Finding Plug-ins

We've mentioned before that it's never a good idea to include any items on your Web page that require a plug-in (such as Flash or RealAudio) without also providing a link to the plug-in. You don't want to assume that your visitors will have the required software to view your page because they might not.

Microsoft generally believes that the browser itself should contain enough code to run any scripts, applications, and embedded items without loading plug-ins, and it uses ActiveX controls to handle these types of events. Netscape, however, agrees with the idea that browsers should be light and plug-ins should be used to handle outside events. Partially because of this belief, Netscape maintains one of the best plug-in archives on the Web at http://browser.netscape.com/ns8/community/plugin.jsp.

Tip

If you're looking for a browser-neutral source of downloadable plug-ins, check out CNET at http://www.download.com/sort/3120-20-0-1-5.html?qt=browser+plug-ins.

Table 12.1 lists the HTML tags that were discussed in this lesson.

Table 12.1. HTML Tags Used in This Lesson

HTML Tag	Closing	Description of Use
<embed>	</embed>	Netscape's nonstandard, although largely supported, tag for including sound and video clips.
<noembed>	</noembed>	Netscape's tag that provides an alternate method of downloading the clip for browsers that don't recognize the <embed> tag.
<object>	</object>	W3C's preferred, although largely unsupported, tag for including sound and video clips.

In this lesson, you've learned:

• Sound and video clips can be added to your Web page with the <a> tag.

• Both the <object> and the <embed> tags enable you to add a video clip with the video controls (start, stop, and so on) to your documents.