Firefox, flash, web page: Who's fault?

[Konstantin Svist]

Tom Horsley wrote:
> I've been noticing this a lot lately, and I wonder where to point the finger:
>
> A web page will have a row of mouse-over menus. That row will be located
> on the page over an area with flash content.
>
> If I mouse over the menu, the menu gets drawn underneath the $#@! flash
> content.
>
> For example, I just checked si.com and saw this happen.
>
> Is firefox screwing up the window stacking order? Is flash screwing up
> the window stacking order? Are web page designers ignoring something
> they are supposed to specify? I don't even know who to blame :-).
>
>   

This is a known bug (at least, it's known to Macromedia/Adobe). The 
Linux version of Flash does not allow transparency. I remember this 
being mentioned back when Flash Linux was still in beta (the beta 
creators blamed it on Linux version Firefox, if I'm not mistaken).

There's no known universal workaround (from user-land). In most cases, 
you can click on the top level of the menu and the next page should show 
you a drilldown of choices. Other times, you'll have to disable Flash or 
adblock it.

On citicards.com, there are several layers of Flash overlaying each 
other. The only way to log in is to block the top one. My Adblock Plus 
rule for this is:
*citicards.com/cards/wv/swf/filter1.swf

As web developer, there's an ugly workaround:
http://blog.marcoos.com/2006/07/21/html-div-above-a-flash-animation-on-linux-its-possible/


Hope this helps.