differences between using wmode="transparent", "opaque", "window" for an embedded object on webpage

Posted by Jian Lin on Stack Overflow See other posts from Stack Overflow or by Jian Lin
Published on 2009-05-20T08:40:45Z Indexed on 2010/03/19 2:51 UTC
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flash

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wmode

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object

when embedding a Flash object with the <object> and <embed> tag, there is an attribute called "wmode". It seems that most of the time, wmode="transparent" is the same as wmode="opaque" as the Flash doesn't actually have any transparent color so that the bottom HTML element is to be shown. As a result, "opaque" should be faster than "transparent" since it require less processing for transparency, yet most of the time i see Flash object embedded with "transparent" instead of "opaque".

"opaque" is needed so that other HTML element won't be covered up by the Flash object. (such as a menu item that pops up an extra sub-menu won't be covered up by the Flash object).

By the way, is there formal documentation for wmode's "opaque", "transparent", and "window"? I was only able to find blogs that describe it but not the formal documentation. thanks.

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