Embedded Data

The embeds[ ] array contains objects that represent data embedded in the document with the <EMBED> tag. Embedded data can take many forms (audio, video, spreadsheets, etc...). The browser must have an appropriate viewer installed or available so that it can display the data to the user. In Navigator, special modules known as "plugins" are responsible for displaying embedded data. In the Internet Explorer, embedded data is displayed by ActiveX controls. Both plugins and ActiveX controls can be automatically downloaded from the network and installed as needed.

Each plug-in in a document is reflected in JavaScript as an element in the embeds array. For example, the following HTML code includes an AVI plug-in in a document:

<EMBED SRC="myavi.avi" NAME="myEmbed" WIDTH="320" HEIGHT="200">

If this HTML defines the first plug-in in a document, you can access it in any of the following ways:

document.embeds[0]

document.embeds["myEmbed"]

document.myEmbed

The embeds array has a length property, document.embeds.length, that indicates the number of plug-ins embedded in the document.

For example, the documentation for the LiveVideo plugin from Netscape says that the LiveVideo object in the embeds[ ] array supports four methods: play(), stop(), rewind(), and seek(). With this information, you can write simple scripts that control how the plugin display the movie you have embedded on the web page.

The HTML EMBED tag needs several bits of information.

AUTOSTART="false" means that the sound won't start by itself when the page is loaded

HIDDEN="true" makes sure that LiveAudio doesn't display its own built-in control panel, since the buttons below are our "control panel"

LOOP="false" play the "sound" only once, don't loop it

MASTERSOUND is a required attribute whenever you use a named sound

SRC attribute gives the EMBED the location of the sound file