Chrome is on the verge of definitly break compatability with NPAPI, and IE breaking with ActiveX the future of Java Applets is dark. Currenty we actively use a secure applet for out client organizations that enables their users to upload a bunch of files from their file system to our servers with the click of a button. The applet has full access to any configured drive, including network drives.
With the imminent death of the applet this functionality is going to be lost if we don't find an alternative. I have already tried to explore different solutions, including the chrome FileSystem API but that is currently only available for Chrome (http://caniuse.com/#feat=filesystem) and has limited access.
Does anybody know about an alternative to keep supporting the much appreciated functionality? Unfortunately we are obligated to support all browser down to IE8.
I've written a post about this here.
Once Google Chrome was the first to announce that they won’t be supporting NPAPI anymore, they were also the first to provide a new architecture in order to rewrite your code to work on their browser. You can take a look on Native Messaging, which “can exchange messages with native applications using an API that is similar to the other message passing APIs”. The problem is that this approach only works on Chrome, is not something that you can adapt to other browsers.
A more useful approach is FireBreath, a browser plugin in a post NPAPI world. Check the words below from one buddy of the project:
“FireBreath 2 will allow you to write a plugin that works in NPAPI, ActiveX, or through Native Messaging; it’s getting close to ready to go into beta. It doesn’t have any kind of real drawing support, but would work for what you describe. The install process is a bit of a pain, but it works. The FireWyrm protocol that the native messaging component uses could be used with any connection that allows passing text data; it should be possible to make it work with js-ctypes on firefox or plausibly WEB-RTC or even CORS AJAX in some way. For now the only thing we needed to solve was Chrome, but we did it in a way that should be pretty portable to other technologies.”
In light of the answer provided by Uly Marins I have researched the options suggested. Unfortunately these options weren't viable for our application, because the mayority of our users do not have sufficient rights to install third party plugins. Additionally the API is still in Beta which won't do any good in a stable production environment.
The main problem we wanted to solve was the abbility to delete files from the accessed folders. It seemed like one of the mayor goals of the removal of the NPAPI support was exactly to prevent this kind of possibility. Therefore we needed to reduce our goals to a simple solution that was still acceptable for our users, with the additional training on how to clear the selected folder manually (because most of our users are almost computer illiterate and needed to access network folders).
Long answer short. The requested solution is just not possible anymore and had to be replaced by a simpler solution and additional training.
Related
I am looking for a good self hosted notes taking app (self hosted via WebDav, I use OwnCloud)
Some tools that I have currently ruled out - and the reasons why. Happy to be mistaken:
Laverna looks alright but it doesn't support WebDav, and I didn't find a straight forward way to sync it via, for instance, a "database" file or similar.
Tagspaces can be synced just by syncing folders but saves the tags in the filenames (not sure I can think of any scenario in which that would be acceptable). The PRO version saves the tags in "sidecar" files, but the functionality is marked as beta and the PRO version is more expensive than Evernote - it means paying quite a bit for less functionalities (even though the idea behind tagspaces looks quite unique) and hoping that it works.
OpenNote and PaperWork projects seem not very mature or active either.
I don't seem to find any other good tool out there - whether paid or not.
Thanks
You can use ownCloud with ownCloud Notes (https://github.com/owncloud/notes) in the web, it uses WebDAV for syncing. And it integrates with QOwnNotes (http://www.qownnotes.org/) on the desktop. There also is an iOS and Android app that talks to ownCloud Notes.
i try to find a good combination of libraries for managing a real-time communication (client/server) using Haxe (only Haxe, not openfl or other framework base on Haxe) targeting flash (swf) for the client and no preference for the server except don't use neko.
The goal is to make a simple tchat and put a display representation of all clients on an aera. Each client can move his representation in this area, and the other sees the movement.
I find some Lib to make this :
https://github.com/soywiz/haxe-ws
https://github.com/MattTuttle/hxnet
haxe-js-kit
But I'm not sure of the best way to adopt.
Do you have any suggestion/remarks/tips to choose the better way ?
Disclaimer: I wrote the library that I am sharing here.
My somewhat new library mphx may be able to help you. It can manage 'rooms' of connections, allows client to server and server to client messaging in the form of events, and best of all, is cross platform. It also works in the web with websockets.
It was originally an extention of HxNet, however I wanted it to be easier to use. Connecting and sending a 'message' with data just takes a few lines.
I have a few examples in the github repository, the simplest being the 'basic' example. One of your requests you have is that it doesn't rely on one of the big libraries (open fl, etc) and mphx doesn't. The basic example proves that, and only runs in terminal. That being said, it can be used with haxeflixel, for that you can see the other examples.
It sounds like your main goal is to have simple, graphic multiplayer. For that you can look at the 'movement' haxeflixel example.
Documentation is still a little skim, and the code is alpha, so it might change or break. That can probably be said for most of the library's you listed though. The best way to install it is like this
haxelib git mphx https://github.com/5Mixer/mphx.git
That will not install the examples though. To run them, either download the repository as a zip, or just git clone it, and go into the examples folder.
Library: https://github.com/5Mixer/mphx
Old video's I made. A little outdated, most likely.
Video 1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=07J0wLXwH0g
Video 2: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MUx2CUtsnTU
How can I integrate Voice over IP into my asp.net website so that user's can speak to each other through the site?
Thanks!
Without extra software (plugins) I don't believe you can at the moment with any mainstream browser (you probably would not want your computer microphone available to your browser as default for security reasons also, although plugins tend to get around this by asking for permission to access the microphone and camera).
Note that it is a non-trivial exercise to make this work reliably due to the need to work around NATS and firewalls - Skype and the new Google Voice chat feature for example dedicate a lot of their effort to achieving this reliably. If you decide to use a plugin it would be worth checking it handles this well (along with general voice quality). See the link below for some background: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Session_Traversal_Utilities_for_NAT.
Is there any reasonable method to allow users of a webapp to download large files? I'm looking for something other than the browser's built-in download dialog - the requirements are that the user initiates the download from the browser and then some other application takes over, downloads the file in background and doesn't exit when the browser is closed. It might possibly work over http, ftp or even bittorrent. Platform independence would be a nice thing to have but I'm mostly concerned with Windows.
This might be a suitable use for BitTorrent. It works using a separate program (in most browsers), and will still run after the browser is closed. Not a perfect match, but meets most of your demands.
Maybe BITS is something for you?
Background Intelligent Transfer
Service Purpose
Background Intelligent Transfer
Service (BITS) transfers files
(downloads or uploads) between a
client and server and provides
progress information related to the
transfers. You can also download files
from a peer.
Where Applicable
Use BITS for applications that need
to:
Asynchronously transfer files in the
foreground or background. Preserve
the responsiveness of other network
applications. Automatically resume
file transfers after network
disconnects and computer restarts.
Developer Audience
BITS is designed for C and C++
developers.
Windows only
Try freeDownloadManager. It does integrate with IE and Firefox.
Take a look at this:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa753618(VS.85).aspx
It´s only for IE though.
Another way is to write a BandObject for IE, which hooks up on all links and starts your application.
http://www.codeproject.com/KB/shell/dotnetbandobjects.aspx
Depending on how large the files are, pretty much all web-browsers all have built-in download managers.. Just put a link to the file, and the browser will take over when the user clicks.. You could simply recommend people install a download manager before downloading the file, linking to a recommended free client for Windows/Linux/OS X.
Depending on how large the files are, Bittorrent could be an option. You would offer a .torrent file, when people open them in a separate download-client, which is seperate from the browser.
There are drawbacks, mainly depending on your intended audience:
Bittorrent is rarely allowed on corporate or school networks
it can be difficult to use (as it's a new concept to lots of people).. for example, if someone doesn't have a torrent client installed, they get a tiny file they cannot open, which can be confusing
problems with NAT/port-forwarding/firewalls are quite common
You have to use run a torrent tracker, and seed the file
...but, there are also benefits - mainly reduced bandwidth-usage on the server, as people download also seed the file.
According to http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa916070.aspx (DnsQuery_W), DNS query libraries are available on Windows Mobile / CE developers for versions 5.0 onwards. Yet, "#include " gives nasty "file not found" errors. What gives?
Strangely enough "dnsapi.lib" is available. Does Microsoft actually expect developers to scavenge the file from somewhere?..
The posted thread here claims that this API is not actually available in Windows Mobile 5 (and perhaps later?), despite claiming otherwise. I looked through the Mobile 5 and 6 SDKs, and didn't see this API either, so perhaps the thread's suggestion might work for you:
If it's a simple host name->IP address
(IPv4 or v6), you can use getnameinfo
in Winsock. The DNSQuery_W is only
needed if you're doing like a
non-A/AAAA query. If you're doing
that, we really don't have any helpers
to do that for you from the OS side -
sorry. You may look around to see if
there's helper library floating around
out there that you may be able to
recompile for CE (assuming you're
comfortable with whatever licensing
agreements they may put on you.)
getnameinfo should be documented here (for Windows Mobile), in case that helps.
If you are really after 'windns.h', I found it in the WM5/WM6/WM6.1 Platform Builders in
\public\common\sdk\inc
The hard part is getting access to the WM Platform Builder if your an ISV. That I can't help you with.