November 14, 2002
New Flash 6 Player Beta 2
Last week Macromedia released a second public beta release of a new Flash 6 Player, following the first beta release on October 21. Finally squashed is the long-standing, infamous, evil and vexing bitmap shifting-bug! Woo-hoo! Kudos to the Flash engineering and QA teams!
The release notes state that in addition to various issues being addressed, the beta installer now attempts to:
"...configure the browser to add Flash version information to the accept header to the HTTP transaction with the Flash version information to allow server-side Flash Player version detection."While I see
Accept: application/x-shockwave-flash accept headers in late-model Netscape browsers, I'm not seeing version information as described. With IE browsers I don't see an entry for the accept header at all. Not sure quite what to expect; other developers have also expressed some confusion over this.
Perhaps beta 3?
For those of us who track such things, Windows and Macintosh build numbers are now 6,0,60,65, with the Linux version at 6,0,60,67.
Don't forget that Macromedia is offering prizes for the top two testers who submit the "highest number of good-quality new bugs". Besides helping ensure their companies' and client's product work in the next release of the Flash Player, top testers will choose any one of the following: a copy of Macromedia Studio MX, a Microsoft XBox, or a Sony PlayStation 2.
Posted by Lewis Francis at November 14, 2002 10:09 PMAccording to Macromedia's Alvin Liuson, via fellow Macromedian Mike Chamber's blog, the beta release notes were inaccurate. They've since been changed to:
"The installation process will configure the browser's accept header in the HTTP transaction to signify that Flash has been installed. This will enable server-side Flash Player detection. The accept header will not contain the specific Flash Player version information as previously communicated, though a version greater than 6.0r47 can be inferred since this is new functionality. Note that Mac IE does not allow the accept header to be modified and does not support this functionality".
I've submitted a report to let them know that Win IE 6SP1 also doesn't appear to be able to support this functionality, which, if true, will severely limit the usefulness of this new feature.
Alvin also notes that while we can't use this feature to directly test Flash version from the server, we can infer a version newer than 6.0r47, the version previous to this beta and now release candidate.
Posted by: Lewis Francis at November 21, 2002 11:39 PMI have spent two solid days cutting pasting, saving under different formats i.e. attempting to prevent a bitmap contianing words, that looked fine from within Flash MX studio from cracked on one of the letters when ever it was tested... "from the outside". I must track down this version of the flash player! I hope this is the infamous bug that is talked about and I very much hope the bug is fixed as my eyes are more than square now (what is more than square?). Thanks for making me feel happier (and saner).
Tony
Localiser
Cambridge
England
Nope. sorry. ;)
Posted by: Lewis Francis at February 12, 2009 10:54 AMListed below are links to weblogs that reference 'New Flash 6 Player Beta 2' from Information Gift.
