How to detect Flash 5 Version Plugin without Javascrip

If you are using Flash 5 and publishing Flash Version 5 movies, this tutorial will give you a quick way to determine if the user has the Flash 5 player installed in their browser without any javascript.

• First make a new scene in your Flash movie called plugin detection. Place it at the top of all your scenes so it plays first.
• Now make a new movie symbol. Name it "plugindetector".
• In the first frame of the movie symbol "plugindetector" place a tellTarget action with the target set as "_root".
• Within the tellTarget action place a goTo action. This goTo action should point to the first frame of your Flash movie (not the first frame of the plugin detection scene, but the first frame of the scene you want to load if the plugin is present).
• Now go back to the plugin detection scene.
• Make the scene 5 frames long and with 3 layers.
• In the first frame of layer 1 place the movie sybol "plugindetector" (don't forget to name the symbol instance, it can be whatever).
• Make a keyframe in the 5th frame of layer 2. In this keyframe type or produce a graphic that explains that the user does not have the most current version of flash and needs to download it (you can also put a button with a getUrl action that brings them to the Macromedia download page).
• Finally put a stop action in the 5th frame of layer 3.

That's it.

Now when your movie loads the "plugindetector" symbol will try to tell the "_root" movie to advance to your first frame. If they don't have the Version 5 plugin their player will not understand the target "_root" and will simply play to the frame where you have placed the note that tells them what's up and what to do about it. Enjoy.

discuss this topic to forum