geturls from CDROMs not working anymore (Safari/Panther)

hi all,

i have made a CDROM application with flash in 2004 that contains hyperlinks sending you online for extra content. the links are set up using the standard 'geturl' command.

this used to work fine in macos 10.2 and earlier (including MacOS9), but since 10.3 (Panther) came out those geturl hyperlinks have stopped working.

specifically, Panther uses Safari as its default browser and Safari doesn't seem to accept commands from CDROMs to go online for extra content. it probably is a security feature of Safari (ie: not letting unknown applications on CDs launch online content). when you force Panther to use IE 5.X, the functionnality works correctly. unfortunately, this is not enough, as most Mac users will never change their default browser from Safari to something else.

is there a way around this? this Safari 'feature' is yet another reason for developers to scrap the idea of making cross-platform CDROM applications with Flash.

thanks,

Are you using a recent version of Safari? Works fine for me (Tiger with Safari)

hi darkdarkone , thanks for the reply.

actually no, i'm not using Tiger,
i'm still using Panther 10.3.9 with Safari 1.3.1

are you saying the functionnality has returned in Tiger?

thanks

I have just tried in both Tiger and Panther and it works fine for me.
Perhaps it has something to do with the version of flash plugin you have installed or the version of Safari??

thanks darkdarkone,

are you running Safari 1.3.1 ?

in any case, here is what happens:

i insert a CD with Flash content, click on a link in the interface,
it launches Safari correctly (or Firefox, depending on your preferences
settings), then it goes to your default home page and just sits there
(ie: doesn't jump to the specific URL of the link).

the actionscript used on the buttons is very basic and standard
geturls commands.

i'm intrigued by the fact that it seems to work on your setup...

let me know if you have any other info that could help
understand the difference between our setups.

as mentioned, i'm running 10.3.9 with current versions of Safari and Firefox.

regarding Plugin versions: i just realized that there is no easy way to verify the Flash plugin used by Safari and Firefox; i looked at the "package contents" of each app via Get Info and saw nothing, nothing either in the -user/library folder.

do you know how to verify plugin versions in Mac OSX?

if so, please mention it in your reply.

thanks again!

thanks again,

Go to the Help menu in Safari and choose "Installed Plug-ins".

The Plugins are stored in ~/Library/Internet Plug-ins

I have the very same problem on tiger with CDROM I developed on Flash MX. Perhaps it's flash MX that is the problem. I do not think a CDROM developed with flash uses the Flash Player on your computer. It uses the player on Flash MX which is the equivalent of Flash 6 player. I do not have a solution though but I believe that using Flash 8 for the development would fix the bug.