HTML Validation and Flash Embed Tag

[smartfinds]

Hello Everyone,

We had the pleasure of learning something new today and thought this might help others as well. We had to spend quite some time searching to get the right answer.

Go to W3C http://www.w3c.org and go to the HTML Validation. If you are using Flash on a web page ask that this page be validated. Details on how to do this can be found on that page.

Most likely if you use the standard Flash tags, one of them will be the "embed" tag. Unfortunatley, W3C will not recognize this to be a valid HTML tag. Truly and absolutely amazing! Everyone uses the "embed" tag with a flash movie in their HTML code. It is the primary method that Mozilla browsers use to run the flash movie.

After some research in the "Bugs" area of the W3C website, there were others that had submitted the exact same question wondering "why". The answer to the problem can be found at this url that was recommended in one of the "bug" responses at the W3C:

http://www.alistapart.com/articles/flashsatay/

In summary, you need to remove the "embed" tag and in your "object" tag you would
- remove the CLSID and the CODEBASE within the "object" tag.
- add DATA and TYPE to your object tag.
- if you have not already, then you would also include the PARAM as an example below.

<object data="flashmoviename.swf" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="504" height="250">
<param name="MOVIE" value="flashmoviename.swf">
</object>

This method will not only insure that your HTML code is validated, but this will work for both IE and Mozilla browsers. We tried it today and had no difficulty with our flash movies on our site in either browser type.

Hope this helps others.

[kwvarga]

Nice, thanks for the info

[LazyJim]

Nice

[Michael Allison]

Cool deal!!

That always bugged me, but not enough to do anything about it...

-Michael

[kingpixel]

i have used this method in the past, and it works great but has some drawbacks. While it is true that it passes validation, and it works in most/all browsers, it has a basic flawand that is this: it does not stream flash content to IE browsers. meaning, it waits for the entire movie to cache locally before showing a single frame. This is a result of the "data=" part of the tag. It is most inconvenient for very large flash files (like video) and requires the work-around of loading a small container .swf first that then loads your main content. and since you must pass a reference to the main content in the object tag, it makes templatizing your flash embeds more difficult.

On another note, just today I noticed that simply formatted embed tag seems to work for embedding flash in all browsers. For more than a year I've hearing the evils of the embed and how it will soon be gone, only to find that the embed turns out to be the most reliable. I'm beginning to think this whole w3c and validation biz might just be for the birds.

here's the code snippet that worked:

<embed width="320" height="240" menu="true" loop="true" play="true" src="movie.swf" pluginspage="http://www.macromedia.com/go/getflashplayer" type="application/x-shockwave-flash"></embed>

[JamieJelly]

this is interesting: http://www.alistapart.com/articles/flashsatay/

[TAMARA]

<div id="flashbox">
<embed src="Intro.swf" width="541px" height="368px"> </embed>
</div>
It will not validate do you have any idea?

I read about what you sayed

<object data="flashmoviename.swf" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="504" height="250">
<param name="MOVIE" value="flashmoviename.swf">
</object>

But it doesn’t help me
So if you have a minute please let me know

[kimberlybarryd]

This will validate to strict. Create a .gif the same size as your .swf and name it needplugin.gif

<object type="application/x-shockwave-flash" data="images/your.swf" width="765" height="70">
 <param name="movie" value="images/your.swf" />
 <param name="BGCOLOR" value="#000000" />
 <a title="You must install the Flash Plugin for your Browser in order to view this movie"  href="http://www.macromedia.com/shockwave/download/alternates/"><img src="images/needplugin.gif" width="765" height="70"  alt="placeholder for flash movie" /></a>
 </object>

[TAMARA]

anybody how i validate



<div id="flashbox"><embed type="application/x-shockwave-flash" src="Teach%20My%20Toddler%20-%20The%20all-in-one%20learning%20system%20for%20toddlers%21_files/intro.swf" id="inside" name="inside" bgcolor="#ffffff" quality="high" height="368" width="541">
</div><!--close flashbox-->

[GSources]

Hello,

To embed a simple flash file into your site and keep it fully validated, you can use the following codes depending on the DOCTYPE that has been defined.

For HTML 4.01 Transitional:

<object data="path_to_file/file.swf" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="insert_width_of_movie" height="insert_height_of_movie">
                    
          <param name="movie" value="path_to_file/file.swf">
                        
</object>

For HTML 4.01 Strict (requires a container around code):

<div class="cFlashMovie">

       <object data="path_to_file/file.swf" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="insert_width_of_movie" height="insert_height_of_movie">
                    
              <param name="movie" value="path_to_file/file.swf">
                        
        </object>

</div>

If you do not wish to assign a CSS Class or ID to the Div, then just use

<div></div>

around the flash code. Alternatively, you may use various other containers such as

<p></p>

.

For XHTML 1.0 Transitional (requires self-closing end to param):

<object data="path_to_file/file.swf" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="insert_width_of_movie" height="insert_height_of_movie">
                    
          <param name="movie" value="path_to_file/file.swf" />
                        
</object>

For XHTML 1.0 Strict (requires a container around code):

<div class="cFlashMovie">

       <object data="path_to_file/file.swf" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="insert_width_of_movie" height="insert_height_of_movie">
                    
              <param name="movie" value="path_to_file/file.swf" />
                        
        </object>

</div>

Those are four validated flash embed codes for the most common DOCTYPES used in Web Development. These will validate fine as long as the rest of your code is good. Hopefully this post helps people in the future.