Browser plugins | technologies for COM port communication

Question

Hi,

I am looking to develop a specialized browser plugin that will interface with the local COM port (mainly read input).

I assume this can be easily achieved with ActiveX technology, but want to make sure Firefox/Safari/Chrome browsers (let alone, Linux & Mac OS) don't get left behind.

Which technologies are available that can serve as an alternative?

In specific - is there an open standard technology which can be used across all browsers (kind of like a "standard browser plugin technology") that can communicate over COM?

Can Java be used to communicate with the COM port through all OS's? (even if so, I would only use it as a last resort, hence asking for more references)

Thanks a bunch!

Answer 1

re: java: Unfortunately Sun dropped support for the Java comm libraries. (boo!) But there is the free rxtx library, and the paid serialio library. I've used rxtx and it works well w/ standard stuff (blocking read/write of data, and rts/cts bits) but i've had problems with USB virtual comm ports that disappear -- rxtx crashes in this case.

Answer 2

The closest you'll get to "standard browser plugin technology" are FireBreath and QtBrowserPlugin, which give you an abstraction layer over ActiveX & NPAPI.

You'd still have to implement the COM communication code for every OS though or find a cross-platform library to do that.