[thelist] MSIE, applets and classid

[John Dowdell]

Brent Eades wrote:
> Is there any way, using <object> in MSIE, to simply say "if the user is 
> using *any* version of the JRE, go ahead and load the applet", it should 
> be fine"? This is essentially how things behave with the old <applet> 
> tag, but that of course has been deprecated and doesn't validate in XHTML.

I don't have the APPLET->OBJECT transition wired... just have some 
context which may be useful but which would need confirmation before use.

The IE-style OBJECT differs in some ways from the W3C-recommended 
OBJECT, but I'm not sure offhand how these two viewpoints on what that 
tag "should" do compare & contrast with each other.

In IE-style OBJECT, the CLSID specifies which system-level component 
should be invoked, and the optional "codebase" argument after this 
specifies a minimum version necessary, prompting updates if either (a) 
no Control with that GUID is installed; or (b) the minimum version 
specified by codebase is not yet installed.

I have never read Sun's advice on "dynamic" vs "static", and can't guess 
what they're trying to do by using different Class IDs. (I'd love to go 
read it but don't have time to today.)

If the final goal is "Let's make the W3C Validators happy!" then have 
you considered using the proven APPLET and dynamically writing this into 
your HTML page via an external .JS file? This would also avoid the 
interaction delay demanded by the Eolas patent which occurs in IE7 beta 
and some updates of IE6. (Info on the latter subject is available at 
macromedia.com/devnet/activecontent/.)

Summary: Could a dynamic external .JS write of the APPLET be a way to 
solve all these conflicts?

jd


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