TechNote (Archived)

Flash and Internet Explorer Issues on the Macintosh Platform

The Internet Explorer browser on the Macintosh has unique issues that require special attention for Flash developers. Most of these issues have been fixed in version 5.0 of this browser. A list of these issues is below.

Contents

	Detection
	Script Communication
	Get URL: Javascript
	VBScript
	Local Playback
	Get URL action
	Using POST method
	Get URL / Load Movie issues

Detection
There is no way to detect plug-in installation in Internet Explorer 4.5 and below on the Macintosh platform with scripting. If the audience may be using Internet Explorer 4.5, consider these workarounds:

There are several ways to resolve this issue for Flash movies:

	Design the page to provide alternate content, such as a GIF image or Flash through the Java Player, or redirect to an alternate URL. See Redirecting the Microsoft Internet Explorer Browser for Macintosh (Technote 13765).
	Design the page to always use the Flash Player. If there is no plug-in, the viewer will see the broken puzzle piece icon. If the movie is a Flash 3 movie and the Player is a Flash 2 player, there will be a blank space on the page where the movie should be. If the movie is a Flash 4 movie and the Player is a Flash 3 player then the visuals will play but there may not be audio.
	Use Flash to detect Flash, avoiding the Internet Explorer detection issue. See How to detect the Flash 4 Player without using Javascript (Technote 14086).

Note:Internet Explorer 5.0 does contain a Navigator plug-ins array, and facilitates JavaScript plug-in detection succesfully.

Script Communication
Macintosh Internet Explorer does not have a 32 bit version of either Live Connect or ActiveX. It is therefore not possible to have scripting communication with Flash movies. This has not changed in Internet Explorer 5.0, and attempting to send JavaScript commands with FSCommand actions will not work, nor will attempting to control the Flash Player with JavaScript.

Using Get URL with "Javascript:" syntax
Macintosh Internet Explorer 4.5 does not allow a JavaScript function to be called with a Get URL action. See How to create popup windows in Flash (Technote 14192) for an example of this technique.

Internet Explorer 5.0 will work correctly with this command. For example, the Flash button action:

Get URL ("javascript:alert("Welcome!");")

Will create a JavaScript alert window in Internet Explorer 5.0 Macintosh with "Welcome!" inside.

VBScript
Internet Explorer 4.5 and below on the Macintosh does not support VBScript. When it encounters an HTML page with VBScript, it will advise with a pop-up dialog box that there is something on the page that it does not understand.

Local Playback
Somesystems are unable to view local plug-in content using Internet Explorer on the Macintosh. The browser is unable to connect to a file using the local file syntax (file://); it can only connect with Web syntax (http://). On these machines enabling Personal Web Sharing or another web server will allow Flash to play local content.

Get URL
When the SWF file and the HTML file in which the Flash file is embedded are not in the same folder, relative links are not found in Internet Explorer 4.5 Macintosh using the Flash GetURL action.

While most browsers make the link relative to the HTML file which contains the SWF file, IE 4.5 Macintosh makes the link relative to the SWF file itself, therefore it looks in the wrong folder.

To solve this problem, either keep the HTML and the SWF file in the same folder or use absolute or siteroot relative paths which will work fine on the server.When using absolute or siteroot relative paths, these cannot be tested locally.

Note:Internet Explorer 5.0 does resolve relative paths correctly.

For more information on relative URLs, refer to Using Relative URLs with Get URL Action (TechNote ID 4157).

Using POST to send data to a server script
Internet Explorer 4.5 and below on the Macintosh does not support sending data from a Flash movie via the POST method, using the Load Variables and Get URL actions. The only supported method for Flash movies in this browser is GET. This was fixed in version 5 as well, to allow both GET and POST methods to work properly.

Using Load Movie after the Get URL action
There is an issue involving Internet Explorer 4.5 on the Macintosh where a Get URL action, directly followed by a Load Movie action, will prevent the Load Movie action from working. This has been fixed in Internet Explorer 5.0 for the Macintosh.