Popup problems from Flash in IE6

In the attachment below there is a text file. It will show you how to create a button in Flash to open a custom popup window.

Hello everybody,

Please excuse any outrageous errors you see in my code. I am a complete newbie flying by the seat of my pants and hoping to learn along the way. I seem to have everything working on my site for the vast majority of users but I have had two complaints in the last week from users running IE6 that the links on my introductory Flash page do not respond.

Everything works (mousover, mousedown, music clip on release) but the popup window never appears, nor is there any indication that the browser is trying to load it. IE6, as I understand it, doesn't include popup blockers and the users said they did not run any. Also, they have not had problems with other sites so I assume that they have Java enabled.

I am using the javascript window.open() command within the getURL action for the popup. Here is an example:



I have not been able to reproduce this problem on my own. I think my script is correct but if you see any problems please let me know. I added the void() on suggestion from someone as my initial page was blanking out and diplaying <object> but the popups are working. (I don't understand enough about the javascript to know why the void() helps but it did.) Now it works in all platforms and browsers I have tried except these two complaints.

I did run across this bug fix on the Microsoft webpage while googling for answers. (http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?kbid=281679) Apparently there is a problem with links to open new pages in IE6. I'm not sure this would have anything to do with it but it seems to relate directly to the problem.

If anyone has any feedback they can give me I would love to hear. I have also posted this as a reply to "window.open problems in IE6 SP1" in the HTML, Javascript, and CSS forum in case this is a javascript error.

If you would like to check out my page the URL is: http://www.straightfromthebottle.com

It is a site for my business selling bottleneck blues guitar slides.

Happy coding and Flash design to all you folks out there.

Jens

I'll give that a shot. Thanks for the help and I'll let you know how it goes.

Can anyone tell me why the window.open() command doesn't work in IE6? (it would be great for my learning curve) Also, the Flash reference book I have recomends window.open() which seems strange if it doesn't work. But then I had to modify that code to make it work so obviously they didn't check it too thouroghly. It's such an easy trick and works 90% of the time but that 10% is a huge proportion of the web using IE6.

Hi, found this:

http://www.techimo.com/forum/t25685.html

Read towards the bottem for what could be a solution.

Thanks for the link. Next time I get a complaint I'll let them know.

I'm completely confused about this problem now and think one of my users may have a very strange IE problem. Along with not loading my popups her browser is placing unrelated URLs in the URL box and page title. Also, her browser would not forward the URL for my tech writing portfolio (www.jenshegg.com forwarded to http://www.home.earthlink.net/~jenshegg) I have no idea what the problem is so I'm ignoring it. Fortunately I gave her a URL to bypass the main page (in flash) to subsequent windows (in HTML) and the window.open() works in the HTML. I'm assuming that the popup recipe above will help get the popup's to load on all browsers from the Flash site.

I spent the night at a local college browsing my two Flash sites on lot's of different computers. I could not reproduce the popup window problems in any way shape or form on multiple PC's running both Win98 and XP with IE5.5 and IE6. Even tampering with javascript and security settings I could not make it happen. Wish I could find a machine I can use to test. Doing testing over email with users is not fun!

I will try the popup formula recommended above tomorrow and see if it helps. I haven't had time to fix it yet. Can anyone shed some more light on the "why" of all this? My inquisitive mind wants to know what is making this happen.

Well, here I am. I decided to just bite the bullet and do the code change tonight. I'm having problems with the code in the keyframe of my button.

I Pasted in the code and then changed the instance name from button to TheMaker which is the instance name for that button. I also changed the URL and window name fields.

This is the error it gives me in the Output box:



Here is the code as it is. Pasted directly in and then changed for my particular page.



Any suggestions?

Thanks for all your help so far too. This is a lifesaver.

Jens

on(Release) {

getURL("java scriptpenNewWindow('http://www.straightfromthebottle.com/themakerhtml.html','TheMaker','height=500,width=500,toolbar=no,scrollbars=no,left=95,top=96') ");

};

Well, Good news. Thanks Tann San for the help.

I changed the code for just one link, and of course added the code in the html file. Then had my two problem users log on. Worked like a charm for that link...and!...all the other links as well!! The other links were still were still using just plain javascript: void(window.open()).

Don't understand why that would be ( I assume it just needed the function in the html page) but I'm going to change the code on the other links just to be sure. Any explanation would be wonderful as I am totally confused as to the "why" of all of this and haven't seen anything on the net to explain it.

Thanks guys

Jens Hegg

I am in desperate need of some help here. I'm trying to create a popup from my flash program and it works when I use the simple "Add Behaviour" and choose the "blank" option. However, I want this popup to have no toolbars and to be a specific size. Can I just change the standard Actionscript or do I have to change something in the html code as well? This question's probably been answered already but I'm a real amateur and I'd really appreciate someone walking me through it.

Hi, this thread has the answer

I think your response just highlights how inept I am at this stuff. I have no idea where this code is supposed to be written. Is it in the html code in some specific place, in the Actionscript box...what?
Again, be gentle and thank you.

Hi, once you have a button on the stage make sure it is selected and then open the actionscript panel. Copy and paste the code into there.

Tried it, and when I try to test the scene the error screen says:
**Error** Scene=Scene 1, layer=Layer 27, frame=1:Line 1: Unexpected '<' encountered
<a href="#" onclick="window.open('http://www.macromedia.com','newWindow','toolbar=no,menubar=no,status=no,location=no')">Link</a>

Total ActionScript Errors: 1 Reported Errors: 1