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javascriptinternet-explorerdynamic-dataobject-tag

How can I dynamically add an <object> tag with JavaScript in IE?

I have to add either an embed tag for Firefox or an object tag for Internet Explorer with JavaScript to address the appropriate ActiveX / Plugin depending on the browser. The plugin could be missing and needs to get downloaded in this case. The dynamically added embed tag for Firefox works as expected. The dynamically added object tag for Internet Explorer seems to do nothing at all. The object tag needs the following attributes to function properly.

id ="SomeId" classid = "CLSID:{GUID}" codebase = "http://www.MyActicexSource.com/MyCuteActivex.CAB#Version=2,0,0,1"

Even a general working idea or method would be nice.

Thanks!

Solution

  • I needed to do this same thing and simply place all of the HTML needed for the OBJECT tag in a string in JavaScript and simply replace the innerHTML of a div tag with the OBJECT HTML and it works in IE just fine.

    // something akin to this:
document.getElementById(myDivId).innerHTML = "<OBJECT id='foo' classid='CLSID:22d6f312-b0f6-11d0-94ab-0080c74c7e95'.....etc";

    That should work, it does just fine for me - I use it to embed Windows Media Player in a page.

    UPDATE: You would run the above code after the page loads via an event handler that either runs on the page's load event or maybe in response to a user's click. The only thing you need to do is have an empty DIV tag or some other type of tag that would allow us to inject the HTML code via that element's innerHTML property.

    UPDATE: Apparently you need more help than I thought you needed? Maybe this will help:

    Have your BODY tag look like this: <body onload="loadAppropriatePlugin()">

    Have somewhere in your page, where you want this thing to load, an empty DIV tag with an id attribute of something like "Foo" or whatever.

    Have code like this in a <script> tag in your <head> section:

    function getIEVersion() { // or something like this
   var ua = window.navigator.userAgent;
   var msie = ua.indexOf("MSIE ");
   return ((msie > 0) ? parseInt(ua.substring(msie+5, ua.indexOf(".", msie))) : 0);
}

function loadAppropriatePlugin() {
    if(getIEVersion() != 0) { // this means we are in IE
        document.getElementById("Foo").innerHTML = "<OBJECT id='foo' classid='CLSID:22d6f312-b0f6-11d0-94ab-0080c74c7e95'.....etc";
    } else {
        // if you want to maybe do the same for FF and load that stuff...
    }
}

    Does that help?