The ActiveX Plugin is broken in Firefox 3.0b1
Hoagiebot
based plug-in developed by Adam Lock of Netscape Communications that allowed
you to host ActiveX controls on webpages in the Windows version of the
Mozilla Firefox browser. The source code for this plugin resides in the
Mozilla Firefox source code tree at the following location:
mozilla\embedding\browser\activex\src\plugin\
Because this plugin has always had a lot of dependencies on core Mozilla
Firefox source code, it has always been very version specific. In other
words, each time Mozilla released a new minor version of the Firefox browser
you had to redownload the Firefox source code for the new version and
compile a new version of the plugin from it. This was done easily enough by
adding the build switch "--enable-activex" to your .mozconfig file before
you compiled the browser. Adam Lock himself originally compiled binaries of
the ActiveX plugin for people to use and made them freely available for
download off of his website. He compiled binaries of the plugin for Firefox
versions 1.0, 1.0.3, 1.0.4, 1.0.6, 1.0.7, and 1.5.x. Later, when for
whatever reason Adam Lock quit building compiled binaries of the plugin
after Firefox 1.5 was released, I decided to pick up where he left off by
compiling binaries of the plugin for Firefox 2.
I have successfully built fully-working builds of the plugin from versions
2.0.0.7, 2.0.0.8, 2.0.0.9, 2.0.0.10, and 2.0.0.11 of the Firefox source
code, however when I tried to create a working build of the plugin from the
Firefox 3.0 Beta 1 source code things didn't go so well. While the plug-in
compiled and built just fine without any error messages as far as I could
tell, when I copied the resulting "npmozax.dll" file into my Firefox 3.0b1
installation's "plugin" folder (as well as copying the plugin's other files
into their respective folders), the plug-in failed to function when I tried
to load a webpage with an ActiveX cdontrol on it. I have a test page on my
website that I have been using to test my Mozilla Firefox ActiveX plugin
builds since the Firefox 1.0.x days. When the ActiveX plugin for Firefox is
working properly, the webpage will load a ActiveX-based Microsoft Agent
character and its associated ActiveX-based L&H 3000 Text-to-Speech engine so
that the character can talk to you through your computer's speakers. When
the ActiveX plugin for Firefox is not installed or not working properly, the
page will instead greet you with an error message written in red text
telling you so. When I use Firefox 3.0b1 with a Firefox 3.0b1-based build
of the plugin to visit the test webpage, it throws up the error message as
if the plugin was never installed. Also, just so that you know, Firefox
2.0.0.x-based builds of the plugin won't function when used with Firefox
3.0b1 either-- I didn't think that they would, but for thoroughness I tried
it anyway.
I wrote a Bugzilla report for this problem, and added detailed steps so that
you could reproduce this problem for yourself on the report. You can find
my Bugzilla report for this problem here:
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=407134
This is my first Bugzilla report that I have ever filed, so be kind if I
didn't follow the format exactly correct the first time. I am bringing this
problem to the attention of the mozilla.dev.tech.plugins group to try to
raise some awareness about it. Since little in the actual plugin source
code has changed over the years, I am forced to speculate that it is one of
the many changes that have been made to the core files that the plugin is
dependent on between Firefox 2.0.0.x and Firefox 3.0b1 that is now breaking
the functionality of the plugin. Since I am in no way knowledgeable with
how every single core file that the plugin is dependent on works this
problem is way over my head, and I do not believe that I will be able to
hunt the problem down and fix it on my own. Since I rely heavily on this
plugin for my own projects, it would be a devastating blow to my future
plans with Firefox if this plugin no longer worked in Firefox 3. It would
be much better if a real expert on the entire Firefox platform could take a
look at this. In addition, since this plugin is part of Firefox's official
source code and is included in every source code release, that makes it all
the more important to keep it up to date and working so that you don't have
dead and decaying branches potentially corrupting the entire Fireox 3 source
code tree.
Any help or insight at all as to why Firefox 3.0b1 builds of the ActiveX
plugin are not functioning would be very greatly appreciated, and if anyone
could look into actually fixing the problem for me that would be even more
appreciated. I would be more than happy to help however I can, however
since I am rather new to serious-level C++ Firefox hacking whatever help
that I can provide will be rather limited. Thanks in advance for anything
that you can do for me, and hopefully this problem will turn out to be easy
to fix!
Sincerely,
Hoagiebot
dbri...@gmail.com
wrote:
> I have successfully built fully-working builds of the plugin from versions
> 2.0.0.7, 2.0.0.8, 2.0.0.9, 2.0.0.10, and 2.0.0.11 of the Firefox source
Could you please post instructions (or a link to them) on how to
compile this plugin on WinXP?