Re: Using webintents to enable HTML+JS plugins

Darin wrote:
> Assuming we invent an intent to handle a mime type (the View intent),
> then I could imagine it opening up the possibility to not only support
> explicitly started activities to handle a particular mime type,
> but also the incidental encountering of mime types (<iframe>) or the
> explicit embedding of a plugin to handle a mime type (<embed>/<object>).
> Traditionally, browser invoke plugins to handle non-built-in mime types.

So, of note, there are some plugins/handlers which handle a given
content type inline, and some plugins for the same content type which
choose not to handle the content type inline. To me, for our purposes
here, we should enable the Partner to be able to choose whether or not
it is willing to be framed. For the case of a link, a Partner should
be able to decide whether it wants to be a new view or an inline
replacement view (which is roughly equivalent to whether it wants to
be framed or not).

> It seems WebIntents could enable HTML+JS to be used to do the same.

Agreed

> I'm sure there are plenty of details to work out about how an <embed>
> tag would magically have HTML content loaded beneath it, etc.

I'd hope there aren't too many. Perhaps the most interesting one is
whether or not we'd want to support scriptability the way the classic
plugins where in the case of a Partner choosing to be willing to be
inline.

Initially, i'd rather not look at that problem space (although it's
definitely interesting).

> There's also details about how the "document data stream" would be surfaced
> to the content.
> One could imagine using Blob or some other streaming mechanism.

I'd be happy w/ a blob or a data url.

Received on Friday, 23 December 2011 01:03:07 UTC