Problems starting up GE 5 Plugin

[DanielB]

Hi,

after the update to GE Plugin ver 5 I have problems starting up the
plugin in a win32 client application. I embed the GE COM control in a
windows form, I'm not embedding the plugin in a web browser control.

To start up the plugin I did the following:

1. a call to pluginInstance->start_()
2. wait some time and check periodically whether pluginInstance-
>testEarthInitialized() returns 1
3. aquire a GEWindow interface with pluginInstance->getWindow and make
the window visible with window->setVisibility(1)

But this no longer works for me as the start_() method got a new
parameter, namely a main data base to use. What should I pass there?
Besides that: what does the return value of this method mean?
The testEarthInitialized_() method had been obviously renamed to
testEarthFullyInitialized_(). When I call this I always get a return
value of 203, never 1 as expected.

Do I miss something?

[Cowboy]

Same here... doh! I'm certain the new param for Start_ is looking for
something that tells it Earth versus Mars. I'm surprised it's not part
of the documentation enhancements released?!

[Pollens]

Creating an AxHost-able interop from the ActiveX plugin (plugin_ax.dll
located in the versioned ie subfolder of the plugin installation)
in Visual Studio (with aximp.exe) reveals the new signature as start_
(string mainDatabaseURL).
I don't know what is meant with a mainDatabaseURL though.
I tried sniffing around in the network traffic (by trying one of the
webdemo's for the new plugin) if such an URL is published in the
protocol the plugin uses
to access Google's geo data servers and it came up with kh.google.com
and csi.gstatic.com. Trying these URL's was not successful (yet).
I also tried an empty string and a URL with a valid API-key in it
(like www.google.com/jsapi?key=<your key here>) but that didn't work
either.

Hosting the plugin directly (by AxHost) in a WinForms application only
gives me a black screen now.
I get camera data that make sense though when navigating blindly over
this screen so there is some kind of black globe present in a black
sky.
I also get COM-like communication problems when setting the visability
of a navigation control.

Hosting the new plugin indirectly (within a WebBrowser control) in a
WinForms application seems to work fine though
(it's the scenario that Fraser Chapman applies) but it is a kind of a
laborious detour because it requires you to bridge all WinForms
actions to javascript and back.
It also requires you to deploy your javascript code publically and you
need a valid API-key.

Does anybody know if there is any tooling for generating the
javascript bridging automatically (for hosting in a WebBrowser
control) from an ActiveX component? I think this should be possible
(In fact I regard this as a extra future feature of aximp). It
resembles initiatives like Script# or Volta a bit.

Regards,

Pollens

> of the documentation enhancements released?!- Hide quoted text -
>
> - Show quoted text -

[darbid73]

Just a couple of observations from things I have read. Also please
note I am a beginner at computer languages.

I have read that all those properties/methods you can see in your
object browser with "_" at the end are not guaranteed to stick around
and may dissappear with updates. (but I doubt it)

You might also need to read the TOS of the plugin as your use of older
versions may not comply with I think section 9 which talks about the
plugin being on a publically accessable website. (i am not giving an
interpretation just pointing out something to read and consider)

So what have you found? Well in googles rush to get product to market
they probably allowed some unintended uses for the previous versions.
For example up until this Ver5.0 enterprise people (the people that
pay google 10,000$ of even more per year) could not use there own
server with the plugin. (i have no idead what these are and have not
used them but I guess it is a way to have confidential information put
onto google earth) (remember Google is as transparent as a peice of
toilet glass - so you can bet that any information you send to a
webbrowser google earth can be saved by them(and they talk about this
in the TOS as well.). Now with ver5 this has been implemented. (I
think) I am guessing that the only intended use for AxHost is for the
Enterprise people and the server that you add there is their internal
server.

in .NET languages you can pretty easily get two way communication
between your webbrowser and application. If you see Frasers example
you will see this done in C# but as far as I can tell his
implementation can be done in an .NET language.

If you are using old COM languages it is a little harder. As far as I
can see there is no native communication from the webbrowser to your
application. To send demands to the webbrowser you use
"parentWindow.execScript".

On Apr 5, 9:06 am, Pollens wrote:
> Creating an AxHost-able interop from the ActiveX plugin (plugin_ax.dll
> located in the versioned ie subfolder of the plugin installation)
> in Visual Studio (with aximp.exe) reveals the new signature as start_
> (string mainDatabaseURL).
> I don't know what is meant with a mainDatabaseURL though.
> I tried sniffing around in the network traffic (by trying one of the
> webdemo's for the new plugin) if such an URL is published in the
> protocol the plugin uses
> to access Google's geo data servers and it came up with kh.google.com
> and csi.gstatic.com. Trying these URL's was not successful (yet).
> I also tried an empty string and a URL with a valid API-key in it

> (likewww.google.com/jsapi?key=<your key here>) but that didn't work