Reporting a bug to the Macromedia Flash Player team

Internet Explorer 4.0 or later
Netscape Navigator 4 or later
Netscape 6.2 or later, with standard install defaults
AOL 7
Opera 6 or later
Mozilla 1.0 or later

Netscape 4.5 or later
Netscape 6.2 or later
Microsoft Internet Explorer 5.0 or later
Opera 5 or later
Mozilla 1.0 or later

Supported languages

Macromedia Flash Player 6 is supported in eleven languages.

Additional information for Macromedia Flash Player 6

Macromedia Flash Player compatibility
Backward compatibility of newer versions of Flash Player with older Macromedia Flash file formats is a top priority for each new Flash Player version. One of the methods that Macromedia has used to ensure backward compatibility of Flash Player 6 with Flash files created in Flash 5 and earlier is through public beta releases of Flash Player 6.

Macromedia Flash Player version
Ensure that you have the latest version of Flash Player installed.

Troubleshooting tips for Flash MX Developers:
Some differences in playback performance and appearance may be encountered when movies created for earlier versions of Flash Player are played in Flash Player 6. This document lists these differences and offers workarounds where applicable. Some of these workarounds require opening the original FLA file in Flash MX and re-exporting the Flash movie.

Macromedia Flash Player 6 Update, Version 6.0r79
Windows, Macintosh Classic, Mac OS X, and Linux

Macromedia Flash Communication Server MX Enhancements

• Audio synchronization with video has been significantly improved for live streams with Macromedia Flash Communication Server. The video images should also display more smoothly in live mode.
• The management of audio delay (latency) for live streams is significantly improved. Users should hear fewer gaps in live audio and in most cases the audio delay should be much lower. Note that for good audio performance, it is very important that the microphone and gain level are configured properly so the player can detect silence intervals.
• There is a new property, liveDelay, available on the NetStream object when in live mode. This property gives an approximation of how much delay is in the audio stream as a result of varying network delays. The property is read only and is represented in seconds.
• Synchronization of audio, video and data messages during playback in a buffered stream is much more precise. Also, the stream time property will now increase smoothly, whereas it used to increase in steps as the messages arrived at the player.

Time Zone Fix
Fixed invalid daylight savings time offset in the southern hemisphere.

Nested Masks with Device Text
Fixed rendering bug with device text and nested masks. This issue was only present on Windows XP.

New Features in Macromedia Flash Player 6, version 6.0r40

When you use a movie clip to mask text set in a device font, the rectangular bounding box of the mask is used as the masking shape. That is, if you create a nonrectangular movie clip mask for device font text in the Macromedia Flash MX authoring environment, the mask that appears in the SWF movie will be the shape of the rectangular bounding box of the mask, not the shape of the mask itself.

You can mask device fonts only by using a movie clip as a mask. You cannot mask device fonts by using a mask layer on the Stage.

Accessing ID3 properties in MP3 files
Macromedia Flash Player 6.0r40 and later supports MP3 files with ID3 v1.0 and v1.1 tags.

ID3 tag properties can be retrieved from a sound object when an MP3 sound containing an ID3v1 tag has been loaded using the attachSound() or loadSound() method. If a sound does not contain an ID3v1 tag, the ID3 properties will be undefined. Users must have the Macromedia Flash Player 6.0r40 or later in order for the ID3 properties to function.

Once the MP3 has completely loaded into the Sound object, you can access the following properties:

• mySound.id3.songname
• mySound.id3.artist
• mySound.id3.album
• mySound.id3.year
• mySound.id3.comment
• mySound.id3.track (available only for ID3v1.1 tags)
• mySound.id3.genre

Note: The value of genre is an integer, not a name. For a table listing genre names and their corresponding integer values, see the ID3 website. To use a genre name instead of an integer for the genre property value, you must embed the genre table into the ActionScript in your movie.

For example, the following code loads an MP3 file and reads its ID3 tag properties:

myTrack = new Sound();

                               

function RockAndRoll(){

  myTrack.start();                               

  if((myTrack.getBytesLoaded() == myTrack.getBytesTotal()) && myTrack.duration > 0){

      tf.text += "songName = " + myTrack.id3.songname +"." + newline;

      tf.text += "Artist = " + myTrack.id3.artist +"." + newline;

      tf.text += "album = " + myTrack.id3.album + newline;

      tf.text += "year = " + myTrack.id3.year + newline;

      tf.text += "comment = " + myTrack.id3.comment + newline;

      tf.text += "track = " + myTrack.id3.track + newline;

      tf.text += "genre = " + myTrack.id3.genre + newline;

      clearInterval (poll);

  }

}



myTrack.loadSound("myFile.mp3", false);

poll = setInterval(RockAndRoll, 1000);

If the attached MP3 file Some_Linked_Sound has an ID3 v1.0 or v1.1 tag for artist, the value is traced to the Output window.

Note: The entire song must be loaded for the ID3 properties to be available.

Windows Only: Intel P4 Optimizations
Some optimizations have been made that enhance performance on Intel P4 systems in Macromedia Flash Player 6.0r40 or later. Specifically, improvements have been made for:

• Local and streamed video
  
• Antialias rendering (Quality settings)
  
• Video encoding

Issues Addressed in Macromedia Flash Player 6, version 6.0r47

New Features and Issues Addressed in Macromedia Flash Player 6, version 6.0r65 (Windows and Macintosh Classic), 6.0r67 (Macintosh OS X), and 6.0r69 (Linux)

Improved Performance
The following performance improvements have been made:

• ActionScript heavy movies will see a performance increase.
• We have made performance improvements in creating shared objects.

Server-side Version Detection
Server-side Flash Detection: The player installation process now configures the browser to add the Flash MIME-type (application/x-shockwave-flash) to the HTTP Accept header. This enables server-side Flash Player detection.

Customization of HTTP headers
The XML and LoadVars objects can both generate POST actions. Each of these classes have new methods to allow authors to specify custom values for HTTP headers for the POST action: addRequestHeader (<header name>, <header value>), and addRequestHeader (<headers>). In the first case, multiple calls are supported. If multiple calls are made to set the same header name, each successive value will replace the value set in the previous call. In the second case, <headers> is an array of strings, alternating header names and header values. The array will be parsed out as if it were a series of calls to the simpler form of the method, and the same rules will be applied to multiple uses of a header name.

myXML.addRequestHeader("SOAPAction", "\"Foo\"");

var headers = ["Content-Type", "text/plain", "X-ClientAppVersion", "2.0"];
myXML.addRequestHeader(headers);

Dependent Runtime Shared Libraries
The current limitation of the player is that you can only do one-tier shared libraries (Runtime Shared Libraries to consumer SWF). Developers now have the ability to do multi-tier dependent shared libraries.

Runtime Shared Libraries improvements:
- Support for multi-tier Runtime Shared Libraries.
- Double-byte functionality.
- Ability to handle complex Runtime Shared Libraries including components.
- Timing issues with Runtime Shared Libraries are now resolved.

Dynamic Accessibility Properties (Windows - Active X only)
The ActiveX Flash Player 6 added support for Microsoft Active Accessibility (MSAA), a Windows screen reader communication protocol. Flash MX has an Accessibility panel that enables authors to set accessibility-related properties on certain kinds of accessible objects (whole movies, buttons, movie clips, dynamic text, and input text).

A limitation of the accessibility support in Flash 6 is that these properties can only be set statically, at authoring time. To make accessible Flash content, many authors need to be able to set these properties dynamically from ActionScript.

This version of the ActiveX Flash Player 6 solves the dynamic accessibility problem by adding a single method called Accessibility.updateProperties to the ActionScript runtime object model. The method takes no arguments and returns nothing. Calling the method causes the player to re-examine all accessibility properties, update its description of objects for screen readers, and, if necessary, send events to screen readers to indicate that changes have occurred. The logic for these object-model updates and events exactly matches the existing logic for changes between SWF frames.

When updating the accessibility properties for multiple objects at once, only a single call to Accessibility.updateProperties is necessary, and in fact multiple calls are undesirable for reasons of performance and of reducing the frequency with which updates are sent to the screen reader (too-frequent updates can cause screen readers to babble).

Accessibility properties are set using the following previously undocumented locations, which are in fact what Flash MX uses to specify properties set in the Accessibility panel.

For properties that apply to the whole movie, create or modify a global variable called _accProps. For properties that apply to a particular object, create or modify instancename._accProps. Instance names are required in order to do this; note that the using the Accessibility panel for an object causes an instance name to be automatically assigned if there isn't one already.

In both cases, the value of _accProps is an object with one or more of the following fields:

Property	Type	Equivalent in Accessibility panel	Applies to
.silent	boolean	Make Movie Accessible / Make Object Accessible (inverse logic)	whole movies; buttons; movie clips; dynamic text; input text
.forceSimple	boolean	Make Child Objects Accessible (inverse logic)	whole movies; movie clips
.name	string	Name	whole movies; buttons; movie clips; input text
.description	string	Description	whole movies; buttons; movie clips; dynamic text; input text
.shortcut	string	Shortcut	buttons; movie clips; input text

All of the above fields are optional. An absent boolean field is the same as a false value, and an absent string field is the same as an empty string. Fields already present may be deleted (using the delete operator) if they are no longer needed. If a field is supplied that does not apply to the type of Stage object to which the _accProps object is attached, there is no effect. If all fields present are no longer needed, the _accProps object itself may be deleted.

There is one field in the Accessibility panel whose value cannot be changed dynamically (Accessibility.updateProperties will ignore changes to it). This is the Auto Labeling field, which applies only to whole movies.

Here is some example ActionScript code that takes advantage of dynamic accessibility properties. This hypothetical code is from a non-textual icon button component that may change what icon it displays.

function setIcon( newIconNum, newTextEquivalent )

{

   this.iconImage = this.iconImages[ newIconNum ];

   if ( newTextEquivalent != undefined )

   {

      if ( this._accProps == undefined )

         this._accProps = new Object();

      this._accProps.name = newTextEquivalent;

      Accessibility.updateProperties();

   }

}

Windowless Mode now also implemented for Netscape Windows & Mac OS X
Windowless mode, previously only supported on Windows Internet Explorer, allows you to take advantage of the transparent movie, absolute positioning, and layering capabilities available in the browser. Windowless mode is controlled with the wmode parameter in the object tag. The Flash Player supports three windowless mode options in certain browsers:

• Window: Use the Window property to play a Flash Player movie in its own rectangular window on a web page. This is the default property for WMode and the works the way the classic Flash Player works. This normally provides the fastest animation performance.
• Opaque: By using the Opaque property you can use JavaScript to move or resize movies that don't need a transparent background. Opaque mode makes the movie hide everything behind it on the page. Additionally, opaque mode moves elements behind Flash movies (for example, with dynamic HTML) to prevent them from showing through.
• Transparent: Transparent mode allows the background of the HTML page, or the DHTML layer underneath the Flash movie or layer, to show through all the transparent portions of the movie. This allows you to overlap the movie with other elements of the HTML page. Animation performance might be slower when you use this property.
• The windowless mode feature can be invoked or affected by a Flash or HTML developer in the following ways:
  - setting the wmode parameter in the object or embed tag
  - setting the HTML Window Mode option in the Publish Settings HTML tab in the Flash Authoring tool
  - setting the z-index or the style settings to layer a DIV on top of the plug-in using Cascading Style Sheets
• This feature is supported in the following browsers:
  • Windows Internet Explorer
  • Windows Netscape 7.0
  • Windows AOL
  • Windows Mozilla 1.0
  • Mac OS X IE 5.1
  • Mac OS X IE 5.2
  • Mac OS X Netscape 7.0
  • Mac OS X AOL
  • Mac OS X Mozilla 1.0
  • Mac OS X CompuServe
  • This feature is not supported on Mac Classic.
• Please see the following for more information on this feature:
  
  How to make a Flash movie with a transparent background http://www.macromedia.com/support/flash/ts/documents/wmode.htm
  
  Flash content displays on top of all DHTML layers http://www.macromedia.com/support/flash/ts/documents/flash_top_layer.htm
  
• Additionally, you can search for "WMODE" in the Flash MX ActionScript
  Help Pages for more information.

Updating Players within Flash MX
There's now an easy way to update all your players at once. The new Flash Player Update installer, available on the Flash Support Center, will automatically do the following:

1. Update the contents of your Flash MX\Players folder with the latest version of Flash Player 6
2. Update your Flash MX test movie player
3. Install the updated Flash Player 6 ActiveX Control and/or plugin, debug version only, into your browser(s).

Flash Player 6 for Linux
Macromedia is proud to announce Flash Player 6 for Linux. Flash Player 6 for Linux includes all Flash Player 6 features. Here is some additional specific information on what this player supports:

• KDE 3.0.3 or GNOME 2.0 desktops
• Support for Unicode environments
• The player auto-detects LANG or LANGUAGE, and supports the following languages: English, French, Spanish, German, Italian, Japanese, Swedish, Portuguese, Chinese Traditional and Simplified, Korean.
• Support for audio and video capture and streaming audio and video playback

Known issues in Macromedia Flash Player 6

The Flash Player 6 installers will not overwrite an existing player installation with the same version number. For Flash MX developers only: Since the debug and release versions of Flash Player 6 have the same version number, you must manually uninstall the existing debug versions of Flash Player 6 before installing the release versions, and vice versa. For more information, see TechNote 14157, How to uninstall the Flash plug-in and ActiveX Control and TechNote 15507, Version Test for Macromedia Flash Player.

Note: Due to the high volume of e-mail we receive, we are unable to respond to every request.

Thank you for using Macromedia Flash Player, and for taking the time to send us your feedback!