Received today. Please discuss, then someone can reply appropriately ;) J. ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Tue, 26 Sep 2006 12:42:53 +0100 From: R-Comp <rcomp(a)rcomp.demon.co.uk&gt; To: jmb202(a)ecs.soton.ac.uk Subject: Netsurf acting as plugin for HTML rendering in other applications Hi there! I hope I'm writing to the right person regarding Netsurf. For a long time, WXL has offered itself as a "plugin" via Acorn's Plugin API to allow other applications to render HTML if required - indeed, it uses the API itself to do iFrames. At the moment, if an application wants to render HTML content, it needs to create its own HTML renderer, which (as we both know) is a crazy undertaking. As a result, programs like Messenger don't have much in the way HTML email facilities. But of course, it isn't just Messenger - I was reading today about one of the main new features in FileMaker database on the Mac - a database object that showed web content. Yep, you guessed it, it was basically an embedded browser object (presumably using whatever HTML renderer is default on OS-X). A nice feature for DataPower 3, I thought. And it goes beyond that - with plugin-based HTML rendering applications could offer HTML-based content (eg. config screens or other dynamic interface objects) as needed. Assuming the Acorn Plugin-API meets with your approval, I suspect it wouldn't be too hard to make NetSurf act as a plugin that other apps could call to do HTML rendering. Support for this in the main free browser would make it far more acceptable in terms of use, as everyone would have access to a plugin-based HTML renderer. Any thoughts? Andrew PS, the other reason I think this would be a great addition to Netsurf is that for plugin-based rendering, lack of Javascript is actually a benefit (fewer security issues), and speed is very important - again a Netsurf strength. -- R-Comp 22 Robert Moffat, High Legh, Knutsford, Cheshire WA16 6PS Tel: (+44) 01925 755043 Fax: (+44) 01925 757377 http://www.rcomp.co.uk/