Fully Scriptable Plugins For Mozilla/Netscape

Greetings all,

Some good news for those that have wondered why for a long time, major 
plugins like Flash and Quicktime have NOT been scriptable in Mozilla and 
Netscape 6.x and Netscape 7 (PR1).  "Scriptability" is the term used to 
describe the invoking of Plugin methods via Web-delivered JavaScript, 
and vice-versa -- the Plugin's ability to access the DOM and invoke 
client JavaScript methods.

Now, both Flash and Quicktime are fully scriptable: Macromedia have 
released Flash 6 r 40 
(http://www.macromedia.com/go/getflashplayerbutton/) and Apple Quicktime 
have released Quicktime 6 (http://www.apple.com/quicktime/download/). 
Both plugins have installers that recognize both standalone Mozilla 
browsers and Netscape browsers.  Here's a little more about what this 
means :

Until a few days ago, you could not invoke JavaScript commands on these 
plugins, nor could the plugin in any way access the DOM or call client 
JavaScript.  This was a by-product of the fact that Mozilla browsers do 
not support the old "LiveConnect" method present in Netscape 
Communicator 4.x browsers of scripting plugins via the JRI/JNI bridge, 
and that Plugin Vendors (like Macromedia) had not yet adopted the XPCOM 
ideas to script plugins in Mozilla.

All that is poised to change now that we have a scriptable API that 
Plugin Vendors are using :-)

Flash 6 r40 (http://www.macromedia.com/go/getflashplayerbutton/) is both 
scriptable and FSCommand compliant.  FSCommands allow you to "talk" to 
the browser, and you can now invoke methods on the Flash player:

http://www.macromedia.com/support/flash/publishexport/scriptingwithflash/

As a quick test, go to http://www.ford.de without the new Flash, and see 
the difference after you do install it!

Similarly, Quicktime 6 (http://www.apple.com/quicktime/download/)is 
fully scriptable.  You can read about the exposed API from:

http://developer.apple.com/techpubs/quicktime/qtdevdocs/REF/QT41_HTML/QT41WhatsNew-72.html

Those multimedia/DHTML experiences that we were once "locked out of" are 
now available in Mozilla and Netscape browsers :-)

-- AKR