The following web page outlines the changes Microsoft is making to get around the Eolas patent suit.
For old Active X controls, Microsoft outputs the following dialog box:
The good news is that this can be blocked, so all those annoying Flash ads that haven't changed will not output a dialog box. If it is blocked then it will look like this:
Now for the recoding of the objects that will get around the lawsuit. The first technique is to code class parameters inline rather than from foreign web sites. This is — to put it bluntly — awful. Web pages could be terribly bloated. Here's an example HTML:
<OBJECT ID="myCtrl" WIDTH=50 HEIGHT=50
CLASSID="CLSID:37C9CF72-E47F-445d-9228-AD1CA6398442">
<PARAM
NAME="inline-data"
VALUE="DATA:application/x-oleobject;BASE64,j43aWGqdGxCvwEIQ"
REFTYPE="BASE64" />
</OBJECT>
The next technique uses dynamic HTML. This, in my opinion, will become real popular. In this techique, a separate Javascript file is created that dynamically inserts the class instantiation into the web page. The web page looks like this:
<HTML>
<HEAD>
<SCRIPT SRC="sample.js"></SCRIPT>
</HEAD>
<BODY>
<SCRIPT>
ReplaceContent();
</SCRIPT>
</BODY>
</HTML>
sample.js looks like this:
function ReplaceContent(){
document.write('<OBJECT CLASSID="CLSID:6BF52A52-394A-11d3-B153-00C04F79FAA6">');
document.write('<PARAM NAME="URL" VALUE="http://msdn.microsoft.com/workshop/');
document.write('samples/author/dhtml/media/drums.wav"/></OBJECT>');
}
As you can see everything is remote and this doesn't bloat the web pages. What should prove to be interesting is that cross-platform dynamic HTML is not a universal skill. Early attempts at coding this stuff could fail to work in Netscape/Mozilla.
This didn't produce the death of Flash ads like I hoped for, but it could block some of them as they are being recoded.
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