The OBJECT element aims to replace and absorb the many methods in use to
include multi-media and embedded content in HTML documents. This element
can replace all of the functionality in the existing APPLET, EMBED, BGSOUND,
SOUND and IMG elements. In order to achieve this, the element has many
attributes that require some explanation.
When using OBJECT in place of the APPLET element, the PARAM element is used
exactly as it would be with the APPLET element.
Description:
This is a method of giving access/focus to an active HTML element using
a keyboard character. This is a common GUI paradigm also known
as a "keyboard shortcut" or "keyboard accelerator"
A single character is used as the value of this attribute. In addition,
a platform-dependent key is usually used in combination with the
ACCESSKEY character to access the functionality of the active field.
Values:
A single, case-insensitive alphanumeric character from a browser's character set.
Align
[2|3|3.2|4]
[X1|X1.1]
[IE3A1|M|N6B1|O]
Standards Details:
Deprecated in HTML 4.x/XHTML 1.0. Dropped in XHTML 1.1 in favor of CSS.
Required? No
Description:
This attribute specifies the alignment of text following the OBJECT
reference relative to the object on screen. LEFT and RIGHT specify
floating horizontal alignment of the object in the browser window,
and subsequent content will wrap around the object. The other options
specify vertical alignment of text relative to the object on the
same line.
Values:Left | Right |
Top | Texttop |
Middle | Absmiddle |
Baseline | Bottom |
Absbottom
Description:
This attribute specifies one or more archives that may contain
components relevant to the Object. This may include data that is also
specified in the DATA and CLASSID attributes.
Values:CDATA
[Space separated list of absolute or relative URLs. If a relative URL is
used, it is relative first to the CODEBASE attribute. All URLs should be
URL encoded where required.]
Border
[2|3|3.2|4]
[X1|X1.1]
[IE6|M|N6B1|O7.1]
Standards Details:
Deprecated in HTML 4.x/XHTML 1.0. Dropped in XHTML 1.1 in favor of CSS.
Required? No
Description:
This controls the thickness of the border around the object (in pixels.)
Values:CDATA
[0, for no border, or a positive integer value.]
Description:
This attribute allows the author to specify the URL of the OBJECT's
implementation, which some URL schemes require in addition to the
CLASSID URL.
Values:CDATA.
[Either an absolute or relative URL. All URLs should be URL encoded where required.]
Description:
This attribute specifies the MIME type of the code referenced by the
CLASSID attribute in advance of actually retrieving it. Browsers may
use this value to skip over unsupported MIME types without needing to
make a network access.
Description:
This attribute indicates a URL pointing to the OBJECTs data, such as a
GIF file for an image. If the CLASSID attribute is absent, the media
(MIME) type of the data is used to determine a default value for the
CLASSID attribute. The implementation is then loaded as if the CLASSID
attribute had been explicitly specified.
Values:CDATA.
[Either an absolute or relative URL. All URLs should be URL encoded where required.]
Description:
This is a stand-alone attribute which indicates an object that is not
created or instantiated until needed by something that references it
(i.e. late binding.) Each such "binding" typically results in
a separate copy of the object (this is class dependent.) So in such cases,
DECLARE is treated as a declaration for making an instance of an object.
See the DECLARE
explanation in the OBJECT specification for more details.
Description:
This attribute explicitly specifies the height of the object in pixels.
It can be used to speed up display of the document being downloaded so it
can pre-render the document with object placeholders while the object downloads.
Values:CDATA.
[Positive integer pixel values or positive integers paired with a "%" character
denoting a percentage of the parent element height.]
HSpace
[2|3|3.2|4]
[X1|X1.1]
[IE3A1|M|N6B1|O4]
Standards Details:
Deprecated in HTML 4.x/XHTML 1.0. Dropped in XHTML 1.1 in favor of CSS.
Required? No
Description:
This attribute specifies the horizontal spacing around objects in
pixels (left and right padding.)
Description:
This provides a way for the object to participate in a FORM submission
process. If the NAME attribute is specified and the DECLARE attribute is
absent, then the browser should use the data obtained from the OBJECT
[the method used to obtain the data from the object is specific to each
object] paired with the NAME in the FORM submission process.
Description:
This allows you to specify a short text string for the browser to display
while it loads the OBJECT's implementation and data. The character data
can include character entities.
Description:
"Tabbing" is a method of giving access/focus to an active HTML
element using a standard keyboard sequence. All the active elements in a
document can be cycled through using this sequence (ex: Windows TAB key.)
The order of the active elements in this cycle is usually the order they
occur in the document, but the TABINDEX attribute allows a different order
to be established. The use of this attribute should create the following
tabbing order cycle if the browser supports the attribute:
Active elements using the TABINDEX attribute with positive integers are
navigated first. Low values are navigated first.
Active elements not specifying any TABINDEX attribute
Those elements carrying a DISABLED attribute or using negative TABINDEX
values do not participate in the tabbing cycle.
Description:
This attribute specifies the MIME type of the data referenced in the DATA
attribute in advance of retrieving it. In the absence of the CLASSID
attribute, it allows the browser to retrieve the code implementing the
OBJECT concurrently with the data and to skip over unsupported MIME
types without having to make network accesses.
Description:
This attribute specifies the URL (usually internal to the document) of
the client-side image map specification to be used if the browser has
that capability. If the argument to USEMAP begins with a "#"
it is assumed to be in the current document. Client-side
coordinate mapping is done by the browser, so is inherently faster in
processing the coordinates than the old ISMAP process for the IMG element.
This attribute is usually only used for static image OBJECTs.
Values:CDATA.
[An absolute URL, a relative URL or an internal anchor name. All URLs should
be URL encoded where required.]
VSpace
[2|3|3.2|4]
[X1|X1.1]
[IE3A1|M|N6B1|O4]
Standards Details:
Deprecated in HTML 4.x/XHTML 1.0. Dropped in XHTML 1.1 in favor of CSS.
Required? No
Description:
This attribute specifies the vertical spacing around objects in pixels
(top and bottom padding.)
Description:
This attribute explicitly specifies the width of the object in pixels.
It can be used to speed up display of the document being downloaded so it
can pre-render the document with object placeholders while the object
downloads.
Values:CDATA.
[Positive integer pixel values or positive integers paired with a "%" character
denoting a percentage of the parent element width.]
Example
<objectcodetype="application/java-vm"
codebase="http://www.foo.com/applet.class" classid="java:program.start"
height="100"
width="100">
<paramname="options"
value="xqz" />
If you can read this you are too close.<br />
AND your browser does not support Java.
</object>
I have to say that I have not really used this element much yet, so
can not offer any advice in this area. Most content for this page
was taken directly from the
OBJECT
portion of the HTML 4 specification.
More about shaped hyperlinks with OBJECTs: If you're
like me, shaped hyperlinks (those extra SHAPE and COORDS attributes for
the A element) didn't make a lot of sense - the HTML spec didn't go out
of its way to explain why an author might choose to use these attributes.
At first blush, one might think that a shaped hyperlink could be used to
define a single clickable sub-area within a hyperlinked object (such as an image;)
You could perhaps also use A elements inside a MAP element instead of using
AREA elements. A third scenario is using shaped hyperlinks within an
OBJECT element to define a clickable map; it is this last which provides
the interesting use-case in supporting browsers. This case acts like a
MAP/USEMAP scenario for an image, and the regular hyperlinks themselves
are not displayed (because they are nested in the OBJECT element.) In
this case though, the shape map is for an OBJECT region and it degrades
better to non-supporting browsers better than USEMAP-imagemaps can. For
browsers that can not support rendering the OBJECT as specified, you are
left with a simple and very usable list of hyperlinks. See the
examples section for the A element.
Browser Peculiarities
Internet Explorer 3.0 only appears to support the use of OBJECT
for use in replacing the APPLET and EMBED elements.
The use of OBJECT for creating shaped hyperlinks is not
supported in Internet Explorer.
Use of OBJECT to import images, videos and sounds is also
not supported by Internet Explorer 3.0/4.0. Limited support exists for
this in version 5.0.
Late versions of Netscape 4.0 seem to support this element after a
fashion. It is nowhere near complete with respect to the W3C
specification, and is often spotty. PC versions of 4.0 do not
seem to have OBJECT support (although late betas seem to have had
some), while a final Macintosh version of 4.0 did support it under
at least one case. If any real support exists for this element in
Netscape 4.0, it would appear to be an exception to the rule of
the specification.
According to a document on the Mozilla web site, Netscape 6 also
supports these attributes (of course they don't have ANY
explanation of how these attributes are used with this claim): HIDDEN,
and MAYSCRIPT. I have not seen these attributes mentioned elsewhere,
and have not been able to verify yet if these attributes are supported
or not, nor do I know their exact usage if so.