Qt-based LiveConnect Plugins for Netscape and Explorer
The Qt-based Netscape Plugin software makes it easy to write
plugins
such that they can be used on both Unix/Linux and Windows/95/NT,
in the Netscape and MS-Explorer, and any other
WWW browser supporting the same protocol.
How-to
 - Download the
    
    Plugin SDK from Netscape, and copy the following files from there to
    $QTDIR/extensions/nsplugin/src :
    
    
        - common/npwin.cpp
        
- common/npunix.c
        
- include/npapi.h
        
- include/npupp.h
        
- include/jri.h
        
- include/jri_md.h
        
- include/jritypes.h
    
 
- Build the Netscape Plugin extension library, found in the
        extensions/nsplugin/src directory of your Qt distribution.
        This produces a static library to be linked with your plugin code.
 
- Read the NSPlugin components in the
        class documentation.
 
- Examine the example plugins:
    
 
- Do most of your development as a stand-alone Qt application - debugging
        Netscape Plugins is cumbersome.  You may want to use signal(2)
        in your plugin to enable core-dumps if your browser disables them.
 
- Note the platform-specific build steps below.
 
- Read about the raw plugin interface
        
        in Netscape's handbook.
 
- If files viewed by a plugin are provided by an HTTP server
        (using a http://... URL) then
        the server must be configured to send the correct MIME type
        for the file, such as by editing the mime.types file
        of Apache.  If the files are viewed via a file://...
        URL, then the browser will use the filename extension to decide
        the file type (and hence the plugin to load) - the user may need
        to set the filename extension in the Helpers or Applications
        section of their browser preferences.
We are working on streamlining the build process for Qt-based Netscape Plugins. 
Building under X11
 - The Makefiles in the examples are appropriate for UNIX/X11.
 
- The user must install the resulting Shared Object in the Plugins
        directory of the browser.
Building under Windows
 - Qt needs to be built as a static library when building Netscape plugins, we are
     looking into the problem of making it work with Qt as a dynamic library.
 
- Plugins must be named npname.dll,
     or the browser will ignore them.
 
- The link step must include:
    
        - /def:name.def
        
- /dll
        
- a compiled resource file defining the
                file/MIME types accepted by the plugin.
    
 
- The user must install the resulting DLL in the Plugins directory
        of the browser.
Known Bugs
The Qt-based LiveConnect Plugin binding code has a number of
minor bugs, but is sufficiently stable for most production applications.
All of these have known solutions which we are working to implement.
 -  MSIE 4.0 support is poor.
 
-  Crashes on X11 if window is closed via window manager.
 
-  Keyboard problems on Windows.
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