[REBOL] Re: extending IE with Rebol was RE: Re: Easy-Vid
From: bry:itnisk at: 6-Jan-2004 15:43
>But I think you are in a good idea to explore this avenue. May be
someone >more experienced can explain us SIMPLY what has to be done
>and if this can be done what we need to get as information to start
with.
Well I think it's not so much what needs to get done, as in what people
would like done. Some things, like using Rebol to get a window by name,
would of course require command, and I don't think I could do that. But
most of the browser interaction, whether IE or Mozilla I could handle.
So here are a list of things:
Click on a link in windows - link can be in IE, link can be in a word
document, excel, open office documents, could be in a htt template for a
folder in the local filesystem found via explorer, etc. This link call
rebol and passes it commands, what kinds of commands should rebol be
able to accept?
I figure to make this powerful it has to pass info about what
environment the link was clicked in. The window name, the process id,
etc.
Extending the right click menu in IE and Mozilla:
This is basically a registry hack in IE and if I recall correctly an XUL
hack in mozilla. In IE clicking a right context menu calls a modal
dialogue window, which can be a local html file, depending on registry
settings the particular page is visible or invisible. If invisible the
page should just be a script.
I don't have any of the ones I was working on at home so I'll just use
an example extension from google:
If you have the googletoolbar installed you also have a registry entry
something like this:
[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\MenuExt\&Google
Search]
@="res://c:\\winnt\\downloaded program
files\\GoogleToolbar_en_2.0.95-deleon.dll/cmsearch.html"
Contexts
=hex:10,00,00,00
res: refers to a html page found as a resource inside of the
GoogleToolbar_en_2.0.95-deleon.dll but it could in fact be a local file,
if instead of the res protocol file: was used
here's a copy of that file:
<html>
<object id=gg align=top
classid="clsid:00EF2092-6AC5-47c0-BD25-CF2D5D657FEB" width=1 height=1
border=0 vspace=0></object>
<script language="JavaScript" defer>
var parentwin = external.menuArguments;
var doc = parentwin.document;
var sel = doc.selection;
var rng = sel.createRange();
var strhtml = new String(rng.htmlText);
var str = strhtml.replace(/<[^>]*>/g," ");
str = str.replace(/\s+/g, " ");
str = str.replace(/^\s*/,"");
str = str.replace(/\s*$/,"");
if (str.indexOf(" ") != -1)
str = '"' + str + '"';
var bnewwindow = external.menuArguments.event.shiftKey;
var url = "http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=navclient-menuext&q="
+ escape(str);
try {
url = gg.Search(String(str));
bnewwindow = gg.OpenNewWindow();
} catch (ex) { }
if(bnewwindow)
parentwin.open(url);
else
parentwin.navigate(url);
</script>
</html>
so if we wanted to add in right click on explorer that called rebol and
passed it some info, all we would have to do is to write a javascript
that built up the info we wanted to send and then used location.replace
to call the reb:// protocol and pass the info.
The technology is pretty simple, what I'm wondering is - what would
people want of such a protocol?
