Accessibility

Table of Contents

  1. Introduction
  2. Changes that may require action
  3. New security-related features that are available

Understanding the security changes in Flash Player 10

New security-related features that are available

Local save and load

Flash Player developers will be able to allow users to save and load data from a playing SWF file to and from the user's hard drive using standard operating system browse dialog boxes. Previous implementations of this process required a server to manage the transfer of data from Flash Player to a user's computer. This will now be completely handled on the client side by Flash Player.

What is impacted?

This is a new feature for Flash Player 10. Existing content will not be affected, but new content may be created for Flash Player 10 that makes use of this enhancement.

What do I need to do?

If you would like to make use of this feature, you will need to publish content for Flash Player 10.

Note: AIR developers already have access to File APIs which provide this functionality in Flash Player 9 content running inside an AIR application.

Limited full-screen keyboard input

Flash Player 9 does not allow keyboard input when displaying content in full-screen mode. Flash Player 10 changes this, allowing for a limited number of keys to be usable in full-screen mode. These include Tab, the Spacebar, and the (up, down, left, right) arrow keys.

What is impacted?

This change affects all SWF files played in Flash Player 10 or later. This includes SWF files published for earlier versions of Flash, so long as they are played within Flash Player 10. This also affects non-app content in AIR.

What do I need to do?

It is likely that this change will not affect any existing content. However, you now have the opportunity to modify your content to make use of the new keyboard support to allow additional user interaction in full-screen mode.

Note: App content in AIR can set the value of stage.displayState to StageDisplayState.FULL_SCREEN_INTERACTIVE for full keyboard support in full-screen mode.

Peer-to-peer communication via RTMFP

RTMFP provides a UDP-based secure network transport alternative to RTMP between Flash Player and Flash Media Server. RTMFP also adds basic peer-to-peer capabilities that enable Flash Player instances to publish and play audio and video directly without relaying the media through an intermediate server. Flash Media Server is still required initially to establish these direct connections.

What is impacted?

This is a new feature for Flash Player 10. Existing content will not be affected, but new content may be created for Flash Player 10 to make use of this enhancement.

What do I have to do?

If you would like to make use of this feature, you will need to publish content for Flash Player 10 that communicates with Flash Media Server supporting the RTMFP protocol. If you are the administrator of a network where this new feature will be used, you should become familiar with the security features of RTMFP, the direct peer-to-peer communication capabilities, and how it makes use of UDP, which may require changes to your network firewall configuration.

Data can be read from the Clipboard inside a paste event handler

In Flash Player 9, the system Clipboard could not be read at any time. With Flash Player 10, the new ActionScript 3.0 method Clipboard.generalClipboard.getData() may be used to read the contents of the system Clipboard, but only when it is called from within an event handler processing a flash.events.Event.PASTE event.

What is impacted?

This is a new feature for Flash Player 10. New content may be created for Flash Player 10 that makes use of this enhancement.

What do I need to do?

If you would like to make use of this feature, you will need to publish content for Flash Player 10.

Where to go from here

For an overview of the changes coming in the next release of Flash Player, read Introducing Adobe Flash Player 10.

For a practical guide to what you need to know to work with the required changes that have been made to policy files in the upcoming version Flash Player, read Working with policy file changes in Flash Player 9 and Flash Player 10.

You should download Flash Player 10 from the Flash Player Download Center.

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