RE: cross-browser standards for <object> tag?

The MIME type in the 'type' attribute is what you need to select the correct
plugin to play the content. Have a look at Opera's 'opera:plugins' page and
you'll see that multiple plugins could play the content - it is up to the
browser to select the right plugin. If the plugin is not installed, then the
browser would have to decide whether to download & install it - which is an
entirely different discussion.

The CLASSID starting with 'clsid' is for IE - it is the GUID that uniquely
identifies the ActiveX control required - although this may not be installed
either.

James
  -----Original Message-----
  From: www-html-request@w3.org [mailto:www-html-request@w3.org]On Behalf Of
Peter Sheerin
  Sent: 19 February 2002 22:52
  To: www-html@w3.org
  Subject: cross-browser standards for <object> tag?


  I've been trying to make all of my sites compliant with the latest W3
specs, and am finding difficulty in doing so while still embedding
multimedia content. In a nutshell, only IE supports doing this via the
<object> tag, while Netscape 6.x and Opera 6.x only support this via the
<embed> tag, which has never appeared in any W3 spec.

  For instance, on one of my pages with an embedded SMIL presentation
(http://www.pushback.com/terror/mines/SMIL.html), I have the code shown at
the end of this message. This works, but only on IE, and only if you have
installed the Real Player first. I thought the <object> tag was supposed to
be cross-platform, and also support automatic installation of plug-ins.

  But the HTML 4.01 spec does not provide enough detail to show me (or
browser authors, which I presume is why there is a problem) how to write or
handle <object> completely. My understanding is that the classids that start
with "clsid:" are ActiveX-specific, and may have something embedded in them
that indicates where the plugin can be downloaded. Is this true, or not?f

  I can find no good examples in the specs on how to format the codebase
attribute to enable a multi-platform download location; the only examples
I've seen are from years-old ActiveX plug-ins, and these appeared to always
be Windows specific. So what then, is the official way to format an <object>
to point to a cross-platform plugin, and are there any browsers that support
this?


  ----------------------------------------------------
  <object id="video1" type="audio/x-pn-realaudio"
classid="clsid:CFCDAA03-8BE4-11cf-B84B-0020AFBBCCFA" height="240"
width="320" standby="Loading Real Media Player components...">

  <param name="controls" value="ImageWindow" />

  <param name="console" value="Minesweeper" />

  <param name="autostart" value="false" />

  <param name="src"
value="http://www.pushback.com/terror/mines/MineSweeper.ram" />

  <p>Please <a
href="http://www.pushback.com/terror/mines/MineSweeperModem.ram">click here
to view the clip</a>

  in the separate Real Player application, once you have installed it:</p>

  <!--© Peter K. Sheerin-->

  <p>You are probably seeing this message because you don&#8217;t have the
Windows Media Player

  installed.</p>

  <p>To fix this problem, please download the Real Player:

  <a
href="http://www.real.com/RI/RC.011204realhome_1.rnav.img..RI/realone/index.
html?src=011204realhome_1" >

  <img src="/images/realone_free_88x31.gif" alt="Get the RealOne audio and
video player" width="88" height="31" /></a>

  and then reload this page. If you still don&#8217;t see the embedded
video, then it is because your browser

  doesn&#8217;t support the Web standard for embedded video. Instead, please
click on one of the links below to

  play the video separately in the Real Player.</p>

  </object>