© Gero Zahn, gero-at-gerozahn.de
Have a look at the at the tiny Flash element on the left and touch it with the mouse: Not worldshaking at all - a simple roll-over button, without even a function when clicked. Gee, you'll never believe that I can do much better than that. :)
But if you're using a fully updated Microsoft Internet Explorer V6 (or later) or Opera V9 (or later), this isn't self-evident at all. To see this Flash element in its regular, unchanged habitat, have a look at the iframe on the right: This copy of exactly the same Flash element won't react on your mouse pointer unless you click it once.
Hold your mouse pointer over the right flash element for a few seconds and you will see the pop-up message "Click to activate".
This thing is pretty much related to my general PHP based work-around. So if you're interested in how it works, have a look at the original page - the code inside is pretty much identical, just ported to be triggered as a content mambot when preparing content.
(To be honest: I didn't actually try this in Mambo, I developed it using Joomla 1.0.9 - but I don't see a reason why this shouldn't work on both sides of the fence - just give it a try.)
In short: By simply installing and publishing this mambot / plugin the proper way, all your former applet or object embedding, most important the Flash clips, will not ask to be clicked anymore. You don't even have to get into your old content and edit it: Just leave it as it is, publish additional Flash clips (or applets) as you used to before - you don't have to worry about the proper embedding as it is handled by the mambot / plugin.
You may even use any Flash embedding mambot you like (e.g. my own gzFlashEmbed, Marc Hinse's mywFlashBot, Modern Media Sidon's mmsflashbot - or which ever you like best) - just be sure to place gzNoClickToActivate at the lower end of the mambot / plugin list as it has to modify any applet/object embeddings, both hand-coded or script-generated.
NOTE: This is a mambot / plugin. Meaning: Objects (Flash or media clips, JAVA applets) embedded into your content (blogs, static content) will be corrected.
Component based Flash clips (like through Expose) are not supported at this time (I'm working on that, though).
NOTE: The new version 1.5 for Joomla 1.5.x works exactly the same way like the version 1.0x works for Joomla 1.0.x. It is tagged "legacy" because it uses the legacy style of implementing plugins, which is very similar to implementing old-school mambots, although there's already a far more efficient API. Thus this old-style implementation will become deprecated and perhaps non-operational eventually. ... As for the time being a lot of Joomla 1.5's core plugins are implemented this way as well, I'll face this problem when it becomes unavoidable, but not earlier than that.
Unfortunately the initial version 1.0 had bug that prevented more than 9 media embeddings to be displayed correctly. This bug has been found and even fixed rather long ago, though I've been extremely busy since then and so it somehow fell under the table to upload the fixed version. However, gzNoClickToActivate became part of the famous "AllVideos Plugin v2.4 - All-in-one media solution", and they already have a fixed version.
My apologies - simply get this brand-new, yet long existing but unavailable 1.01 version and reinstall, you problems should be gone.
Go, get it:
Remember: After installing it and publishing the mambot / plugin, remember to place it at the lower end of the mambot / plugin list so it is triggered as late as possible.
Disclaimer: All quoted product or company names are or might be trademarks or registered trademarks owned by the correspondent companies. These names are used here solely for documentation purposes.
Any information on this page is given "as is". Though it is copyrighted by Gero Zahn, gero-at-gerozahn.de, the author refuses to take any responsibility for the described functions or side-effects using his software in unchanged or changed form.