REBOL Web Plugin and IE 5.5

Hi All, Microsoft quietly discontinued support for plug-ins starting with version 5.5. They only support ActiveX now. That means that the REBOL Web Plugin, which works with IE 5.0 and earlier, doesn't work with IE 5.5 and later. RT is aware of it. (In fact, Sterling is the one who found out while we were trying to figure out why the plug-in didn't work on one of my machines). One more thing... I tried backing out the IE 5.5 installation and returning to 5.0. The back-out went fine, but the plug-in still didn't work! Apparently, it's a one-way trip as far as plug-ins are concerned! (If anyone has any idea how I can fix this, I'd appreciate it.) -- Ric

Ric, actually this is a discontinuation of support for "Netscape Style" plugins - the embed tag vrs. the object tag. I think that this is a W3C recommendation in any case - the old style of plugin is being deprecated. This has actually nailed Apple's QuickTime plugin which under Windows was still using the old, Netscape plugin interface (both at an API level and tag level). IIRC Both IE 5.5 and NS 6 support the _object_ tag and IE 5.5 sp2 has gone so far as to remove support for the embed tag, along with it's implementation of the Netscape API for plugins. On the one hand, this isn't a bad thing. Instead of having two APIs running around for plugins and two tag mechanisms... You'll soon only have one. But, in the meantime it's sure to prove the source of some frustration - and plenty of fuel for MS bashing. On another note, this may have more to do with the patent that a medical imaging company has on a particular way to embed software components into browsers - and the fact they've been cleaning the floors with MS in court... - Porter Woodward

Hummm... The "old" plugin has been working fine for me. It worked fine from the day I installed it when it first was released... btw I use 5.5 (actually 5.5.4522.1800 updated with SP1). Mike

How do you use it within 5.5? Can you give an example? I'm guessing that you're not using the <EMBED> tag (thanks to Porter for the background on that, BTW). -- Ric

Well, The version of IE that made the change is 5.5 SP2. Previous versions of 5.5, including SP1 support the EMBED tag and Netscape plugins. Has anyone tried to use the REBOL plugin from an OBJECT tag? Brian Hawley At 12:41 PM 8/22/01 -0400, you wrote: