Plugin objects are predefined JavaScript objects that you access through the navigator.plugins array.
Plugin object is a plug-in installed on the client. A plug-in is a software module that the browser can invoke to display specialized types of embedded data within the browser. The user can obtain a list of installed plug-ins by choosing About Plug-ins from the Help menu.
Each Plugin object is itself array containing one element for each MIME type supported by the plug-in. Each element of the array is a MimeType object. For example, the following code displays the type and description properties of the first Plugin object's first MimeType object.
myPlugin=navigator.plugins[0]The preceding code displays output similar to the following:
myMimeType=myPlugin[0]
document.writeln('myMimeType.type is ',myMimeType.type,"<BR>")
document.writeln('myMimeType.description is ',myMimeType.description)
myMimeType.type is video/quicktimeThe
myMimeType.description is QuickTime for Windows
Plugin object lets you dynamically determine which plug-ins are installed on the client. You can write scripts to display embedded plug-in data if the appropriate plug-in is installed, or display some alternative information such as images or text if not.
Plug-ins can be platform dependent and configurable, so a Plugin object's array of MimeType objects can vary from platform to platform, and from user to user.
Each Plugin object is an element in the plugins array.
When you use the EMBED tag to generate output from a plug-in application, you are not creating a Plugin object. Use the document.embeds array to refer to plug-in instances created with EMBED tags. See the document.embeds array.
| Property |
Description
|
|
Number of elements in the plug-in's array of
| |
|---|
watch and unwatch methods from Object.
var myPluginName = navigator.plugins["LiveAudio"].nameExample 3. The following code displays the message "LiveAudio is configured for audio/wav" if the LiveAudio plug-in is installed and is enabled for the
var myPluginFile = navigator.plugins["LiveAudio"].filename
var myPluginDesc = navigator.plugins["LiveAudio"].description
"audio/wav" MIME type:
var myPlugin = navigator.plugins["LiveAudio"]Example 4. The following expression represents the number of MIME types that Shockwave can display:
var myType = myPlugin["audio/wav"]
if (myType && myType.enabledPlugin == myPlugin)
document.writeln("LiveAudio is configured for audio/wav")
navigator.plugins["Shockwave"].lengthExample 5. The following code displays the
name, filename, description, and length properties for each Plugin object on a client:
document.writeln("<TABLE BORDER=1><TR VALIGN=TOP>",
"<TH ALIGN=left>i",
"<TH ALIGN=left>name",
"<TH ALIGN=left>filename",
"<TH ALIGN=left>description",
"<TH ALIGN=left># of types</TR>")
for (i=0; i < navigator.plugins.length; i++) {
document.writeln("<TR VALIGN=TOP><TD>",i,
"<TD>",navigator.plugins[i].name,
"<TD>",navigator.plugins[i].filename,
"<TD>",navigator.plugins[i].description,
"<TD>",navigator.plugins[i].length,
"</TR>")
}
document.writeln("</TABLE>")
The preceding example displays output similar to the following:
| i | name | filename | description | # of types |
MimeType, document.embeds
filename property is the plug-in program's file name and is supplied by the plug-in itself. This name may vary from platform to platform.
Plugin.
MimeType objects. Last Updated: 05/28/99 12:00:11