TUTORIAL #4: Showing Non-Silverlight Content To Users Without The Plugin

Monday, September 22, 2008

I just recently updated the navigation on my blog (http://www.jeffblankenburg.com) to be a nice Silverlight control, and realized that I was not really providing an optimal experience for those people that don't have the plugin installed. So since I had to go through it, I thought I would share with you how simple this actually is.

When you add a new Silverlight control to your page, this is what the code will look like:

How To Add Your Non-Silverlight Content

Here's all you need to do to get it to work. Inside the <object> tag, after all of the <param> tags, just add your HTML. In my example, I have a different navigation in HTML for non-Silverlight users. It will display this content when the Silverlight plugin is absent.

Here's the new example, with my content included:

<div id="silverlightControlHost">
     <object data="data:application/x-silverlight," type="application/x-silverlight-2-b2" width="880" height="60">
          <param name="source" value="ClientBin/JeffBlankenburg.com.xap"/>
          <param name="onerror" value="onSilverlightError" />
          <param name="background" value="white" />
          <div id="sitetitle"><h1><a href="http://www.jeffblankenburg.com" class="style3">Blankenthoughts</a</h1><p class="style4"><strong>These are my thoughts. Nothing more.</strong></p></div><div id="menu"><a href="http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=115261" style="text-decoration: none;"><img src="http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=108181" alt="Get Microsoft Silverlight" style="border-style: none"/></a></div>
     </object>
</div>

How do I test this? I have the plugin installed!

That's easy in IE8. Just go to:

Tools > Internet Options > Programs > Manage Add-ons

and choose the Silverlight plugin. You can temporarily disable it there. Great new feature. Here's a picture of the screen (click to enlarge).

There you go. You can now create custom HTML to display for your users that have not yet installed the Silverlight plugin. I'd recommend letting them know they're missing out on the full experience, however, or they will never find your cool Silverlight control.