Actionscript Cookbook

2.8. Prompting the User to Change Player Settings

Problem

You want to open the user’s Flash Player Settings dialog box to prompt her to allow greater access to her local system.

Solution

Use the System.showSettings( ) method.

Discussion

The System.showSettings( ) method opens the Flash Player Settings dialog box, which includes four tabs. The number in parentheses is the value you pass to showSettings( ) to open that particular tab.

Privacy (0)

Allows the user to specify whether to allow Flash access to her camera and microphone.

Local Storage (1)

Allows the user to specify how local shared objects are stored, including the maximum allowable disk usage.

Microphone (2)

Allows the user to select a microphone and adjust the volume.

Camera (3)

Allows the user to select a camera.

If you don’t pass any parameters to the showSettings( ) method, it opens the Settings dialog box to the tab that was opened the last time the Settings dialog box was used. Here, we open the Settings dialog box to the Local Storage tab by explicitly specifying a value of 1:

// Open the Settings dialog box to the Local Storage tab.
System.showSettings(1);

Tip

Out of courtesy, you should prompt the user to open the Settings dialog box with a button rather than simply opening it without warning. Also, you should alert the user beforehand as to which settings to change.

See Also

Recipe 16.4