Flash "Click to Active and Use Control"

I quite like Flash when used sparingly, but over the past few months I noticed that within IE I now have to click a Flash control before using it. This is a small thing but is annoying and hence reduces the usability of a site – especially when you see a link such as 'click to enter' which really means 'click once to activate me then click again to enter!'

Thankfully, Microsoft have provided a solution for web developers: embed your Flash movies using JavaScript.

There are a few sites providing details on this:

Geoff Stearns over at Deconcept has quite a bit of information about the flash plugin problem as well as providing something called SWFObject that provides a solution.

Adobe have also provided a solution.

And you can read more about the changes to IE on the Microsoft site.