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Workaround for Safari Blocking Flash Initiated Pop Ups
Posted by Ali Mills
Thu, 23 Aug 2007 04:59:00 GMT
Update: Please see my announcement of a project based on the ideas in the post here
Uncontrolled browser pop ups suck, and I’m very thankful for pop up blockers. There are times, however, when you want controlled pop ups. It’s these times – the times when a user initiates the call to action – when the browser’s pop up blocker should let them through. Browsers are pretty good at managing this when the user initiated action starts in HTML, and most also do a good job when the action starts in a SWF. There’s at least one big exception – Safari.
The standard path in Flash to open a browser pop up is to use ExternalInterface to call a JavaScript function in the wrapping HTML page that contains a window.open call. This path works in all the browsers I tested in except for Safari, which leads me to believe this a Safari bug.
Luckily, if you want to open browser windows from a SWF in Safari there’s a workaround other than disabling the “Block Pop-Up Windows”! Check it out:
The workaround works by:
- using ExternalInterface.addCallback to register a function in
ActionScript that calls navigateToUrl() with a target of “_blank”
- trying the ExternalInterface.call to JavaScript to window.open path and…
- if the above path fails, call the the navigateToUrl() registered
ActionScript function
And, here’s what the example’s code looks like:
ActionScript
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| package {
import flash.display.Sprite;
import flash.events.TextEvent;
import flash.external.ExternalInterface;
import flash.net.URLRequest;
import flash.net.navigateToURL;
import flash.text.TextField;
import flash.text.TextFieldAutoSize;
public class PopupTest extends Sprite {
private var text:String = "<a href='event:http://www.google.com'><u><font color='#0000FF'>google from swf</font></u></a>";
private var textField:TextField;
public function PopupTest() {
preInitialize();
initialize();
createChildren();
}
public function openWindow(pageUrl:String):void {
var urlRequest:URLRequest = new URLRequest(pageUrl);
navigateToURL(urlRequest, "_blank");
}
private function preInitialize():void {
if(ExternalInterface.available) {
ExternalInterface.addCallback("openWindowFromSwf", openWindow);
}
}
protected function initialize():void {
textField = new TextField();
textField.autoSize = TextFieldAutoSize.LEFT;
textField.htmlText = text;
textField.addEventListener(TextEvent.LINK, linkHandler);
}
protected function createChildren():void {
addChild(textField);
}
protected function linkHandler(linkEvent:TextEvent):void {
if(ExternalInterface.available) {
ExternalInterface.call("openWindow", linkEvent.text);
}
}
}
}
|
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| <script>
<!--
var swfId = "popupSwf";
function openWindow(pageUrl) {
var winName = Math.round(9999*Math.random()) + new Date().getTime();
var winNew = window.open(pageUrl,winName,"toolbar=1,scrollbars=1,location=1,statusbar=0,menubar=0,resizable=1,width=800,height=700,left=200,top=100");
if(!winNew) {
getSwf(swfId).openWindowFromSwf(pageUrl);
}
else {
winNew.focus();
}
}
function getSwf(id) {
if (navigator.appName.indexOf("Microsoft") != -1) {
return window[id];
}
else {
return document[id];
}
}
//-->
</script>
|
