Re: Generic Embeddable plugins.

Hi Jean,

> Aside the problem of writing the interfaces, there
> is another concern. I
> do not know of any Netscape plugin or bonobo control
> that will both be
> able to save its contents and print them. Both are
> very important in the
> context of a word processor. To display on screen,
> we should use
> XEMBED/ActiveX, IMHO. I feel printing is by far the
> most difficult
> thing.

For the trivial case where the plugin is a read-only
viewer, many Netscape plugins fulfill this
requirement. The added complexity regarding saving,
however, is a valid concern.

Bonobo has its own problems. No one really writes
Bonobo components. No one wants to write Bonobo
components. Bonobo-UI is deprecated, and will go away
in GNOME 3.0.

KParts and ActiveX are more interesting targets
because they fulfill our requirements and have some
significant buy-in.

> UI integration is another concern of course. Editing
> embedded objects in
> place is nice but not so easy. The size of the
> object can change at any
> moment and we might have to recalculate the page
> layout very often. It
> is also possible to edit in a separate window and
> only negotiate size
> when editing is over.

In the sytems I've worked in, the size of embedded
objects is determined by the calling application. If
you give the component a 200x200 area and it wants to
be 300x300, it will add scrollbars within that 200x200
area. There is no automatic resizing or size
negotiation. Users can resize the plugins. The plugins
cannot resize themselves.

> The most easy thing might be on windows, ActiveX
> integration. But I do
> not use windows anymore. (May be I'm once more
> wrong).

That's my instinctive feeling as well. If you design a
system that can bridge to ActiveX or KParts, you've
adequately solved the problem.

For reference, a description of ActiveX and some of
the more interesting standard interfaces is here:

http://msdn.microsoft.com/workshop/components/activex/intro.asp

Interesting interfaces include IDataObject,
IViewObject, IPersist*

Best,
Dom

                
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Received on Fri Jan 14 20:06:51 2005