On Thu, 29 Nov 2001 20:16:57 GMT, Patrick Gallagher <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>Nice work - I'd ask if you can get it to do that, and then shut down >your computer without having to click on anything, but you might >actually do it - which could be annoying... *lol* I thought about putting in a message asking if the user wanted to shutdown the computer or not, but I decided to keep the whole thing a bit less sinister. :) I don't think shutting down computers would have elicited the same good-natured response I seem to be getting. Shutting down the computer would only take one function call and would work unless you didn't have shutdown priviledges on the NT line of operating systems (WinNT, Win2k, WinXP). I hope people now believe that plugins can do anything that the user can. >So the only arguments I have left against ActiveX are its lack of cross >platform portability (it depends on Windows APIs, does it not?) and the >fact that it can (if granted access by the user) install and run in the >background without the user ever knowing about it... I think the hardest >part to justify on the mozilla platform is the lack of portability to >other platforms. I can understand the platform argument, even though I might not agree with it. ActiveX does depend on Windows APIs, but so does my plugin. No, I'm not going to port it. :) Netscape plugins depend on the platform they were developed for, they are native code. If someone develops a Windows plugin does not mean that the plugin is cross platform. The plugin API provides a cross platform framework for network requests and scripting. Other than that it hands you a platform specific place to draw and handle events and you are on your own. Of course plugin authors are free to make their code as cross platform source compatible as they like within the constraints of the plugin model. I don't think ActiveX would be promoted as the best way to write plugins, I see it as a Windows specific technology that some developers might be more willing to support. To the developer it might make the difference between supporting mozilla or not (they have no intention of making a plugin). As a Windows user, if there is something I wanted and it came down to a choice between an ActiveX control vs nothing I'd take the ActiveX control. I see that Adam Lock has a basic way to use ActiveX controls already, the difference between what he has written an a product suitable for end users is a lot of work and polish (particularly on the user interface for permitting certain ActiveX controls to run while disallowing others). Certainly these kind of platform specific features don't have the priority that cross platform features do, but ultimately intergrating well into all the various platforms where it makes sense is the goal. After installing a plugin and running it once, you can't really make assumptions about what it did so this is no different than ActiveX. Chris Hill [EMAIL PROTECTED]
