flash (macromedia): I'm surprised I have not been able to find more discussion about this problem.

IE7's Zoom feature breaks transparent flash movies. The movies scale fine, but
the edges of the movie no longer receive mouse clicks. The problem gets worse
when you zoom in or out further.

For an example, look at the transparent animation on this page using IE7:
http://www.adobe.com/cfusion/knowledgebase/index.cfm?id=tn_14201

As you in zoom in, notice that the buttons no longer respond to mouse clicks.

Is Adobe aware of this problem, and has anyone found a way to work around it?

Thanks,
George

George,

[quoted text, click to view]

Actually, there are quite a few posts and discussions on
transparent-background SWFs. WMODE is occasionally a heated topic! This
IE7 issue you've noticed is merely the latest twist in the saga.

[quoted text, click to view]

I can confirm that on my machine.

[quoted text, click to view]

Good questions, both. If you search the forum archives for WMODE,
you'll often see strong opposition to its use ... the fact is, it's a touchy
feature to use, period. It causes potentially all sorts of issues,
including -- in some cases -- printing upside down, not showing as
transparent, interfering with screen readers, and more. That IE7 brings
with it a new monkey wrench is frustrating, but not especially surprising.
That's not to say it's IE7's fault -- I have no idea what causes this
issue -- but it's another valid point in the arsenal of those who think
WMODE is a bad idea out the gate.


David Stiller
Adobe Community Expert
Dev blog, http://www.quip.net/blog/
"Luck is the residue of good design."

On 1/20/07 9:59 AM, in article eotaor$di6$1@forums.macromedia.com, "David
[quoted text, click to view]

David,
I'm having a problem and not sure it is related, but in my Flash, DW's flash
publish creates wmode opaque in the code. My pages seem to work just fine
in IE7 with the new Adobe Scripts folder, but I'm seeing a problem in Safari
with javascript menus which rollover the Flash content. I also see a Flicker
on Adobe's home page in its menus...

To prevent this problem, I was using a show/hide function to hide my flash
item and replace it with a jpg when a user scrolled over a menu. That seemed
to be he only way to prevent the z-index error I'm now seeing with the
submenus appearing beneath the Flash on the page in Safari ONLY, it appears:
Here's a link to a picture of the behavior:
http://www.petersonsales.net/petersonMenu.jpg

I'm looking for some way to fix this problem.

For some reason the show hide function is broken, probably by the Adobe
Scripts update.
Any ideas?

Thanks,
JEff

The layout includes the 2 divisions:

[quoted text, click to view]


~~~~~~~~~~~~
Jefferis Peterson, Pres.
Web Design and Marketing
http://www.PetersonSales.com

Jefferis,

[quoted text, click to view]

Does it? Not saying I doubt you, but I'm not sure if you're talking
about Flash buttons built without the mechanism of the Flash IDE. I tend to
create all my Flash content in Flash directly. I certainly use Dreamweaver,
but I don't really use it to create Flash content. Is that what you're
talking about?

[quoted text, click to view]

Based on your code sample, it looks like you're using a Project Seven
solution. Project Seven writes terrific code -- they have solid products --
but now there's so much going on, I'm not sure what your problem might be.
It could be Safari's handling of opaque WMODE (have you created a series of
small samples to test?), but then it might be related to your swap-for-a-JPG
approach.

[quoted text, click to view]

Here's another angle. Do you mean the Active Content update? Again,
there's so much going on in this HTML page, it's hard to make a guess. ;)
I would recommend that you break this issue down into small components.
Start a series of fresh new HTML files and embed a small sample SWF in each
one. Make one with no WMODE, make another with opaque, another with
transparent. Set up a small menu that obscures the SWF in each case. Test
in all your browsers. That may be enough to give you the answer you need.
If not, introduce the AC JS code to fix the IE "click to activate" business.
Run your tests again, etc., to give yourself a solid understanding of the
strengths and weaknesses of each scenario.

You may find that you don't need to swap for a JPG -- though that was
good thinking -- and if you don't, hey, the simpler, the better. :) If you
do, then maybe Adobe's Active Content script isn't the best solution. Maybe
you could use Geoff Stearns' SWFObject.

I wish I had a handy answer for you, but in this particular case, I can
only describe the troubleshooting steps I might take. A good portion of
what I know is the result of little private experiments. It takes time to
work that stuff through, but the results are usually worth it. :) Good
luck!


David Stiller
Adobe Community Expert
Dev blog, http://www.quip.net/blog/
"Luck is the residue of good design."

Thanks David, for your help and your step by step suggestions.
I suppose I should clarify just one point. I meant to say that I output
Flash's detection Publish option and put it into DW. I believe it's default
was wmode opaque. I heard that transparent created its own set of problems
or doesn't work on the Mac anyway...

I thought this might be a global problem with Safari and Flash and the
scripting I am talking about AC? Is the folder DW now creates when it senses
Flash content to make it acceptable to the changes in IE... It was only
after that update that I began to notice the problems...

Jeff

On 1/21/07 10:43 AM, in article ep01n9$jem$1@forums.macromedia.com, "David
[quoted text, click to view]

~~~~~~~~~~~~
Jefferis Peterson, Pres.
Web Design and Marketing
http://www.PetersonSales.com

Hi David,

Well, I've run through several tests. I removed the AC scripts link. I
tried the swf in opaque, transparent, and no mode. I removed the show hide
js as well, but nothing solved the problem. It functions a little better
with the AC scripts removed, but still moving from the first submenu to the
the third submenu causes the second menu to move behind the SWF, even though
the menu id is supposed to be a a 30k Z index. I'm not sure Glen's script
will solve anything because I am starting to think it is an interaction
thing between Safari's Flash player and flash itself. Al Sparber notes
there is a real problem with Safari's handling of flash. I notice the
flicker of the menu on Adobe's home page, and I assume if there were
submenus to the drop down menu, I'd get the same problem there....

I think I'm going to have to come up with another solution, for now, since
it isn't the AC that is causing it, it must be Flash 9 player that
introduced the problem in Safari...
Jeff
[quoted text, click to view]

~~~~~~~~~~~~
Jefferis Peterson, Pres.
Web Design and Marketing
http://www.PetersonSales.com

Jefferis,

[quoted text, click to view]

That may be. Sparber would certainly know. And if Adobe's site itself
flickers for you, that may be a sign that you've discovered something that
truly is a bug -- regardless which app(s) are responsible -- otherwise I
expect they'd have found a way around it.

Best of luck!


David Stiller
Adobe Community Expert
Dev blog, http://www.quip.net/blog/
"Luck is the residue of good design."

[quoted text, click to view]

I don't work for Adobe, so I can't give a definitive answer -- but I
would lean toward Jeckyl's recommendation.

[quoted text, click to view]

Heh. ;)

[quoted text, click to view]

This is the official wish list / bug report form.

http://www.adobe.com/cfusion/mmform/index.cfm?name=wishform


David Stiller
Adobe Community Expert
Dev blog, http://www.quip.net/blog/
"Luck is the residue of good design."

Thanks for the response David.

I have personal experience with many of the bugs with transparency, including
the one that breaks screen readers.

Unfortunately completely eliminating transparency is not an option for us at
this time, so all I can do is hope that this problem is important enough to be
fixed before browsing at 90% zoom becomes the latest fad.

Do you know the best way for me to contact Adobe and/or Microsoft to make them
aware of this bug?

Thank You,
George

They've been aware of transparent mode bugs for many many many years .. and
its never been fixed. I don[t think anything you can do will get it fixed
faster. .You'll just have to deal with it (best to redesign).
--
Jeckyl