wmode="transparent" and non-latin input: bug details

[noregret.org]

I guess everyone know that wmode="transparent" causes a number of bugs
in all browsers...
The thing that interests me is the in-depth description of non-latin input
bug, which is the most annoying one.

In case someone is not aware of it, transparent mode disrupts non-latin input
into textfields in all browsers.

And the question is: WHY SO?

Can anyone make that clear please?
I've failed to find any detailed legal description of the bug.
My guess is that it's related to how transparent windows are handled in
operation system (perhaps that's even not a flash player fault?).

In russian community we've found
[url]http://flash-mx.ru/forum/topic_show.pl?pid=1281;hl=transparent;hlm=and#pid1 281[/url]
that solves the problem for IE and non-embedded fonts.
It appears that in IE we get two symbols instead of one when trying to input
cyrillic symbols. Thus we are able to combine these symbols into one UTF-8
symbol. Unfortunatelly that doesn't seem to work for other browsers.



// IE only, non-embedded fonts only
TF.onChanged = function()
{
var broken = this.text.split(chr(4));
for (var i = 1; i<broken.length; i++) {
broken[i] =
String.fromCharCode(1024+broken[i].charCodeAt(0))+broken[i].substr(1);
}
this.text = broken.join("");
};

[Jeckyl]

> And the question is: WHY SO?

>
> Can anyone make that clear please?

Its a bug .. bugs often don't have a clear and sensible 'why' .. the bugs
aren't 'designed' in a logical way.

> My guess is that it's related to how transparent windows are handled in
> operation system (perhaps that's even not a flash player fault?).

Its a combination of the browser and the player.

[noregret.org]

> bugs often don't have a clear and sensible 'why'

No-no, bugs DO have clear reasons, but the reasons may be hidden far beyond
the level of a developer. As a flash programmer, I'm just a user of Flash
Player system, and it looks like this very bug needs some knowledge of player
inner mechanics to understand what's going on.

> Its a combination of the browser and the player.

Btw, if you try to create a flash projector with transparent background (with
some third-party tool) - you will run into the same trouble. So, that's
unlikely to be a problem of browser. The root of evil is somewhere else...

I'm sure Flash Player team knows about this issue for a long time. But the
problem is still there. At least that would be nice to know the reason why.

A legal explanation is needed... To be at least able to explain to my
customers why I'm not going to do some things the way they want. :)

[Jeckyl]

>> bugs often don't have a clear and sensible 'why'

> No-no, bugs DO have clear reasons, but the reasons may be hidden far
> beyond
> the level of a developer. As a flash programmer, I'm just a user of Flash
> Player system, and it looks like this very bug needs some knowledge of
> player
> inner mechanics to understand what's going on.

They have reasons .. but often not clear ones

Anyway .. the reason is of no concern to anyone other than the person trying
to fix it. You just have to accpet that a bug is a bug .. knowing why does
not make the bug go away.

> > Its a combination of the browser and the player.

> Btw, if you try to create a flash projector with transparent background
> (with
> some third-party tool) - you will run into the same trouble. So, that's
> unlikely to be a problem of browser. The root of evil is somewhere else...

Its the same thing really .. its ActiveX support in the OS.

And it is ceratinly browser dependant, and there are different problems for
activex vs flash player control plugin

Its not just one single cause, nor is it one single bug

> A legal explanation is needed... To be at least able to explain to my
> customers why I'm not going to do some things the way they want. :)

Nothing 'legal' should be required (whatever that means) .. its a bug (or
rather, bugs).. and that's it. All you and your customers need to know is
that the bugs exist, and have done for years and that for that reason
transparent mode should be avoided and a good designer will not design sites
in a way that would require transparent mode.
--
Jeckyl

[noregret.org]

> reason is of no concern to anyone other than the person trying to fix it

It appears that noone is fixing this bug.
This could be for two reasons:
- that's not technically possible (or require huge changes in player
mechanics)
- noone cares (oh, don't say that is the case :) )

> its a bug (or rather, bugs).. and that's it. All you and your customers need

to know

And HOW do we know it is a bug, and not our bad flash skill?
We should google for it? Ask friends? Say "mr. Jeckyl said it's a bug"? :)

At least there should be a technote, or few words in "known issues" section
saying that the problem exists, and the only option is to give up using
transparent mode. I can't find anything like that here...

If the reasons are kept secret - that's ok. But the consequences should not.
Right? :)

[Jeckyl]

> It appears that noone is fixing this bug.

Certainly no sign of it after several years. Some of the transparent mode
bugs have gone .. but that may have been good luck and conincidence rather
than a deliberate fix.

> This could be for two reasons:
> - that's not technically possible (or require huge changes in player
> mechanics)
> - noone cares (oh, don't say that is the case :) )
>

> > its a bug (or rather, bugs).. and that's it. All you and your customers
> > need

> to know
>
> And HOW do we know it is a bug, and not our bad flash skill?

Because it doesn't just affect you. Unless you've been sabotaging everyone
else's web pages for several years now :):):)

> We should google for it?

Yes. That would be a very good way to find information about it

> At least there should be a technote, or few words in "known issues"
> section
> saying that the problem exists,

You'd think so, if Macromedia was being honest about it.

> and the only option is to give up using
> transparent mode.

You really think they'd admit they have a feature that shouldn't be used?

> If the reasons are kept secret - that's ok. But the consequences should
> not.
> Right? :)

Its no secret .. its incredibly well known .. just not that much admitted
about it by Macromedia (and now Adobe)

Here's a few sites to get you started:

[url]http://www.asserttrue.com/articles/2006/11/17/firefox-and-flash-swf-selection-and-focus-problems[/url]
[url]http://www.5etdemi.com/blog/archives/2005/06/firefox-wmodetransparent-is-completely-screwy-and-breaks-textfields/[/url]
[url]http://www.headlondon.com/blog/index.php/archives/no-wmode-please-were-british/[/url]
[url]http://www.justsuppose.com/2006/11/firefox-20-pc-and-transparent-flash.html[/url]

--
Jeckyl

[noregret.org]

> You really think they'd admit they have a feature that shouldn't be used?

For recent years there were so many questions on message boards, yelling "can
someone tell me how do I make these goddamn textfields recieve my input", that
this has become a notable fact, and that would be merely polite to have a note
on the subject here, on this site.

>> We should google for it?

> Yes. That would be a very good way to find information about it

Ok, ok, that's what everyone do when they fail to find information here. I
wouldn't call that "a very good way", would you? :) Information found on the
third-party sites is always a subject for doubts, I assume. And yes, if
official site says nothing and numerous others provide some info... we have no
choice.

> Here's a few sites to get you started:

Pfff... I've got started many years ago. :))
This thread is not about proving that this is a really well-known bug.
I know it is.

> Its no secret .. its incredibly well known ..

I mean the REASONS are completely unknown and that would be Ok, if we could
find a single word of it here, on adobe.com :)

Ok, thank you for your attention.
I realize that there will be no additional info on the subject (especially on
the official site. :) ).

[Jeckyl]

> This thread is not about proving that this is a really well-known bug.

> I know it is.

Then I don't see what this thread IS about .. if you know its a bug, and
accept its a bug, then why are you asking? Does your client not believe
you?

> I mean the REASONS are completely unknown and that would be Ok, if we
> could
> find a single word of it here, on adobe.com :)

It would be nice for Adobe (or macromedia previously) to officially
acknowledge the bug. However, they don't seem to acknowledge bugs unless
they can provide a woraround or excuse for it. I don't think they like
people seeing (officially) that their software is buggy and that bugs get
left unfixed for several years :)

> Ok, thank you for your attention.

You're welcome. Not sure what we've achieved that wasn't well know before
:)
--
Jeckyl

[noregret.org]

> Then I don't see what this thread IS about

I was wondering if there was some ActiveX API specialist somewhere around who
could provide some details on the bug. I'm just curious (sorry :) ).

People keep asking on message boards I attend for some definite info on the
subject (and not only things like "I know it doesn work and no one knows why
and no one knows how to fix it").

So I was naively hoping that someone knowing the details could share the info.
:))

[Jeckyl]

If it were a problem with the transparency itself, I could possibly give you
some clues. The problem is that most of the problems with transparent mode
are unexpected and apparently unrelated side-effects. And there are quite a
few of them, most of which are browser, operating system and player version
dependent.

I doubt we will have any chance of knowing the reason for the many wmode
bugs until Adobe admits there actually is a problem and fixes it (or
provides some excuse-technote that tries to rationalise a bug away, if they
do what macromedia did in some cases - they'll try to make you think that
whatever-it-is that causes the problem is really part of a necessary part of
a feature when its really a bug)
--
Jeckyl