Tony's dashboard

Yes, there is a way to check whether Photosynth is installed or not via Javascript. In fact, that is how it is currently done. Embed.aspx uses a Javascript library to do this --- http://photosynth.net/inc/js/viewer.js. The function that you need to call is "getPhotosynthInfo()". That returns an object with the following properties: isPresent (bool), version (int) and browser (string). The property you are interested on is "isPresent". If "true", then Photosynth is installed. You may elect to just copy the whole function rather than referencing the whole library. However, viewer.js also contains some other useful functions to help you determine whether user meets the minimum system requirements.