Hi all,
I am looking for a general purpose NPAPI plugin that can used to invoke GetRight/FlashGet/OrbitDownloader/InternetDownloadManager/etc.
Has anyone written that already? It's like FlashGot for NPAPI browsers.
+1
A:
NPAPI plugins are for embedding alternative content into a page, not for generally extending the browser with new functionality.
What you are looking for are extension or addons (sadly and confusingly also sometimes called plugins) and those are mostly browser-specific - search first before writing your own.
Georg Fritzsche
2010-04-03 02:24:29
Addons are browser specific and they can not to do anything outside a browser box e.g. call an external download manager.That why a plugin must be used, dude.
est
2010-04-03 05:18:04
@est: I already said they are browser-specific and also that plugins are not the right tool for the job - you'd have to embed/inject them in every page, can't extend the UI page- or browser-wide, ... FlashGot by the way *is* an extension. *Sidenote: i am not anyones "dude"*.
Georg Fritzsche
2010-04-03 06:42:48
Oh I get it. You mean I have to write an addon for each of these browsers, right?But what I am looking for is a NPAPI plugin to rule them all, so that I don't have to write a damn addon for every NPAPI-compatible new browser that comes out in the future.
est
2010-04-04 03:08:31
@est: Plugins *can't do* what you are looking for. They can't hook into the browsers UI and would have to be embedded in every page via tags.
Georg Fritzsche
2010-04-04 18:12:44
Then what alternative technology do you suggest? AFAIK some web scrapper software like this one http://cn.wizbrother.com/wizknowledge/copy.js use `<embed type='application/x-wizbrother-wizknowledge-ax' width='100' height='20' "+params+"></embed>` to collect data from browsers. You don't call that a plugin?
est
2010-04-05 07:16:43
@est: You can't get around extensions in this case. Collecting data from browsers is a very different case - you have control over the pages it has to be embedded into and you don't need to hook into the browsers UI actions.
Georg Fritzsche
2010-04-05 07:36:15
@gfIf you ever looked into any modern download tool, it's quite complicated. You do not only need to pass URL to an external program, but also Referer, user-agent and cookie. I don't see you can implement this using only addon/extension without any plugin functionality.
est
2010-04-05 08:53:09
@gf AFAIK there is no way to invoke an external program in Chrome except NPAPI for the moment.
est
2010-04-05 12:53:23
@est: I don't see how you could implement this *using only plugins*. If Chrome really doesn't have any way to invoke an external program yet you might need to inject plugins as a workaround - there is still no way around using extensions.
Georg Fritzsche
2010-04-06 02:28:35
@gfPlugins are scripted using javascript of course. But the *only* problem I am facing is javascript in browsers can not get out of the browser box. Thus the quesion :)
est
2010-04-07 09:19:24
@est: Ah, now i get you. You want to solve the sand-boxing problem of some browsers via an NPAPI plugin. I am not aware of any existing one, if you start writing your own consider using FireBreath (http://code.google.com/p/firebreath/). It already takes care of the platform details for plugins on Win, Linux and OSX - though OSX 64bit enviroments are still a bit flaky.
Georg Fritzsche
2010-04-09 19:42:14
@gf that's very helpful link. Thanks a lot :)
est
2010-04-11 10:02:41