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I am looking to develop a specialized browser plugin that will interface with the local COM port (mainly read input).

I assume this can be easily achieved with ActiveX technology, but want to make sure Firefox/Safari/Chrome browsers (let alone, Linux & Mac OS) don't get left behind.

Which technologies are available that can serve as an alternative?

In specific - is there an open standard technology which can be used across all browsers (kind of like a "standard browser plugin technology") that can communicate over COM?

Can Java be used to communicate with the COM port through all OS's? (even if so, I would only use it as a last resort, hence asking for more references)

Thanks a bunch!

Arkadi
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The closest you'll get to "standard browser plugin technology" are FireBreath and QtBrowserPlugin, which give you an abstraction layer over ActiveX & NPAPI.

You'd still have to implement the COM communication code for every OS though or find a cross-platform library to do that.

Georg Fritzsche
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  • Thanks, but if this is the case - how does Webex operate consistently across all platforms? and others such as Gotomeeting? Of course they don't use COM communication but they do interface with the entire desktop/files/camera/microphone/etc. – Arkadi Oct 25 '10 at 21:20
  • @Arkadi: I don't know what e.g. Webex uses - they claim you don't have to install anything so they have to use Flash, Java or Silverlight which i have no experience with. I only tried to address the *"standard browser plugin technology"* part - if platform agnostic solutions like Jasons suggestions work for you, go for it - it will probably save you quite some time. – Georg Fritzsche Oct 26 '10 at 06:32
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re: java: Unfortunately Sun dropped support for the Java comm libraries. (boo!) But there is the free rxtx library, and the paid serialio library. I've used rxtx and it works well w/ standard stuff (blocking read/write of data, and rts/cts bits) but i've had problems with USB virtual comm ports that disappear -- rxtx crashes in this case.

Jason S
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  • Thanks Jason - using serialio is interesting, will JRE let me use this library to read input from a COM port and proxy it into a local TCP port, or will it require special permission from the user every time? – Arkadi Oct 25 '10 at 21:16