Re: [MacPerl] Plug-ins / Applets

[Angus McIntyre <angus@pobox.com>]

At 4:49 pm +0200 23.04.97, Raymond Lauzzana wrote:
> ... is there a way to write Netscape 'plug-ins' in Perl? Is that what
>'droplets' are?

Maybe and no.

First, the second question. Droplets are not NetScape plug-ins. MacPerl
droplets are simply like AppleScript droplets (oh, what a useful
explanation *that* is). What I mean is that they behave like miniature
drag-and-drop applications in the Finder. You drop files on 'em, and stuff
happens. They simply kick MacPerl into life and get it to process whatever
script is enshrined in the droplet, feeding it as arguments the files that
were dropped.

Second, the first question. The answer is 'Maybe'. We already have the
example of MacPerl BBEdit extensions, where Matthias has written a C
wrapper that calls MacPerl to execute a script when the relevant extension
is invoked by BBEdit. It works, it works well, and it allows you to do
insanely complex things very easily.

A NetScape plug-in would be something similar. NetScape plug-ins aren't
that hard to write (he said, having never written one, but having read a
MacTech article about it just recently - November '96, if I recall
correctly). It shouldn't be beyond Matthias's talents to build a similar
shell for plug-ins (while simultaneously completing his PhD thesis and
leaping backwards through hoops of fire with a rose held in his teeth).

The problem is that what BBEdit extensions need to do is relatively simple
and well-defined; they get to process text and give it back. NetScape
plug-ins must accept content of some unspecified form, draw a
representation in an area on the browser window and process user
interaction (leading to more drawing, and perhaps more content as well),
all without causing NetScape to explode (which is no mean trick anyway, to
judge by the number of times I've had to reboot over the last few days
thanks to NetScape). And the user will probably have to have MacPerl
installed to make it work.

Maybe Matthias's new Mac GUI components would make this doable, maybe they
won't. I'm not holding my breath. My conclusion would be that it's feasible
in theory, but not really something you'd want to do in practice.

	A

--
angus@pobox.com                             http://pobox.com/~angus

"Just as Revlon killed the rabbits in laboratory tests,	    "Some of
 Surely we shall die of Sony Walkman video cassettes.        Shelley's
 We screw the outer casing on the latest new machine         hangups"
 To perfect the ingenuity of Doctor Guillotine."           Blyth Power



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