[thelist] RE: Acrobat detection

[Chris Blessing]

Hi all-

I got a couple of requests about my original question regarding Acrobat
detection, so I figured I'd post the solution I found to the list.

All I really did was search on google for "detect adobe acrobat" and
low-and-behold there were several sites that had a page dedicated to just
that: detecting Acrobat.  The script used is apparently used quite a bit as
it was on all 4 top hits on google, different sites though.  Here is the
code, slightly modified for IE6 (wrap-warning):

<SCRIPT LANGUAGE="VBScript">
<!-- code for IE only
	sAgent = navigator.userAgent
	bIsIE = CBool(InStr(sAgent,("MSIE"))>0)
	bIsIE3 = CBool(InStr(sAgent,("IE 3"))> 0)
	bIsIE4 = CBool(InStr(sAgent,("IE 4"))> 0)
	bIsIE5 = CBool(InStr(sAgent,("IE 5"))> 0)
	bIsIE6 = CBool(InStr(sAgent,("IE 6"))> 0) // added for IE6 comp.

	if bIsIE and (bIsIE3 or bIsIE4 or bIsIE5 or bIsIE6) then
	on error resume next
		AcroOnPC = IsObject(CreateObject("Pdf.PdfCtrl.1"))
		if AcroOnPC then
			' do something here like location.replace
		else
			' do something here like msg with error
		End If
	end if
-->
</SCRIPT>

<SCRIPT LANGUAGE="JavaScript">
<!-- code for Netscape/non-IE browsers
	if (navigator.mimeTypes && navigator.mimeTypes.length){
		x = navigator.mimeTypes['application/pdf'];
		if (x && x.enabledPlugin){
			//do something here like location.replace()
		}else{
			//do something here like alert(error)
		}
	}
-->
</SCRIPT>

Works great for me.  I'm using it to write out a frameset in a new window
which holds a link back to our site (top frame) and the PDF (bottom frame).
If they don't have Acrobat they get a new window with an error message and a
link to Adobe's site.

Chris Blessing
webguy at mail.rit.edu
http://www.330i.net