[Support] Flash Control

[quote=“methuzla”]hi

When running FF out of a linux console / bash, I see

[quote]
console.error: flashctrl:
Message: Error: The page is currently hidden and can no longer be used until it is visible again.[/quote]

plus more info.

i have no idea if that affects functionality, or is just untidy.[/quote]

From the old support thread.

[quote=“mooglash”]For me it seems that your addon does not work with youporn.com.
I’m using FF Nightly 41.0a1x64 and Flash Control 1.3.2.1-signed.
The website with a video loads and the clickable button from your addon appears. When I click it, the flash player loads and I get the player UI but the video will not start.
If I disable Flash Control the video works fine.

Can you recreate this problem?[/quote]

From the old support thread.

[quote=“blueskyy”][quote=“methuzla”]hi

When running FF out of a linux console / bash, I see

console.error: flashctrl: 
  Message: Error: The page is currently hidden and can no longer be used until it is visible again.

plus more info.

i have no idea if that affects functionality, or is just untidy.[/quote]

To be perfectly honest, I have no idea either if it’s caused by a bug or not.

I’ll just assume you have some programming or Javascript knowledge for my explanation, since you use Linux and run Firefox from the console…

Firefox uses Javascript to perform most of its tasks. We can have multiple scripts from multiple sources controlling the same DOM element. That is essentially what an extension/addon is – scripts from an external source that are used to manipulate elements on a page. So, if I see something now… and when the time comes to process it, it might no longer be around. That’s why we see error messages. Some are valid, some are not. In this case, I’m not sure if it’s valid or not.[/quote]

From the old support thread.

[quote=“blueskyy”][quote=“mooglash”]For me it seems that your addon does not work with youporn.com.
I’m using FF Nightly 41.0a1x64 and Flash Control 1.3.2.1-signed.
The website with a video loads and the clickable button from your addon appears. When I click it, the flash player loads and I get the player UI but the video will not start.
If I disable Flash Control the video works fine.

Can you recreate this problem?[/quote]

Thank you for the description, but can you provide me with a direct link (url) too? Thank you.[/quote]

From the old support thread.

[quote=“mooglash”][quote=“blueskyy”][quote=“mooglash”]For me it seems that your addon does not work with youporn.com.
I’m using FF Nightly 41.0a1x64 and Flash Control 1.3.2.1-signed.
The website with a video loads and the clickable button from your addon appears. When I click it, the flash player loads and I get the player UI but the video will not start.
If I disable Flash Control the video works fine.

Can you recreate this problem?[/quote]

Thank you for the description, but can you provide me with a direct link (url) too? Thank you.[/quote]

Uhm, go to youporn.com and click on any video…
Well take this: [/quote]

From the old support thread.

[quote=“blueskyy”][quote=“mooglash”]
Uhm, go to youporn.com and click on any video…
Well take this: [/quote]

I’m sorry, I’ve taken a look at it, there’s nothing more that I can do about youporn.com.

The only “workaround” is like you said, is to click on the “allow…”, “disallow…”, “enable…”, or “disable…” button on the toolbar, or click on the Flash Control “play” icon real fast while the page is still loading.[/quote]

From the old support thread.

From the old support thread.

Hi there. I’ve got a really minor issue I wanted to bring up. I love the extension since I replaced Flashblock with it. However, the placeholder it creates sets its z-index value to the maximum one allowed for a 32-bit integer, 2147483647. As a result, there is no way for any elements whatsoever on the page to go in front of it. I have yet to look into the extension’s code, but is it possible for it to either use a lower z-index or to scan the page for z-index values and just use only 1 higher?

If memory serves, it’s only the “play icon” that has its z-index set to the maximum, not actually the placeholder. As we all know, z-index can be set programmatically using Javascript, hence scanning a page (assuming it’s a text scan we’re talking about) would be ineffective. Furthermore, regardless of whether we’re using a text scan or using DOM traversing, we would always have to keep at the back of our minds that if we’re dealing with a large file, those two methods are very inefficient.

I am using Flash Control 1.3.2.1 with Firefox 40.0 and Windows 10. The extension appears to be working, at least on the only Flash site I have been on this morning, but I cannot find the extension’s icon to place on a toolbar. It is not in the Customize icon list, nor do I see it anywhere on the Firefox screen.

(I said I have only seen it working on one Flash site, as I had to create yet another new Firefox profile to convince MS that I am using Windows 10, so only enabled Flash Control this morning.)

Later: This file in the mozillaZine Knowledge Base has a good list of files and folders to transfer from an existing Firefox profile to a new one;

http://kb.mozillazine.org/Transferring_data_to_a_new_profile_-_Firefox

Based on my experience, I am going to recommend a change to the document, as copying the Extensions folder before the files, at least for me, eliminates a number of problems. I won’t bother to explain what has happened to me several times by first copying the files and then the folder, only to state that doing this in the reverse order keeps a number of extension icons from appearing.

I’m sorry I couldn’t help you with this, I don’t have Windows 10. I have tested though on Windows 7 and Windows 8 both x64-bit, with Firefox 40 (x86) and the latest Nightly (x64), all with new profiles,but I couldn’t replicate the problem you mentioned.

I’m guessing it’s Windows 10 and Firefox’s Add-on SDK related. I hope it isn’t. I would love to update my copy of the Add-on SDK too, but I just don’t have the time to do it.

If anyone else is having problems with Flash Control on Windows 10, please feedback.

Thanks for the reply. I found the problem, strictly by luck.

The mozillaZine Knowledge Base has a goof file about transferring files
and folders from an existing Firefox profile to a new one.
http://kb.mozillazine.org/Transferring_data_to_a_new_profile_-_Firefox .

I had been copying the files, and then the extensions folder. When I did
that, as soon as I restarted after copying the folder, I was presented
with a lengthy set of tabs, at least one per extension, asking
permission to install it, a tedious procedure at best.

Yesterday, in trying to find another missing extension-related icon, as
the extension’s author happened to reply first, I created a new profile,
and before doing anything else, I installed the extension. To my
surprise, the previously-missing icon was present. I then copied the
extension folder into the new profile. When I opened Fx, instead of that
set of tabs, what I had was a complete set of disabled extensions, so I
started enabling them in sets. Among others, the icon for Flash Control
was then present, and as I progressed in setting up the profile, I came
to realize that several icons were missing in the profile from which I
copied the folder, a profile that I had waded through the tabs when
setting it up.

Case closed, dismissed with prejudice, the site (your extension)
returned to the owner (something I did more than once as both a
volunteer and career fire chief.)

can you make the FlashControl Addon compatible with Seamonkey 2.33.1?

Probably not.

Just some background information here for others… Firefox extension development is categorized into one of two ways: (1) by using the traditional XUL method, made popular by Firefox 2.0, I believe. This is the most powerful method, but developers generally have to check their extensions against every major Firefox releases. Codes can get a little messy, and the organization is also less modular. (2) by using the addon-sdk provided by Firefox, made popular by Firefox 30, although already available much earlier.

Using the add-sdk has several advantages over XUL-based development, but it also has one major drawback… The advantages are developers don’t have to worry about their extensions not be compatible with future versions of Firefox as long as they don’t use deprecated APIs. It’s also much cleaner as far as coding is concerned, all developers have to do is to “hook” their code at the various points as provided by the sdk. The major disadvantage of using the add-on sdk is that the functionalities of your extension are capped by the limitation of the addon-sdk. In contrast, with XUL-based development, developers are limited to none but the capabilities of Firefox itself.

Flash Control was written using the addon-sdk. As such, it is not feasible for developers to be investing their time into making their addons compatible with other third-party Mozilla based browsers.

I notice that FC causes a 1-2 second delay when I start Fx43. What I see when I start up Fx is my bookmarks toolbar displays just the separators at first then the bookmarks icons display in 1-2 seconds. Without FC the bookmarks toolbar appears instantly when I get into Fx. Why should this be so? I only have two sites set to allow videos.

First thing first, it’s Firefox Nightly 43, often just abbreviated as Nightly.

I don’t know how you noticed what you noticed, but this is what I noticed. Flash Control is the last icon to load when I started up Nightly, subsequent tabs appear okay. Frankly, I don’t know why either, why it took even up to a second to load on first load, but that is just how it is.

Hi, I started to have problem turning on Flash Control. The “f” icon is gray instead of green/red and Flash is played all the time. If I click on it and choose “Enable Flash Control”, the page reloads but nothing happens, icon still gray. None of the settings available under “Open config” makes a difference. Some time ago, everything used to work, I haven’t change anything regarding Flash or Flash Control. Unfortunately, I’m not able to regress to a moment when it stopped working. I’m on Flash Control 2.0.1, FF 40.0.3, Win7, Flash 18.0.0.232 (set as “Always activate” in FF). Any hints? Thanks a lot!

PROBLEM 1:

With this extension installed, audio still autoplays on Soundcloud

Example page: https://soundcloud.com/kyle-murdock/spooky-scary-skeletons-remix

Is there a way to prevent this?

PROBLEM 2:

Imgur has started converting GIFs to video files, and although click-to-play works for these videos, NOT clicking to activate the video breaks left/right keyboard navigation shortcuts so you end up stuck on that page. The URL bar changes, but nothing on the actual page changes. Seems to be an AJAX thing; problem does not occur on the first page you load, but once you AJAX onto a page with a blocked video, you can’t AJAX off of it (if that makes sense) unless you click to activate the video.

Example page: http://imgur.com/gallery/h6uTPuw

Don’t click to activate the video; you should be able to use left or right arrow key to to the next or previous image one time, but once you switch back to it (or if the adjacent image is also a video) you’ll be trapped there unless you click to activate the video.

Whitelisting the site works but I’d prefer to keep whitelisting to a minimum.

What was the url of the page you were on when you tried to turn on Flash Control?

And thank you for the detailed description, I appreciate that.

Problem #1:
The reason why audio still plays on Soundcloud is because the audio node wasn’t “attach” to the html page. The “audio” element was created but its UI was never on the page. If we were to block it automatically (which is very likely possible), there would be no visual cues of what was blocked (because it wasn’t on the page to begin with), and clicking on Soundcloud’s “play” icon subsequently wouldn’t have work. I would say it is implementable, but right now, at this very moment, time is something I don’t have.

Problem #2:
There’s probably no fix to this. Imgur couldn’t find the “old” element, and because of that, didn’t update the new element.

All these are all my preliminary findings, I don’t have to the time to verify every single bit of details, but they should be accurate. And thank you for the detailed description, I don’t get that a lot.