Basically, how do you make a website report that a visitor's browser needs a specified plug-in to display its contents properly, along with a link on that message to download the plug-in?

Oh great computer science boards, grant me an answer!

Browsers usually take care of that automatically. Some media types like Adobe Flash or Shockwave do have some parameters for the embedded object to provide a download link for the appropriate plugin. You'd have to look at their documentation for details.

Does that mean you'd have to personally ask a browser vendor to facilitate the action (of those parameters) on behalf of your media file type, or does it mean that ANY company simply just has to write specific parameters into an embedded object to pop up the download link?

 

For example, can I just duplicate their embed code, replacing all their links and software references with my own?

 

I'm not sure what you mean by looking at their documentation. On the website of Adobe, or at the website that launched the plug-in notification?

*bumper*

 

That depends on what you're after.

Are you going to develop your own proprietary plugin technology?

This is a bit more complicated than providing a link or embedding a file. Just search for 'plugins' and you will find useful links. Don't forget that you have

different browsers and operating systems, so you may need detection of those. I don't know if you're using a server side language, you would want to do

detection as early in the process as possible to avoid having to reload the page.