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Appendix C. Backward Compatibility and Player Build Updates

Flash allows you to publish .swf files in formats that are compatible with previous versions of the Player (via File Publish Settings Flash Version). By the time you read this, the majority of users will have at least version 6 of the Flash Player, but you may prefer to author for Flash Player 5 or 4 instead, such as when deploying to handheld devices that don't yet support Flash Player 6. Even if you are authoring exclusively for Flash 6, this appendix will help you avoid using deprecated ActionScript and bring you up to speed on the preferred methods in Flash 6. Furthermore, it will help you understand or upgrade legacy code that you may encounter.

See capabilities.version, getVersion( ), and $version in the ActionScript Language Reference for details on detecting the version of the Flash Player at runtime. See http://www.moock.org/webdesign/flash/detection/moockfpi for a version detection script that runs in the browser.

When authoring for Flash 4 or 5, use the deprecated techniques (i.e., those that are outdated, but supported for backward compatibility) listed in Table C-1 (under Section C.3 in this appendix). See also "Using Flash MX ActionScript with older versions of Flash" under "Understanding the ActionScript Language" in the electronic help files under Help Using Flash. Deprecated features of ActionScript are listed in the Actions panel Toolbox under the Deprecated folder.

For statistics on the distribution of various Flash Player versions, see:

http://www.macromedia.com/software/flash/survey/whitepaper

To download archived versions of the Flash Player, visit the following pages:

http://www.macromedia.com/support/flash/downloads.html

http://www.macromedia.com/support/flash/ts/documents/oldplayers.htm

See the Capabilities object in the ActionScript Language Reference for information on authoring Flash content for devices.

To run scripts in Flash Player 4, you must set the Version of your .swf file to Flash 4 under the Flash tab under File Publish Settings. All code is disabled if you attempt to run a Flash 5 or later .swf file in Flash Player 4. To run scripts in Flash Player 5, you must set the Version of your .swf file to Flash 5 under the Flash tab under File Publish Settings. All code is disabled if you attempt to run a Flash 6 or later .swf file in Flash Player 5.

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