aron / philipp development blog

Hi there... we've been busy these past couple of days so there wasn't much time for new posts - sorry. But here is a little update.
While developing a flash website (AS3 & SWFObject2.0) that heavily depended on opening URLs in a new browser window we came across the popup blocker problem that the use of navigateToURL causes. When trying to open a new window firefox'/IE's popup blocker will block the window and display its warning. After googling for some time we came across some neat workarounds:

1) How to prevent pop-up blocking in Firefox by Sergey Kovalyov

2) The Nightmare that is "_blank": Part II (resolved???) by The Saj

putting these two approaches into one AS3 util-class, this is what we came up with:

package com.apdevblog.utils 
{
  import flash.external.ExternalInterface;
  import flash.net.URLRequest;
  import flash.net.navigateToURL; 
  /**
   * Collection of URL util functions.
   * 
   * ActionScript 3.0 / Flash 9
   *
   * @package    com.apdevblog.utils
   * @author     Philipp Kyeck / phil@apdevblog.com
   * @version    SVN: $Id: URLUtils.as 17 2008-04-08 09:13:30Z phil $
   *
   * based on script by
   * @author Sergey Kovalyov
   * @see http://skovalyov.blogspot.com/2007/01/how-to-prevent-pop-up-blocking-in.html
   * 
   * and based on script by
   * @author Jason the Saj
   * @see http://thesaj.wordpress.com/2008/02/12/the-nightmare-that-is-_blank-part-ii-help
   */
  public class URLUtils    
  {
    protected static const WINDOW_OPEN_FUNCTION:String = "window.open";
    
    /**
     * Open a new browser window and prevent browser from blocking it.
     * 
     * @param url        url to be opened
     * @param window     window target
     * @param features   additional features for window.open function
     */
    public static function openWindow(url:String, window:String = "_blank", features:String = ""):void 
    {
      var browserName:String = getBrowserName();
      
      if(getBrowserName() == "Firefox")
      {
        ExternalInterface.call(WINDOW_OPEN_FUNCTION, url, window, features);
      }
      //If IE, 
      else if(browserName == "IE")
      {
        ExternalInterface.call("function setWMWindow() {window.open('" + url + "');}");
      }
      //If Safari 
      else if(browserName == "Safari")
      {              
        navigateToURL(new URLRequest(url), window);
      }
      //If Opera 
      else if(browserName == "Opera")
      {    
        navigateToURL(new URLRequest(url), window); 
      }
      //Otherwise, use Flash's native 'navigateToURL()' function to pop-window. 
      //This is necessary because Safari 3 no longer works with the above ExternalInterface work-a-round.
      else
      {
        navigateToURL(new URLRequest(url), window);
      }
    }
    
    /**
     * return current browser name.
     */
    private static function getBrowserName():String
    {
      var browser:String;
            
      //Uses external interface to reach out to browser and grab browser useragent info.
      var browserAgent:String = ExternalInterface.call("function getBrowser(){return navigator.userAgent;}");
        
      //Determines brand of browser using a find index. If not found indexOf returns (-1).
      if(browserAgent != null && browserAgent.indexOf("Firefox") >= 0) 
      {
        browser = "Firefox";
      } 
      else if(browserAgent != null && browserAgent.indexOf("Safari") >= 0)
      {
        browser = "Safari";
      }             
      else if(browserAgent != null && browserAgent.indexOf("MSIE") >= 0)
      {
        browser = "IE";
      }         
      else if(browserAgent != null && browserAgent.indexOf("Opera") >= 0)
      {
        browser = "Opera";
      }
      else 
      {
        browser = "Undefined";
      }
      return (browser);
    }
  }
}
 

You also have to set the wmode inside your containing html file to "opaque" and the allowScriptAccess to "always".

// emdbedding swf w/ swfobject
var width="400";
var height="150";
var flashVersion = "9.0.0";
var movie = "navigatetourl.swf";
var movieName = "flashMovie";
var bgColor = "#000000";
var express = "expressInstall.swf";
var replaceDiv = "flashcontent";
 
var flashvars = {};
 
var params = {};
params.wmode = "opaque";
params.allowScriptAccess = "always";
 
var attributes = {};
attributes.id = "myFlashMovie";
 
swfobject.embedSWF(movie, replaceDiv, width, height, flashVersion,
               express, flashvars, params, attributes);

Here is also a working example: navigateToURL example.
And you can download the sourcecode.

cheers