Detecting installed version of Flash

[AndyField]

My program that uses SWFKit Pro requires Flash 7 to be installed. Thus I select this option within the SWFKit settings.

However, what happens if the user doesn't have the Flash 7 player installed? From the feedback I've had so far, it seems that users just experience error messages.

In my actual Flash file I've got a version detector as the first actionscript, but I think the SWFKit settings override this.

This is the code I've got:

playerVersion = System.capabilities.version
thisVer = playerVersion.split(",");
 //get rid of the gunk before the major player version number
 //eg "WIN 6" etc - the first entry of the array will old OS information
 thisVerSpaceNum = thisVer[0].indexOf(" ");
 //finally, a major version number (eg 6)
 flashVersion = Number(thisVer[0].substr(thisVerSpaceNum));

if (flashVersion < 7) {gotoAndStop("upgrade")} else {flashDetected = "Flash Player "+ flashVersion + " successfully detected"};

Is there a way my SWFKit produced program can check the version of the Flash player and then give the user an error message telling them to install the latest version? I assumed this would happen, but it doesn't seem too.

[AndyField]

Any ideas on this - my application is 'good to go' apart from this limitation! :-[

[meester]

It's a bit of a nasty way, but if it's urgent: this is what you can do
Integrate a browser object that loads a htmlpage with a detectionscript.
In this way you can direct the users to the macromedia website as well

[thickbrain]

My understanding is if the Standalone checkbox is checked in the Output Detail interface the selected player is bundled with the EXE thus no seed to have it install on the users computer.

[AndyField]

Thanks for the ideas. I'll have a think. I did previously believe that selecting a player from within SWFKit bundled that version, but I don't think this does happen - when I've got others to beta test the application it has fallen over if they don't have the relevant Flash player installed.

I think I'll just release it anyway - with a requirement that the user has Flash 7 installed.

[thickbrain]

I did few project with swfkit and the player does get bundled when the standalone option is selected.

Selecting a player version is not enough.

Compile it with and without the standalone option and check the EXE file size each time. You'll see that it closely correspond to the player file size the same way when you publish a SWF or an EXE from Flash.

[SWFKit]

If the standalone option is checked, the produced exe program will always use the bundled flash player.

To get the version of the installed flash player, please try the following code

function getActiveXPathName(progID)
{
var rk = new RegKey('HKCR\\' + progID + '\\CLSID');
var clsid = rk.getValue().data;
rk = new RegKey('HKCR\\CLSID\\' + clsid + '\\InprocServer32');
return rk.getValue().data; 
}

var flashPlayer = getActiveXPathName('shockwaveflash.shockwaveflash');
var vi = Shell.getFileVersionInfo(flashPlayer);
trace(vi.productVersion);