How do I develop browser plugins with cross-platform and cross-browser compatibility in mind?

Question

My company currently has a product which relies on a custom, in-house ActiveX control. The technology it employs is itself cross-platform by design, but our solution is obviously limited to Internet Explorer on Windows.

Long term we would like to become cross-browser and cross-platform (i.e., support other browsers on Windows, support the Macintosh or Linux).

Obviously if we wanted to support Firefox on Windows I would need to write a plugin for it. But if we wanted to support the Macintosh, how do I attack that? Is it possible to compile a version of the Firefox plugin that runs on the Mac? Would I be remiss to not also support Safari on the Mac? Are there any plugins which are cross-browser on a platform? (i.e., can any browsers run plugins for other browsers)

What do people generally do when they want to support multiple platforms with a process that will need to be cross-platform and cross-browser compatible?

score 9 · Accepted Answer · edited Sep 04 '11 at 20:58

9

The answer is firebreath

edited Sep 04 '11 at 20:58

taxilian

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answered Nov 08 '10 at 17:31

Tom Kidd

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Edited your post to post to http://www.firebreath.org instead of the google code page; we don't use that anymore =] – taxilian Sep 04 '11 at 20:59

score 7 · Answer 2 · answered Sep 04 '11 at 17:56

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You could also try kango

answered Sep 04 '11 at 17:56

J _

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kango looks interesting, but it is for extensions, not plugins. see http://npapi.com/extensions – taxilian Sep 04 '11 at 20:58
@taxilian I think the OP wants extension – Wakan Tanka Sep 17 '15 at 08:59

score 2 · Answer 3 · edited Oct 01 '12 at 09:25

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Maybe FireBreath is a good choice for you! I just compile a test plugin on vs2010 and it's compatible with IE9, Firefox and google chrome.

edited Oct 01 '12 at 09:25

devrys

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answered Sep 28 '12 at 00:18

Bing

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Any chance you are affiliated with FireBreath? – Andrew Barber Oct 02 '12 at 12:31
I am a newbie to FireBreath now. But I think it's a amazing tool to create a plugin. – Bing Oct 07 '12 at 01:26
it is portable to Mac? – andilabs Jan 31 '14 at 20:47

score 2 · Answer 4 · answered Apr 02 '10 at 05:35

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I would consider using Java with native libraries. Long time age I've seen video chat developed in such way. Applet included native code for every supported platform. I'm not a java programmer, I can't tell you details, but it worked.

answered Apr 02 '10 at 05:35

Eugene

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score 0 · Answer 5 · answered Apr 01 '10 at 16:57

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use COM on Windows and XPCOM/Corba in Firefox/Linux.

answered Apr 01 '10 at 16:57

Stefan Steiger

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OS X is also just a Unix, so XPCOM should do it there, too. – Stefan Steiger Apr 02 '10 at 17:44
XPCOM isn't supported for creating browser plugins in Firefox anymore, and on windows COM would only work on IE. On all platforms, XPCOM would only help on Firefox even back when it was supported for plugins. (note, I realize that it can still be used for extensions) – taxilian Sep 04 '11 at 20:57

How do I develop browser plugins with cross-platform and cross-browser compatibility in mind?

5 Answers5