IRIS Browsers FRD

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IRIS Browsers FRD
File Web
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Contents

• Personas
• Requirements
• Issues and Options
• Roadmap and Dependencies

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Personas

• Desktop Users
• IRIS end users that are currently using IE,
  FireFox, Opera, Windows Explorer and other
  browsers.
• IRIS Browser
• Requirements for browser functionality and
  hooks for seamless browser integration into
  IRIS.
• IRIS Apps
• Need basic html rendering Ex CALO Chat, Inspect
• CALO Integration
• Apps which interact with the browsers for
  learning, instrumentation and automation.

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Requirements Desktop Users

• Robust, fast performing, responsive UI
• Ease of use
• Same UI actions/features found in standard
  browsers
• Features which make web browser a compelling
  alternative to standard browsers
• Bookmarks/Preferences
• Navigation/History/Toolbar
• Standards compliant
• HTML, CSS, SSL, Certificates
• Plugins (Flash, Java), JavaScript, edit-copy
  text, print nice-to-have, maybe a requirement in
  future

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Requirements Desktop Users

• Requirements for File Browser
• Minimum requirements
• Delete/move file/directory, rename, navigation
• Launch file/executable
• Do we need all the features of Windows Explorer
  in IRIS?
• Search, change directory structures, undo,
  edit/copy/paste, preview file content, view
  properties of file, change permissions/security,
  create new document of type X, launch
  file/executable, etc.

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Requirements - IRIS

• Embedded UI
• Embed web browser window into IRIS
• Embed different components of file browser into
  IRIS panes.
• Browser automation and instrumentation
• Programatically direct browser to a URI
• Browser events
• user actions, document events, progress
  notification
• Customize user interaction
• IRIS has its own way for prompting/notifying/query
  ing the user and we want to use IRIS's method
  instead of the browsers.
• Ex put our own menu in when user right clicks on
  a link

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Requirements IRIS (cont)

• Low memory footprint/overhead
• Do not want to bog down IRIS
• Web browser hooks
• Instruct web browser not to follow custom IRIS
  links/form submits and handle those links in IRIS
• Embed IRIS UI objects in web page is nice-to-have
• Pass in String/Stream to browser
• UI Requirements
• Drag Drop
• Drag Drop links? Content? - not required now
  but nice-to-haves

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Requirements - CALO

• Instrumentation and Automation
• Document controls
• View URI/file, load, stop
• Scroll to anchor, Page up/down, Find text in
  document
• Note Find text can be performed via 1st param
  below
• Document inspection
• Retrieve page content, all text in page, current
  url, HTTP headers, post data (if any), target
  frame if frames are used, mime type, title,
  colors, date modified, all links in a document
• Ideally, retrieve equivalent of View page info
  on standard browsers (Firefox, IE). See attached
  screen shot of Firefox.
• Ideally, be able to walk the DOM of the page
  through standard DOM API

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Requirements CALO (cont)
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Issues Options
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FileBrowser Status

• Integrated into IRIS, works well
• Some issues, needs some testing
• Error notification still happens on some XP
  machines when scanning drives
• When changing folders in the main view, the
  bottom left folder view does not sync
• Support move file(s)/directory? Other
  requirements?

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Other FileBrowser solutions

• Not much out there...
• JavaExplorer
• http//sourceforge.net/projects/javaexplorer/
• Features MDI, Viewing and saving Images (JPG,
  GIF, BMP), Viewing of any other file as text,
  Multi disk/directories selection, copy, delete,
  search, FTP Sites access as local disks...
• Doesn't work too well...

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Calpa Status

• Already integrated into IRIS
• Stable, well maintained
• Has some bugs we found
• Latest version (2.021) may fix some of these bugs
• Probably best free java browser when it comes to
  small footprint, performance.
• Htmlbrowser open source
• Missing key html tags, not good with tables
• Does not support all of CSS

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Embedded Mozilla Status

• Mozilla Firefox cannot be embedded (yet)
• Runs on a stripped-down version of GRE
• However, we can still embed mozilla with firefox
  browser features, we just don't get the stripped
  down lighter GRE
• WebClient (Blackwood)
• http//www.mozilla.org/projects/blackwood/webclien
  t/
• Backed by Sun, under development, part of mozilla
  code base
• Does not support Mozilla 1.6 yet
• Slow development

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Embedded Mozilla Status (cont)

• JRex
• http//jrex.mozdev.org/
• MPL 1.1/GPL 2.0/LGPL 2.1
• GRE based, no plans yet to support firefox
• New, but stable
• Have working demo with 1.6 mozilla debug build
• Javascript, ssl, plugins work

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JRex vs Webclient

• Similar capabilities/goals
• Both GRE based with modules for browser
  components
• Work on Linux, Windows, Mac
• JRex yet to be fully tested on Mac, but should
  work
• Differing goals
• Webclient is pluggable with IE or Mozilla and
  has a common API shared by both
• JRex is much more stable and feature rich
• JRex is actively looking for volunteer developers
• Webclient may be more promising, but still too
  new and development is slow

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CALPA vs Mozilla Desktop Reqs

• Both fast performing, responsive UI
• Mozilla has some advantage being native, but
  Calpa seems to perform comparable
• CALPA refresh causes screen to flash
• May be able to fix with buffering, and may be
  fixed in CALPA 2.021
• CALPA is lacking in features found in Mozilla
• No support for scripting of any kind
• Does not support ssl, standard plugins
• Can't visit https//calo.sri.com
• Both support print capabilities

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CALPA vs Mozilla IRIS Reqs

• Embedding
• CALPA embeds seamlessly
• Mozilla is not easy to embed, but doable
• Building Mozilla is painful, takes a long time
• Automation and Instrumentation
• Straightforward for both
• Mozilla has prompt API, not sure if it works yet
  though
• Can substitute right-click menu
• Memory footprint/overhead
• CALPA clearly has less, 1M.
• Mozilla Debug build uses 15M
• Need to get more realistic figure from Mozilla
  release build

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CALPA vs Mozilla IRIS Reqs

• Hooks
• CALPA and Mozilla have required APIs/Events
• JRex API for passing html string
• Mozilla nsIDocShell interface has it, should be
  easy to add Jrex wrapper
• GRE API for registering custom content handler
• Ex app GRE has this, need to verify this
  works with JRex
• UI Requirements
• Don't know if Mozilla/Gecko supports Drag Drop
• However, can get mouse move/press events from
  Gecko
• CALPA can embed IRIS UI objects
• May be hard to do this with Mozilla

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CALPA vs Mozilla CALO Reqs

• Document controls in both
• Document Inspection in both
• JRex has full access to the DOM using w3c's DOM
  API
• GRE has APIs for getting page info, but are they
  visible from Jrex?
• Jrex can show the page info views, need to
  determine if the info is accessible via an API
• CALPA also APIs
• Less featured than Jrex/GRE, but can still get
  the info we want

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CALPA vs Mozilla Summary

• Advantages/Disadvantages of CALPA
• Less work integrating into IRIS
• Better seamless integration with IRIS
• Lightweight
• Not feature-rich, is not compelling for end user
• Advantages/Disadvantages of Embed. Mozilla
• One of the best standards-compliant browsers on
  the market
• More heavyweight, how much?
• More research/development time needed for IRIS
  integration
• Still many unknowns from a development standpoint

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Recommended Path

• Evaluate Mozilla embedded using JRex
• Use existing demo as a start
• Pending more research to work out hard issues
• Estimate 1 week dev time, worth the risk
• If Mozilla can't do it, we go with Calpa
• Join the JRex developer team
• Help fix bugs/add features
• Contributions back to Mozilla community
• We can still use both Calpa and Mozilla
• Don't want to eliminate this possibility
• May switch to Webclient some day when that is
  stable
• Build process/packaging is almost identical to
  JRex

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Roadmaps Dependencies
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IRIS 1.3 Milestones

• Use existing FileBrowser for file browsing
• Work out hard issues for JRex up front
• Issues listed in Tasks
• Full instrumentation/automation
• OAA APIs
• Browser neutral IRIS API
• Wrap IRIS Java API around JRex APIs
• Allows us to swap another browser implementation
  and only have to change the IRIS code in one
  place
• Integration of browsers into IRIS Architecture
• Drag Drop, Relations

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Future Long Term

• Switch to webclient?
• Keep an eye on webclient status
• Use multiple browsers in IRIS?
• In some cases, we may still want to use Calpa?
• Ex small simple java browsers like the ones in
  CALO Inspect

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Tasks

• Evaluate JRex and embedded GRE issues
• Hooks for IRIS requirements
• string html
• intercept links, app handling
• Platform support
• Verify JRex works on RH, Panther
• Drag Drop
• via GRE API or mouse events
• Ease of installation/bundling with IRIS
• Memory footprint/overhead
• Customize prompting

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Tasks (cont)

• Evaluate JRex and embedded GRE issues
• Work with JRex developers if any new wrappers
  need to be written
• If it can be done using Mozilla/GRE/xpcom, it is
  not hard to write a wrapper for a Jrex API
• Check out features of mozilla firefox
• How is it better than using GRE with add-ons? Can
  we embed firefox with its lighter GRE?
• Pick web browser based on GRE evaluation
• Or, should we go with a dual-browser solution?
• Evaluate JavaExplorer or other solution

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Tasks (cont)

• Implement browser API for IRIS that all IRIS code
  uses
• We might switch to webclient, so wrap adapters
  around the JRex code
• Write implementation for Browser API
• Integrate IRIS user prefs and bookmarks
• Can implement bookmarks in IRIS if we want, or
  use Mozilla's bookmarks
• Integrate IRIS Arch/UI pieces with browsers
• Drag Drop, Relationships, ...

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JRex Demo