Pluglet Developers Guide
Pluglet Display Modes
overview | MIME types | examples | API index
There are two basic display modes for a Pluglet (or Plugin):
- It can be embedded within an HTML page;
- It can fully occupy a page of its own (hence it is referred to as a full-page Pluglet)
Embedded Pluglet
For Pluglets embedded within an HTML page, either the OBJECT
or the EMBED element may be used.
Keep in mind when deciding how you want to embed a Pluglet in an HTML page,
that the EMBED element is not part of standard HTML and that
neither the Document Object Model (DOM) Specification 1 nor 2 lists it.
Also bear in mind that, though both Netscape Communicator and Internet
Explorer do support this element, support is not uniform. Currently, the
direction is moving away from use of the EMBED element
toward the OBJECT element.
Both the OBJECT and EMBED elements offer an
extensive list of attributes. However, OBJECT elements may
be nested within other OBJECT elements, and content-specific
PARAM elements can be used between initial and closing
OBJECT elements.
<OBJECT ...>
<PARAM ... > </OBJECT>
More information about the OBJECT element can be found at
http://www.w3.org/MarkUp/.
The following shows a simple example of the OBJECT element
invoking the (imaginary) ZeePlayer Pluglet when the
.zee MIME type (surfZeeMovie.zee) is
encountered:
<HTML>
<BODY>
<OBJECT type="video/x-zeemedia" data=" http://www.zee.com/surfZeeMovie.zee" name="ZeePlayer" height="400" width="600" >
// Nested objects and parameters could go here.
</OBJECT>
</BODY>
</HTML>
Nested objects (OBJECT elements) might be used to display
other content should the ZeePlayer not be a registered
Pluglet in the browser. Parameters (PARAM elements) could
be used to pass specific information to the objects (Pluglets) when they
are loaded.
The following shows how the EMBED element might handle the same
content:
<HTML>
<BODY>
<EMBED type="video/x-zeemedia" src="http://www.zee.com/surfingZeeMovie.zee" name="ZeePlayer" height="400" width="600">
</EMBED>
</BODY>
</HTML>
Full-Page Pluglet
A full-page Pluglet can be invoked in three ways:
- when a URL pointing to a file of the Pluglet MIME type is entered in the Address/URL field of the browser;
- when JavaScript sets the document URL (e.g.,
document.URL=" http://www.zee.com/surfingZeeMovie.zee") to the URL pointing to the file, then opens it (e.g.,document.open()); - when an applet redirects the browser to the URL (via
java.net.HttpURLConnection).
The result is a new page fully occupied by the Pluglet.