[html4all] Object element support

[Robert J Burns]

Hell 4all,

In another email, Leif raised the issue of OBJECT element support.  
I've brought the conversation here to the public list for this topic.  
I think the object element support is further along than most  
appreciate. Last year I had put together some informal test pages to  
see where the current state of support is:

* Test of sane default presentation of OBJECT element with no  
attributes [1] (the closest to commonly available IMG use)
* Test of sane default presentation of OBJECT element with height and  
width set explicitly [[2] (not necessary for IMG, but not really a  
large burden for authoring with OBJECT)

My sense is that the second form (providing explicit pixel dimensions  
either through the OBJECT height and width attribute or through CSS)  
works in all current browsers, and probably goes back some distance  
for historical browsers too (please correct me on that assumption if  
I'm wrong).

Safari (even in its current form) has a problem with Quicktime handled  
content that requires another otherwise needless complication from  
authors (the addition of one parameter element with name/value pair  
set to the same URL as the object element's data attribute). Maciej  
says its a QuickTIme bug (Steve Jobs would be so proud of an Apple  
employee passing the buck like that :-), but all the other browsers  
handle this fine without the extra markup. Unfortunately I didn't  
provide an example of this last document for testing, but I don't  
think it breaks anything in other browsers and it definitely works in  
Safari with the extra parameter element markup (the sample video and  
audio files have been deleted from the archives I think).

Take care,
Rob

[1]: <http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-archive/2007Aug/att-0027/TestObject.html 
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[2]: <http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-archive/2007Aug/att-0035/TestObjecttWMeasurments.html 
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