1 Very interesting

Very interesting… excellent detective work.

posted at 11:40 am on November 9, 2002 by TjL

2 CODEBASE causes other problems

I’m not sure I buy the argument that having codebase point to a different domain name is a security problem (can you cite a w3 spec that states this?), but there is another problem when the attribute points to another domain.

By definition, if the data attribute is a relative URI, then it is relative to the codebase attribute. For browsers that follow the spec this closely, that means the browser would try to find your movie on Macromedia’s site.

posted at 11:45 am on November 9, 2002 by Peter K. Sheerin

3 So what's been accomplished?

Okay. I understand what’s happened, for the sake of getting some code to be XHTML compliant, but is it really worth it? You’re taking out the codebase, only to put it in “sacraficially” somewhere else — so no point to that. Then you’re having to alter the movie to load it into an empty clip, though not a headache, seems pretty pointless to me. I’d rather just leave the code like it is instead of having to tear it apart and slap some bandages all over it for the sake of Netscape.

posted at 11:49 am on November 9, 2002 by Christopher

4 re: So what's been accomplished?

With all due respect I think you’re missing the point. A lot of designers want to use standards. We work our asses off to sell this idea to our clients. Then when we embed Flash movies our sites aren’t compliant any more and our code is bloated. I plan to use this technique as a starting point for my own explorations. And the author says the same thing. He says it is only a starting point. Damn good one if you ask me.

posted at 12:08 pm on November 9, 2002 by dzinelad

5 What about other plugins?

Would that method work with other plugins? On our website, we use a lot of Quicktimes (we’re a TV production company). We’re redesigning, and I wanted to go for XHTML/CSS. But, because of the Quicktimes, it wouldn’t validate – until now (?).

BTW, as far as I know, the ONLY browser (but not the least) that used to use the <object > tag for plugins was IE/WINDOWS. EVERY browser on the Mac (and probably on Linux) used the <embed> tag. So the Satay Method, especially if it works with other plugins, is quite welcome – unless you design only for one browser…

posted at 12:11 pm on November 9, 2002 by Jonathan

6 Validity != Accessibility

It’s worth pointing out that validity doesn’t necessarily mean accessibility; there’s nothing to stop someone designing a badly designed flash based site only to stick it between some validating HTML tags and claiming web design excellence.

I’m sure that this discovery will please many web designers using flash who are also conscious of web standards. But I think it’s going to take much more work on the part of Macromedia, W3C and the browser manufacturers before we have a proper solution to the Flash accessibility problem.

posted at 12:22 pm on November 9, 2002 by Matt

7 Forgive my ignorance

Please forgive my ignorance but what functionality are you losing if your site doesn’t validate due ONLY to the bloated Flash generated code? I appreciate this article and I’m excited about using this and testing it out but I’m not sure what I am gaining by using it besides the ability to claim that my site is standards compliant.

For instance, if my site validates 100% and then I insert the Flash object code and it no longer validates does this cause the site to lose some functionality that it had at 100% compliance?

Again, I’m relatively new to Web standards and so I’m asking from the perspective of wanting to learn and am in no way making any sort of negative comment about the article. Thanks.

posted at 12:41 pm on November 9, 2002 by Eric J

8 If the mountain will not come to Mohammed, ...

… Mohammed will go to the mountain.

The article “Including Flash files in valid XHTML pages” by David Robertson deals with the same problem (/avec/ Quicktime, this should prove interesting for you, Jonathan) by writing a custom DTD and thus making the now invalid elements and attributes valid.

http://www.outofthetrees.co.uk/resources/flash_versus_standards.php

posted at 01:03 pm on November 9, 2002 by anonymous coward

9 Excellent Article

A very informative article, I just found this site and applaud the attention to detail and clear explanation through the journey to the solution. I totally agree with cutting the fat in coding, while attaining browser compatibility and xhtml compliance. While my experience is a mere shadow as compared to the author, it is sure nice to find a site that offers articles of this detail.

posted at 01:52 pm on November 9, 2002 by Andrew S

10 Not working

You migh like to know that I’m using IE5.5 on Win98. You also might like to know that all I see instead of the flash movie is a <textarea>-like empty field.

The technique works fine on Mozilla. Though if it can’t work fine on IE5.0 it’s of no use to me. Any ideas? Which attribute is missing that is causing the error?

<OBJECT>, though theoretically great, is not quite supported. See
http://www.student.oulu.fi/~sairwas/object-test/results/
This test chart shows that OBJECT should be working on my browser. It isn’t.

posted at 02:10 pm on November 9, 2002 by Manuel Razzari