I am sure many of you heard about it , but what is macromedia is doing
about it ? will it be a patch for flash to work around it .
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Web Code Fixes Required by Internet Explorer in Early 2004
Except for security fixes, Microsoft has steadfastly refused to make any
other updates to IE6 in the past 3 years, although it has fallen farther
behind its two main competitors, Mozilla and Opera, in
features/functionality, standards compliance and reliability/performance. A
recent court decision against Microsoft by Eolas Technologies and the
University of California at Berkley has changed the situation, though the
500 million dollar award is being appealed by Microsoft. However, Redmond is
immediately changing some of the offending coding constructs. Interestingly,
Microsoft will limit the changes in IE6 to patches, security repairs and the
new compliance fixes - no fixes to JavaScript, CSS, DOM, and HTML
non-compliance. Here, we examine those patent workaround fixes in more
detail and what they mean to Web developers.
The Microsoft Fixes
Despite the fact that the jury decision is under appeal and that the patent
is being re-examined, Microsoft has taken a curious position on what action
to take with the patent infringing code. Microsoft met with W3C officials on
what to do; but then adopted a single minded and somewhat invasive fix for
the problem. To make matters more obscure, no information (on why this
approach was taken) is available on the Microsoft site. Unfortunately, web
developers are the casualties and bear the brunt of the collateral damage in
the intellectual property wars. In short, you have some unscheduled repairs
to make if your programs use the <applet> (Java applet invocation), <embed>
(Flash and other rich media invocation like Apple's Quicktime) or
<object>tags (ActiveX and other active or dynamically invoked content).
The Microsoft fixes will be introduced in early 2004 and will involve
changes to IE that will be distributed with all versions of Windows that get
shipped after the fix date (not finalized yet). It will also apply to all
downloads of IE and Windows updates and service packs. The basic nature of
the fix is that the <applet>, <embed> and <object> tags, upon loading in a
HTML page, will cause an alert to be issued and users will be asked if they
want to download the associated applet, Flash control, Activex or other
dynamic content. This is to ensure that all Web programs will continue to
work properly. Unfortunately, as a result of the IE6 fix, users will have to
approve of each piece of dynamic content unless some workarounds are
applied.
The JavaScript Workarounds
There are two JavaScript workarounds. These scripts dynamically load the
<applet>, <embed>, or <object> tags into the web page with the intention of
bypassing the Eolas/UCal patents. This restores the seamless operation of
the active or dynamic content. IE will not stop and ask permission to load
the content, but will seamlessly execute the dynamic content.
The following is an example of what is involved using a movie object
embedded in one of your web pages:
<object classid="clsid:02BF9699..." ...>
<param name="src" value="SomeMovie.mov">
</object>
You will now have to replace that code with a script statement like this
one:
<script language="JavaScript"type="text/javascript" >
LoadSomeMovie();</script>
Then at the top of your Web page in the <head> section you should have the
following <script> statement that points to the external .JS javascript file
that will contain the LoadSomeMovie() function. Important note - this must
be an external JavaScript file. If you try to save coding by bringing the
dynamic <script> statement into your Web Page, the new IE will ignore the
dynamic load statement and still prompt the user. The key to the patent
workaround is to use an external JavaScript file to dynamically load the
<applet>, <embed>, and <object> tags. Here is the <script> statement
required:
<script src="[path]/LoadMovie.js" language="JavaScript"
type="text/javascript"></script>
Note [path] will likely be blank but should be set to the directory
containing your JavaScript files. The LoadMovie.js file will contain the
following JavaScript code:
function LoadSomeMovie()
{
document.write('<object classid="clsid: 02BF9699..." ...>\n');
document.write('<param name="src" value="SomeMovie.mov" />\n');
document.write('</object>\n');
}
