Rich Media and Windows 8

Question

Hi,
I have installed Windows 8.
It looks and runs great and I think is going to have a big success.
My first surprise is when I have opened a PDF file . By default Windows 8 reads all pdf files with a windows pdf reader applicattion. This means that if  a pdf containing Rich Media elements is opened nothing will happen. You see a "flat" pdf document.
I am thinking about some code to alert the user that Adobe Reader is needed to see the Rich Media elements.
Any ideas?
Thanks in advance.

Answer 1

The best way to ensure a PDF is opened in Reader is to use JavaScript (or more precisely, use the lack of it).
See this post for the basics of showing a message if PS is not present, if you want to extend the idea to require a particular version of Acrobat or Reader  you can modify the JS code to check the values of app.viewerVersion. To detect if you're in Adobe products, look at app.viewerType (which will be "Reader" for Reader, "Exchange" for Acrobat Standard or "Exchange-Pro" for Acrobat Pro).
e.g. suppose you use method 1 (a warning page at the end of the document set as the initial page number, with a JS event to move back to page 0) and your valid conditions are for the user to have Acrobat Pro, version 10.0 or later. The redirection code on the final page would be:
if (app.viewerVersion>10 && app.viewerType == 'Exchange-Pro') this.pageNum = 0;
Anyone opening the file in Reader, OS X Preview, or with scripting disabled, will see the warning message on your final page. Those who meet the requirements will see the first page.
Being suitably vague and handwavey, imagine a mystical future time when Reader on mobile gains a JS  API but still cannot display Rich Media - in that case you could detect the problem directly by trying to open a reference to the RMA inside a try-catch loop - if you throw an error or get an undefined object you know something is blocking your content. The same technique can be used to detect users of Acrobat or Reader XI who've disabled Rich Media via the security message bar.