LO as an NPAPI browser plugin host?

[Stephan Bergmann]

On 11/16/2012 04:50 PM, Regina Henschel wrote:
> Stephan Bergmann schrieb:
>> There is a little-known(?) feature in LO that allows to plug browser
>> plugins based on the NPAPI standard to display (multimedia) content
>> inside LO documents.  In Writer at least, it is available via "Insert -
>> Object - Plug-in...".
>>
>> The implementation is in extensions/source/plugin/ (which has
>> platform-specific branches for aqua, unx, and win) and np_sdk/.  And it
>> appears to be horribly broken, see below for details.
>
> It works fine here for Flash. I use LO3.6 on WinXP. I can insert a flash
> file via Insert-Object-Plug-in into a presentation. It works in edit
> mode and in presentation mode. So it is not "horrible" broken.

The situation on Windows might be different indeed, given how the 
implementations of LO's plugin host interface, but likely also the 
plugins themselves, differ across platforms.  Thanks for sharing.

>> Given that "standard" multimedia content is already covered via "Insert
>> - Movie and Sound..." (whose implementation is completely unrelated),
>> the only relevant remaining use-case might be Flash content.  But given
>> that I at least was unable to get even that working (see below), I
>> wonder whether this feature is actually used/missed by anybody, or
>> whether we should just drop it completely from our codebase?  (I vaguely
>> remember that in the distant past it even worked to display Java applets
>> via this plugin interface, by plugging a JRE's browser plugin.  Given my
>> findings below, I don't now it would even be worth to try to test that
>> today.)
>
> Jave applets were disabled for security reasons a long time ago, I guess
> around OOo1 -> OOo2. I would have to search for the exact time.

Makes sense.

>> Opinions anyone?
>
> Do not remove it, until there is another option for flash.

And (just to be sure), you do make use of that feature, right?

Stephan