Closed Bug 58795 Opened 24 years ago Closed 24 years ago

OS/2 - DDE Interface Doesn't Seem To Be Working/Exist

Categories

(SeaMonkey :: UI Design, enhancement, P3)

x86
OS/2
enhancement

Tracking

(Not tracked)

VERIFIED FIXED

People

(Reporter: barrymarshall, Assigned: aaronr)

References

Details

Attachments

(4 files)

Tested on my ususal TP770x with WSeB, 1101, SDD. In order to use Nestcape/2 4.61 with Lotus Notes 4.5x for OS/2 without starting a whole mess of browser sessions, I use a small program called NETSCDDE which uses Netscape's DDE interface to send commands to the browser to display a page. NETSCDDE comes with the XWorkplace package, which can be found at http://www.netlabs.org. I tried to invoke Mozilla with this program with the following example: [C:\mozilla\bin]\xworkplace\bin\netscdde -X -p "mozilla.exe" http://www.ibm.com but nothing really happened. NETSCDDE started, looked like it tried to invoke Mozilla, but didn't really do anything after exiting or give a return code. Is the DDE interface available under Mozilla? I'll also send a note to the author Ulrich Möller (ulrich.moeller@rz.hu-berlin.de) and see what he has to say.
The DDE interface is missing Mozilla wide. There is a tiny hook in Windows that allows a URL to be loaded, but the rest of the interface is gone.
Assignee: mkaply → asa
Status: UNCONFIRMED → NEW
Ever confirmed: true
OS: OS/2 → All
Summary: OS/2 - DDE Interface Doesn't Seem To Be Working/Exist → DDE Interface Doesn't Seem To Be Working/Exist
Actually, a simple URL load was all I was looking for. They're tracking this in http://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=25699 , but it's been dead for a while by the looks of it. Even if this gets updated, from the comments in the XWorkplace doc it seems that DDE on OS/2 is not totally the same as DDE on Windows. To quote: "This is done with the use of Dynamic Data Exchange (DDE), for the OS/2 versions of Netscape understand just the same DDE commands as the Windows versions do. These commands are (horribly) documented at http://developer.netscape.com/library/documentation/communicator/DDE These documents assume a detailed knowledge of how DDE works, and believe me, some things ARE different on OS/2." Also, since COM replaced OLE which replaced DDE, are they going to implement more than that?
It doesn't seem like we're going to get more than basic dde, helpwanted.
Component: Browser-General → XP Apps
and send to the component owner
Assignee: asa → don
QA Contact: doronr → sairuh
Updated dependency, retargeted milestone to match other bug, re-pointed back to OS/2, changed severity to match, and added Bill to the cc list (since he was looking for applications that use DDE to figure out what to put in). Component owner's call if they want to bump it back to mkaply at us.ibm.com for tracking with the rest of the OS/2 problems.
Severity: normal → enhancement
Depends on: 25699
OS: All → OS/2
Summary: DDE Interface Doesn't Seem To Be Working/Exist → OS/2 - DDE Interface Doesn't Seem To Be Working/Exist
Target Milestone: --- → Future
Since Don has left, Vishy is taking his bugs in bulk, pending reassignment. thanks, Vishy
Assignee: don → vishy
nav triage team: Don't think we'll get to this for beta1, marking nsbeta1-
Keywords: nsbeta1-
OS/2's DDE isn't there. I've just started working on it so that we'll at least be where the windows code is. But I'm also trying to figure out what mozilla has in mind, too, so I'm not doing all of this work for nothing. DDE under mozilla uses service name of "mozilla", so you'll have to change that much, at least, in your application. Newsgroup posts in netscape.mozilla.public.general on 03/05-03/08/2001 also suggests that the service name for Netscape 6.x is "Netscape6". Mozilla supports only WWW_OpenURL. And it gets this via XTYP_EXECUTE and not the XTYP_REQUEST like it did on 4.x. I am right now altering a simple DDE testcase from 4.x to try to communicate with Mozilla under Win32 so that I can see how much different things are at the moment. Then I'll try to get with Mr. Law (owner of 25699) to see what the plans are for DDE right now.
Barry: would you be the QA contact for this? since this bug is for OS/2 and ibm is going to work on it, i'm moving it out of the netscape assignee pool. aaronr/law: Is it possible XTYP_EXECUTE vs. XTYP_REQUEST was done in error?
Assignee: vishy → aaronr
QA Contact: sairuh → barrymarshall
Target Milestone: Future → ---
No, I don't think that it was a mistake. It looks like mozilla will take the data passed in with XTYP_EXECUTE and treat it like a normal mozilla command line. It parses it for the URL to open and if one isn't there then it looks for whether this should open chrome (xpapp), the composer, the mail UI, etc. So this was done with some clear ideas behind it. But the fact that Mozilla uses XTYP_EXECUTE won't hurt. If anything, it is extending the possibilities for DDE apps since it will treat it like a command line. It shouldn't cause any harm because I don't believe that 4.x ever worried about XTYP_EXECUTE. An app written to Netscape 4.x won't be using XTYP_EXECUTE for anything so Mozilla won't have to take that possibility into account. But I think that it would be bad form to not respect the current 4.x DDE implementation in Mozilla (and, indirectly, Netscape 6x).
I'll admit I know nothing about DDE (other than what it does), so bear with me if these are a bit naive questions... 1) Is it possible for an application to register itself with more than one identifier? Could you register Mozilla as both "mozilla" and "Netscape6" at the same time? I'm just thinking that if someone hard-codes their application to look for Mozilla when they only (or also) support Netscape 6.x you could have some badness. 2) Would it be possible to have a run-time switch to switch the service level name from "Mozilla" to "Netscpe6" identifier? If the goal is for 4.x compatibility, could it also support Netscape4 (or whatever NS/2 4.61 had... ala NS/2 2.02's -3 switch to set the useragent to Netscape 3.0 for tables support)? This would save some external application providers effort re-coding for the new agent.
The problem with all of this is that it is absolutely possible to have Netscape 4.x, Netscape 6x and mozilla all on the same machine and all running at the same time (I'm doing it right now, as a matter of fact, as I track down these problems). Since Netscape4.x, 6.x and Mozilla are all distinct applications, I don't see anything wrong with them having different service names. And don't forget, I think IE supports DDE, too, so apps would already have to worry about different browsers with different service names running on the same machine. Hopefully the apps have the ability to pick and chose which browser they want to communicate with. I guess that Mozilla could try to handle all 3 service names or to pick one based off of a user preference. But I don't think that it is the right thing to do just because the app might really want to start a new 4.x window and NOT a new mozilla window. In my opinion it should be up to the application to properly target the browser it wants to use. The only change I think might be valuable is if Netscape6 also honored the "netscape" service name just because it is the upgrade path from Netscape 4.x. But I imagine the powers that be at Netscape already considered all of this and decided against it for what were probably valid reasons.
I'll take this bug for the implementation of the Windows alike DDEML interface. OS/2 does contain a DDEML compatible library which is also used by Netscape 4.61 but it is not officially documented. I have attached a working header file that contains the definitions from Odin and some OS/2 adjustments. I put it under NPL/MPL. Mike, who's going to work on it?
I am working on this problem. I've got os/2 working as well as the Windows version, at least. If not, please let me know. I basically am reporting nsNativeAppSupportWin.cpp to nsNativeAppSupportOS2.cpp so that we have the latest stuff.
sr=blizzard
Fix checked in
Status: NEW → RESOLVED
Closed: 24 years ago
Resolution: --- → FIXED
So what DDE Application Name does this register as? If it's not the same as NS/2 4.61, there'll be no way I can verify it with NETSCDDE. Maybe it's worth having a switch (either in PREFS.JS or via commandline) that would be able to modify the name, just as we currently can modify the useragent field. I'm guessing this will be in tomorrow's nightly?
The DDE application name is "Mozilla" (ID_DDE_APPLICATION_NAME in splashos2.rc). For Netscape 6.x, I believe that the application name is "Netscape6".
marking verified - basic dde support is working consistent with windows.
Status: RESOLVED → VERIFIED
Product: Core → Mozilla Application Suite
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