So, recently a friend and I had this idea for a browser plugin that would allow a person to have Microsoft Word or OpenOffice.org open inside their web browser, something similar to Adobe Acrobat Reader but for MSW or OO.org. This would be especially handy for people such as myself who use a browser that allows tabbed browsing. I was wondering if anyone knows of such a plugin for the Firefox browser in Windows? Is it even possible? And, if it is possible but is not availible, does anyone know who I should contact so that we can see one made? This would be hugely helpful for things such as web research, because one tab can be notes taken while all the others are used for websites, and that way less desktop and startbar space is taken up. If anyone has anything, please post.
So this is actually quite difficult to do for a couple of reasons. One is that interactive web page activity would need to be translated to word formatting. Anyone who has ever played with front page and read the tags it creates will realize this automation has some real “kinks”.
The other more important reason is that Microsoft is migrating all of their products to their own form of XML. This will mean that Word, Excel, … will all effectively use the same language. If MS was to make that easily extensible to the browser (which is what you would need to make this work) then it would most likely need to become something a little bit more open (like standard XML go figure), which in turn would mean anyone would be able to read or create a word document, without having to bother to pay for Word (or Excel yada yada), they could do it from their browser.
Acrobat reader is free. Adobe doen’t care if it open, cuz they want it open, so you will be inclined to pay for their software.
So after that long winded answer, the short answer, cuz MS would make no money from it. Just my opinion though.
Good point on MS not playing fair with standards, I kinda figured it would be a no-go as far as MS Office is concerned. However, is there still anything preventing this from happening with OpenOffice.org or AbiWord or even Notepad? I’m afraid I have no programing background, but it seems to me that there should be one way for one of these programs to be made into a plugin. Hell, is it possible for a completely different extention to be made for FireFox (or Opera etc.) that would have simple word processing capabilities? Again, pretty much wordwrap is about the only truly needed function, and the ability to save in *.TXT format.
Thanks for the answer by the way, first answer on three different message boards over a month’s time.
I think that most people would just assume either write their own (say hello to Java) and have it export to a .txt file, or they would rather just open something like open office or notepad.
I come from a tech support background, so forgive the next question, but what is the problem that you are wanting to solve behind this.
In other words, I agree it would be cool to be able to tab all applications. I love tabs, and it would be nice to be able to bring up an editor, a couple program windows, and a browser all in one “window” (please note that you can get pretty close with Linux), but is there a specific “issue” you are trying to solve, or is this a “I would really like it”.
Additionally have you submitted a request to openoffice.org? I agree it is a good idea, and they are looking to be cooler than MS in any way they can. So if they aren’t already working on it they might.
Last, no problem about the answer. Point of the boards, right?
The only real problem I have is taking notes online. I hate having to go from application to application when I’m trying to be quick, and even with a 1300 by 1000 pixel ratio (at which point it gets kind of hard to read the text in Firefox) I can’t run Word/OOo side by side with my browser. I’m just trying to make life easier. I even have my taskbar at the top of my screen even though I’m running XP, and it is still hard to switch.
Damn good idea… now if I can just navigate their poorly designed site to find where to do that. In fact, I have another question on these lines, sorry for doing this in this tread, probably against all the rules, but how do I install a new dictionary in OOo? I have the full French hyphenation, dictionary and thesaurus pack unzipped in My Documents folder, but cannot for the life of me find where they should go in the OOo directories. Thanks, sorry for bending the rules.
It may or may not help you, but it may be of interest to others to know about Virtual Dimension. I run two monitors at 1280x1024, and still don’t have the real estate I desire - this gives you Unix window manager-style multiple desktops on a Microsoft platform. Very handy when you have to switch between remote desktop, code, application testing, SQL management, email and web access, and it lets you keep similar things together for tidyness.