If you’re a Flash developer, you more than likely either have or know about Dreamweaver 3 & 4. If you haven’t heard of this outstanding HTML editor which works extremely well with Flash and other Macromedia products, click here to learn more:
In this tutorial, I’m going to show you real quick like how to detect whether your viewer has the Flash plug-in or not. Also, if they do have the plug-in, how to make them go directly to your Flash site. Conversely, if they don’t, then they can go to your HTML site or a default page telling them to download the plug-in.
First your going to make a new page. For this I left mine blank with “Searching For Flash Plug-In” at the top. You can add graphics, SWFs, or whatever else you could imagine.
Then Click on Window (this applies for both Dreamweaver 3 & 4)
Now, under window look for Behaviors. (Short Cut Keys DW 3-f8; DW 4 Shift=f3)
This will open a little window if it isn’t already open.
In the “Behaviors” window Hit the + button in the left hand corner and go down to “Check Plug-in”.
This will take you to a screen where you have several options
In the first pull down menu, make sure it says FLASH.
Below that you have the options to choose where to direct your viewer if they “have” the Flash plug in and the option to send them to a different page if they don’t.
Now, save your page and test it!
Click here to see the example.
If you have the Flash plug-in it will take you to the FlashNewz home page, and if you don’t have the plug-in, it will take you to Macromedia where you can download the plug-in
If you don’t have Dreamweaver, here is the script that it made with the tutorial above. You can just change the URLs to what you need them to be. http://flashnewz.com/flashdetectsource.html
Having created the outlines for FlashNewz and FLADownloads, John has become a strong voice in the Flash Community. His reviews and tutorials give great insight and knowledge to readers around the world. He has a keen eye for what’s hot and what’s not in the Flash world. He has also developed and continues to run his own flash portal as a side project to keep his mind on the Flash community
Being a key designer for advertising creative, he’s got style when it comes to grabbing readers attention. With a proven track record, there isn’t much this guy can’t handle.
