small coding-related outlet

Connect to a remote Flash Media Server Shared Object from a client Flash.

Hardly mentioned anywhere, but, suppose you have a Shared Object on a running application in Flash Media Server (let’s call it: theApp), and you want to access it from the client:

THIS IS NOT ENOUGH:

var nc:NetConnection = new NetConnection();
nc.addEventListener(NetStatusEvent.NET_STATUS, function(e:NetStatusEvent) {
   if (e.info.code == "NetConnection.Connect.Success") {
       getSO:SharedObject = SharedObject.getRemote ("SOName", nc.uri, true);
   }
}
nc.connect ("rtmp://yourserver/theApp");

It won’t get an updated version of the SOName SharedObject, apparently. You have to call the “connect” method on the SO, and then wait for the SyncEvent.SYNC event:

var nc:NetConnection = new NetConnection();
nc.addEventListener(NetStatusEvent.NET_STATUS, function(e:NetStatusEvent) {
   if (e.info.code == "NetConnection.Connect.Success" {
       getSO:SharedObject = SharedObject.getRemote ("SOName", nc.uri, true);
       getSO.addEventListener (SyncEvent.SYNC, soSync);
       getSO.connect (nc);
   }
}
nc.connect ("rtmp://yourserver/theApp");

function soSync(e:SyncEvent) {
	trace ("SYNC!");
	trace (e.currentTarget.data.yourproperty);
        //Use the properties of the SO
}

And then the properties of the SO will be available in the data property.

Cross-browser Flash Player version detection in Javascript

This post’s intention is to try to describe and achieve a light-weighted, 
cross-platform, cross-browser Javascript function that will detect the version of the Flash Player plugin installed on a browser, and return it, as a string.

The code is based on the Flash-Player version detection techniques used in the SWFObject source file.

The function return false if it is unable to find and detect the flash player’s version.

The function:

// Function to detect installed flash-player's version and return it as a 
// string in the format of 'MajorVersion.MinorVersion'

function getFlashPlayerVersion() {
    var nav = navigator;
    if (!nav) {return false;} 
    //If not navigator.plugins - assume IE
    if (nav.plugins.length == 0 || typeof nav.plugins == "undefined") {
        var ax = new ActiveXObject("ShockwaveFlash.ShockwaveFlash");
        if (!ax) {return false;}
        var flversion = ax.GetVariable("$Version");
        var retver = flversion.substring (flversion.indexOf(' ')+1,
                                          flversion.indexOf(',',flversion.indexOf(',')+1));
        //The Version variable in IE appears with a comma and not a dot - replace it:
        return retver.replace (',','.');
    } 
    //Has navigator.plugins - assume non-IE: 
    else { 
        if (!nav.plugins["Shockwave Flash"]) {return false;}
        var flashinfo = nav.plugins["Shockwave Flash"]; 
        if (flashinfo.version) {return flashinfo.version;}
        if (flashinfo.description) {
            //Parse just the version part from the description
            var fldesc = flashinfo.description;
            var flver = fldesc.substring (fldesc.indexOf('Flash')+6,
                                          fldesc.indexOf(' ',fldesc.indexOf('Flash')+7));
            return flver;
        } 
        else {return false;}
    }
}
    

The inner workings:

Detection for IE rely on the GetVariable(“$Version”) function of the ActiveXObject.
Detection for non-IE browsers rely on the navigator.plugins[“Shockwave Flash”] object.
Some browsers (e.g. Mozilla Firefox) has a version property for this object, other browsers has the version number inside the description property of the object.

Testing Table:

Platform	Browser version	Flash version	Test result
PC, Windows	Firefox 3.6	Flash 8.0	Works
		Flash 9.0	Works
		Flash 10.0	Works
		Flash 11.0	Works
	Firefox 7	Flash 11.0	Works
	IE 7	Flash 10.3	Works
	IE 9	Flash 11.0	Works
	Chrome 14.0	Flash 11.0	Works
	Safari 5.1	Flash 11.0	Works
	Opera 11.51	Flash 11.0	Works
MAC, OS X 10.5.8	Safari 5.0.2	Flash 10.0	Works
	Firefox 3.6	Flash 10.0	Works
	Chrome: 15.0	Flash 11.0	Works