Here's a nice summary of some of your options that I pulled out of my Q/A archive (original poster Kristopher Schultz, http://i-technica.com/flashlist/index.asp?n=1120):

Colin Moock has an extensive explaination of all the factors (good and bad) involved in detecting the Flash player. You'll find it here... http://www.moock.org/webdesign/lectures/ff2knyc/

He also has developed a detection script (a combination of Javascript and VBscript) which is one of the most extensive and bullet-proof scripts I've seen. It actually gets included in the HTML page that your Flash file is embedded in - not in the Flash file itself. It is called the Moock FPI and is available here: http://www.moock.org/webdesign/flash/detection/moockfpi/

[Gregg Caines adds:] The best method IMHO is the macromedia 'self-detecting' scheme. http://www.macromedia.com/support/flash/ts/documents/scriptfree_detection.htm There's no JavaScript involved so it works on those versions of IE on the Mac that don't have the otherwise necessary plug-in array, and it works on browsers without JavaScript enabled.

[Kristopher responds:] This is a good approach if you KNOW that the user will have SOME version of the Flash plug-in installed and you just need to detect whether it is the right version or not.

BUT, the reason I don't use this approach is that when there is NO version of the Flash plug-in installed some browsers pop up a very user-un-friendly dialog as soon as you hit a page with Flash content saying something to the effect of "This page contains content of MIME type 'animation/x-flash'. Would you like to search for an appropriate plug-in? NO YES" Regards, Helen ----------------------------------------------------- i-Technica · http://i-technica.com · 301.424.6037 developer resources: http://i-technica.com/whitestuff

Dan wrote: > > Looking for a good source to learn about flash > detection. > > I know this has been mentioned on this site before... > I remember reading about it, but I didn't need it > then. (the way of the world I guess). > > This of course is the "test" that will determin if a > user has flash. If the test result is true (they have > flash) then the user gets forwarded to a flash site... > it they don't they end up at an html site. > > any info will be appreciated. > > Dan Merfeld

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