Francisco CA USA
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