Acrobat is much more than a browser plug in

Dave LeYanna dleyanna at rtl.org
Mon Jul 26 13:55:43 EDT 2004


If I understand correctly, this would be a very nice ability and I certainly
could use it in projects that I am working on.

Dave 

-----Original Message-----
From: use-revolution-bounces at lists.runrev.com
[mailto:use-revolution-bounces at lists.runrev.com] On Behalf Of Troy Rollins
Sent: Saturday, July 24, 2004 5:47 PM
To: How to use Revolution
Subject: Acrobat is much more than a browser plug in


On Jul 23, 2004, at 1:14 PM, Bob Warren wrote:

> To see an example of a PDF being shown in the altBrowser, please visit 
> my little article at http://www.howsoft.com/runrev/svg.htm once again, 
> and scroll to the bottom of the page. You can also download an 
> executable demo from there. From this demo, you will confirm that you 
> can print etc., i.e.
> all the things you would normally do in Internet Explorer.

And all of that is a really good thing. AltBrowser (especially once
available cross platform) is an awesome plug in.

That said, there is a much greater level of PDF functionality to be had.
Imagine building your own custom version of Acrobat reader in RunRev, tied
in with whatever else is in your application, with all of your own controls,
and the ability to manipulate the Acrobat files however you want to,
including modifying and re-saving them. Imagine being able to run handlers
which get as parameters - the current document, the selected page, and the
selected text on the page, plus keywords, metadata, and everything else the
PDF stores. Continue imagining the ability to do a search in an embedded
database, pull up a specific document, turn it to a specific page, and
select text on the page. Or return a list of matching search results across
many documents...

Browser plug in functionality is comparatively minimal, and quite restricted
- this is not a limitation of AltBrowser, but of the Acrobat plug in itself.
Right now, it is the best we have, and that is pretty good. But it can be
great... the right people are involved at this point to start making it more
possible.

Revolution is awesome, but it really needs the support of externals
developers. AltBrowser is one example of an excellent and powerful
functionality that does not have an equivalent in the base Revolution
package (of the very few things.) Strong PDF support is another.

Another upside is the fact that this particular external doesn't require any
specific browser to be installed, would be cross-platform, and doesn't even
need Acrobat Reader to be installed.

The downsides? It likely won't be cheap, and it will likely have a
comparatively hefty file size, roughly 10 megs of distribution resource
files (because it is completely self-contained and makes no presumptions
about what is installed on the user's system.)

If you have any interest in this, please send a quick message to the list
saying so. A brief gauge of the interest level could  help inspire RunRev
and the external developers, to get this technology into our hands quickly.
--
Troy
RPSystems, Ltd.
http://www.rpsystems.net

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