Patent for embedded web objects = PITA for devs?

[Darren Dirt]

Microsoft recently lost a patent suit, as a result their latest update cripples pretty much any embedded IE object, by the looks of it... :roll:





How Microsoft's ActiveX Fiasco Unfolded, and Its Effect On Firefox



http://www.emailbattles.com/archive/battles/ip_aadahdadhj_jf/

Posted on 03/08/2006 @ 12:11:20 in Intellectual Property.

The latest update from Microsoft isn't as much for your protection as for Redmond's. It changes ActiveX controls in an attempt to avoid continuing patent infringement.



Microsoft recently lost the court battle with Eolas Technologies over US Patent 5,838,906, Distributed Hypermedia Method For Automatically Invoking External Application Providing Interaction And Display Of Embedded Objects Within A Hypermedia, a.k.a. 906.



Before you start gloating over Yet Another Microsoft Stumble... You'd better read the patent abstract:





A system allowing a user of a web browser to access and execute an embedded program object. The program object is embedded into a hypermedia document much like data objects. Once selected, the program object executes on the user's computer or may execute on a remote server or additional remote computers in a distributed processing arrangement. After launching the program object, the user can interact with the object as the invention provides for ongoing communication between the client and browser programs.





In other words, 906 technology lets you build interactive browser-embedded apps that are 100% operating system agnostic. The patent also covers most other interactive content, including ActiveX controls, Adobe Reader, Firefox plug-ins, Java applets, QuickTime Player, Windows Media Player, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera.







...comments...

Posted on 03/29/2006 @ 11:21:51 CST by francisco vazquez

Hi, I'm worried because of a mail I just received saying that after april 11th all webpages that uses macromedia flash embedded must change code so not to get sued and useres must click over flash objects to load, does anyone know if this is true or false alarm.



Thanks

Francisco V







Posted on 04/03/2006 @ 10:31:04 CST by RD

I have been a web developer now for almost 8 years now. Almost 75% of my projects use Flash technology. I can tell you the work involved on my end for making the necessary code changes to my clients sites is no small task.



Specifically because of this, I am retiring from the web development business as of the end of the month and will be working full-time for a family business.



Good riddens to the web business.

PS: PITA = Pain In The Ars

[Lazybones]

Installed the patch.. Basicly adds an extra mouse click to any control before it allows interaction.



You know like when you go to watch a movie trailer and there is a static quicktime image of a blank player and when you click it it begins the movie.



That is about it.



Also not an issue on other browsers and the company stated they where only going after MS.  :roll:

[Darren Dirt]

For a movie trailer I got no problem with that.



However,



MOST embedded controls do more than just display some audio or video. They are INTERACTIVE, they allow the user to interact with some data in some way. Usually via mouse and/or keyboard. And the user is presuming it's gonna be an intuitive interface, similar to what they have experienced for, oh, I dunno, the last 10 years!?





So here is one example of how this update might/will/alreadyhas affect non-trailer-displaying web applications...



http://www.lotusrockstar.com/blog/robblog.nsf/d6plinks/6MYTMG

Symptoms I have seen so far in QuickPlace:



1. All ActiveX controls require you to click on them, press the spacebar, or press enter to activate them before using them.  This happens whenever creating a new page for both the rich text and attachment controls.  This applies every time (see #5 for maximum suckage).



2. As a result, you cannot drag and drop a file to an attachment until after you click on it to activate.



3. You cannot double-click on a file in read mode to launch it, since the first click activates the control.



4. Same applies for the import control for imported pages - cannot drag and drop until it is clicked.



5. I just discovered that since it must be activated every time, that the following occurs: Create a page, activate the RT control. Add a graphic, activate the add graphic control. Return to the page, you have to activate the RT control again to use it.  Same for links, same for styled text.



6. This one you have to love.  If you tab into the Rich text control, the tooltip says to "Press SPACEBAR or ENTER to activate and use this control".  Well pressing ENTER on a form in edit mode (duh, Microsoft!) attempts to submit the page.  This of course would apply to any form, anywhere.  NICE FIX.



7. At least once, the ActiveX control that detects whether I have Word, Powerpoint, or Excel failed mid-stream after clicking "New..." and showed radio buttons but no icons or text for the options.



I personally have experienced five hard hangs in IE6 in 2 days.  Some relationship is implied...ActiveX or the Sun JVM loading for Sametime Links, or both.  Go ahead, browse around, visit a few Flash sites.  Isn't this FUN!!!

Um, yeah, sounds GREAT (almost like Microsoft wants to cripple non-MS embedded controls, naaaahhh they wouldn't want that now would they :roll:) ... But if you want to have time to re-code before the crippling goes into effect, yay, just uninstall the dang update (until the next "rollup security package" of course):



http://www.lotusrockstar.com/blog/robblog.nsf/d6plinks/6N7PFE



"The update we want to remove is #912945."





PS: Microsoft has a page describing a MS-centric fix/workaround/?, apparently: http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/?url=/workshop/author/dhtml/overview/activating_activex.asp





...I can sympathize with the commenter above who said "to hell with web dev!" cuz of this

[Lazybones]

Um, yeah, sounds GREAT (almost like Microsoft wants to cripple non-MS embedded controls, naaaahhh they wouldn't want that now would they :roll:) ...

This impacts all embedded controls MS ones included under IE, again not an issue with firefox..

Also after making the rounds with my browser I found it hard to find a real world example where this is a problem.  Even our internal time tracking system which uses ActiveX reporting controls wasn't bad. You click on the full screen control and all it's buttons work.



I can see drag and drop being an issue, but that is extremely rare in web apps.. Hell the only place I have seen it used is in tech demos.

[Mr. Analog]

Does this apply to all plugins? What about the GIF viewer?

[Lazybones]

If a control has an animation by default it still plays. It is just your interaction with the control that is suspended until the first click.

Interactive controls are ActiveX controls that provide user interfaces. When a web page uses the APPLET, EMBED, or OBJECT elements to load an ActiveX control, the control's user interface is blocked until the user activates it. If a page uses these elements to load multiple controls, each interactive control must be individually activated.

I guess if you use lots of JAVA applets in your sites this would be a big deal if you have more than one applet per page.

[Darren Dirt]

Imagine a "mini-Word" or similar, where the dev had made a custom richtext field with a bunch of action buttons to do various markup. Unless it was all contained within a single object, the user would have to "click" the "Underline" button -- doing nothing the first time, unexpectedly (to the user) -- in order for the underline action to now be available. Blech.



Sure drag & drop may be rare, but it is a great illustration of why this "solution" isn't.



DHTML/AJAX/JSON etc. are definitely looking good for a lot of web devs now, I'll bet

[Tonnica]

Imagine a "mini-Word" or similar, where the dev had made a custom richtext field with a bunch of action buttons to do various markup. Unless it was all contained within a single object, the user would have to "click" the "Underline" button -- doing nothing the first time, unexpectedly (to the user) -- in order for the underline action to now be available. Blech.

Ha!

The place I used to work at centered their whole business around getting people to buy into a shrinkwrapped content management system (read: mini-word rich text field for editing page content). There's gonna be a whole lotta support calls for people who use XP and the content management system on their page.



I should email my co-worker just to warn her as my former boss would have no clue what the problem could be.

[Darren Dirt]

So I guess having a "feature rich application" is a Bad Thing now; if your form has 10 buttons your users need to click 10 times to be able to even begin to be productive :roll: