Main Index |
Top Of Tree |
Tag Index |
Tag History
- What is it?
- The EMBED tag is the method used to integrate Netscape Plug-In technology
into a web page. The tag has three mandatory attributes [HEIGHT, SRC, and WIDTH]
but it is extensible in that it allows any number of additional custom attributes
that are dependent on the Plug-In used.
The browser first tries to determine which Plug-In to use based on the file
extension of the file in the SRC attribute. If it can not determine what
Plug-In to use, it will then query the user to determine what to do.
- Note:
- There does not appear to be any official references on this tag anywhere.
I have pieced this page together from many different sources and it may
not be complete. Also: Some examples in use that I have seen treat EMBED as a
stand-alone tag (no closing tag required) but I have seen one or two
references to this tag needing a closing tag. I treat the EMBED tag
as a container here in these pages. Keep this ambiguity in mind when authoring
and be sure to verify the functionality of your pages when using EMBED.
- Attributes
- Height
- 2
| 3 | 3.2
| IE3B2 | M
| N1.1
- Required? No
- Description:
Specifies the height of the embedded component on the screen.
- Values:
Indicates an absolute pixel size (positive integer values) or a
percentage of the screen/window to use.
- Src
- 2
| 3 | 3.2
| IE3B2 | M
| N1.1
- Required? Yes
- Description:
Indicates the URL of the multimedia object file.
- Values: Either an absolute or relative URL.
- Width
- 2
| 3 | 3.2
| IE3B2 | M
| N1.1
- Required? No
- Description:
Specifies the width of the embedded component on the screen.
- Values:
Indicates an absolute pixel size (positive integer values) or a
percentage of the screen/window to use.
Style Sheet Attributes
[More on Cascading Style Sheets]
- Class
- 2 | 3
| 3.2 | IE3B1
| M | N4B2
- Required? No
- Description:
This represents an assigned semantic classification grouping(s) for the
current tag.
- Values:
Given as a comma separated list of alphanumeric characters. Class names
may contain spaces (multiple consecutive spaces treated as a single
space.)
- ID
- 2 | 3
| 3.2 | IE3B1
| M | N4B2
- Required? No
- Description:
This assigns an alpha-numeric identifier that is unique
to this tag instance. Style sheets may use this attribute to reference
the current instance of this tag. Hyperlinks may also use this identifier
to serve as a destination.
- Values:
An alphanumeric string - initial character must be a letter followed
by alphabetic characters, digits, "-" or "."
characters. The allowable set of alpha-characters is restricted to the
A-Z and a-z set.
- Style
- 2 | 3
| 3.2 | IE3B1
| M | N4B3
- Required? No
- Description:
This attribute is a text string that provides rendering style
information for the current tag.
- Values:
Please see the description of
inline styles for more
information on how to use this attribute and its
possible values.
- Example (Using RealAudio Plug-In)
- <embed SRC="audio/realaudioclip.rpm" ALIGN="Bottom" WIDTH=40 HEIGHT=20
CONTROLS=StopButton CONSOLE="SoundClip">
<noembed>
Your browser doesn't support plug-ins! Please <a HREF="audio/realaudioclip.ram">play this sound
clip</a> using the helper application instead.
</noembed>
</embed>
- Parent Model
-
%Anchors% |
%Virtual
Formatting% |
%Physical
Formatting% |
%Block Format
Parent% |
%Multimedia
Parent% |
<Body> |
<Address> |
<Basefont> |
<Heading> |
<Marquee>
- Content Model
- %Text% |
%Anchors% |
%Virtual Formatting% |
%Physical Formatting% |
%Line Break Content% |
%Multimedia Content% |
%Block Content% |
<address> |
<basefont> |
<Hx> |
<noembed>
Tips & Tricks
- Although the EMBED tag's primary usage now is to include Netscape
plug-ins (support for which began in its 2.0 version), it also has
another use that dates back to version 1.1. It can be used to embed
other documents in an HTML document, like text files, word processor
documents or sound files (sort of like IE's IFRAME tag, but without
the dynamic interaction capabilities it allows.)
- Internet Explorer now supports this tag for backward compatibility,
but suggests using the new OBJECT tag
(the specification developed by W3) instead. Support for OBJECT is
lower right now than for EMBED, but OBJECT will soon be the new
standard for embedding media in HTML documents. Please keep this in
mind when authoring documents.
- It would be impossible to list every custom attribute for every
Plug-In in existence. If you need this information, contact the
Plug-In creators or go to their web sites.
- It has not been verified if the Height and Width attribute listed
above support the screen percentage as a value.
Browser Peculiarities
- Reports exist of early implementations in Netscape that would crash
the program if the URL in the SRC attribute was invalid.
Boring Copyright Stuff...