NN "#" Solution?

[Lofton Henderson <lofton@rockynet.com>]

CGM Open Members --

I haven't had a chance to evaluate this, and am about to begin
travelling.  However, it appears that Netscape folks believe there
is a solution or workaround.  I have attached recent activity on the
"Bugzilla" tracking of the issue (go see
http://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=51068
for the entire dialog).

I have been active on this, on a couple of fronts.  Most recently, I sent the below update and clarification, as well as a request to my Netscape contact to work with us, engineer-to-engineer, as we did with Microsoft.  The two messages from McCluskey (below) are the apparent result.  

As I said, I don't have time to look carefully and evaluate right now.  I'm interested in vendors' opinions on the suggestions.

Regards,
-Lofton.

Bugzilla dialog fragment...

------- Additional Comments From lofton@rockynet.com 2001-03-08 15:27 -------

The problem description needs clarification.  Indeed, a 4.73 plugin could not be
successfully adapted and made to function on 6.0, and this still remains a
problem.  It might be inferred from the description and bug thread so far, that
4.73 correctly handles "#" fragments.  This is incorrect.  We have verified
this mishandling:  in the case that the base URL is unchanged, but the fragment
specifier (following the "#") changes, NN 4.73 does not communicate the new
URL+fragment to the plugin.  WebCGM and SVG both use object addressing syntax of
the general form:  <baseURL>#<objectID>.  Therefore one cannot, for example from
HTML, successfully consecutively address two different objects within the same
picture in a WebCGM or SVG content.  -Lofton.



------- Additional Comments From Kevin McCluskey 2001-03-08 15:47 -------

Ok, peterl@netscape.com and I just looked at this problem.

We believe the solution is to go to the document and retrieve the src attribute
instead of using the URL passed to the plugin. On 6.x this can be done using the
new plugin API. you can retrieve the src attribute in it's raw form from the
document using a GetAttribute call.

For info on the new plugin API look at
http://www.mozilla.org/docs/plugin.html#nsiplugintaginfo

The nsIPluginTagInfo has a GetAttribute method that you should be able to use to
get the src attribute's content which will include the raw URL with.

For 4.x based browsers the solution is similiar. Instead of using the new plugin
API you will have to use LiveConnect to retrieve the src attribute from the
document.



------- Additional Comments From Kevin McCluskey 2001-03-08 16:03 -------

Here is the URL for documentation related to liveconnect plugins in 4.x
http://home.netscape.com/eng/mozilla/3.0/handbook/plugins/
You will need to create a Java class to get the src attribute out of the
document. Using LiveConnect you can access the JavaClass from your plugin.

There is also an adapter which allows you to write plugins with are compatible
with both 4.x and 6.0.

*******************

Lofton Henderson

1919 Fourteenth St., #604

Boulder, CO   80302

Phone:  303-449-8728

Email:  lofton@rockynet.com

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