Dawn Endico Reporter
	Description • 25 years ago

[10:46:24] <shaver> it would be a week's work, tops, to make mathML and SVG
pluggable, I think
[10:46:37] <shaver> (transformiix already is, I think)
[10:47:06] <shaver> hyatt, waterson, brendan, blizzard, me -- we all know how to
do it
[10:47:10] <shaver> it's not rocket science
[10:47:19] <dawn> i thought the layout engine needed redesigning to allow
plugability
[10:47:30] <shaver> depends how loose you want the coupling
[10:47:49] <shaver> there would still be some binary dependencies
[10:48:04] <shaver> (on a common library, which contained the base frame
stuff)[10:48:25] <shaver> but it would mean that people would at least have the
_choice_ to build plugins that might break with the next release
[10:48:46] <shaver> and we could build and ship svg.xpi, mathml.xpi, etc.
[10:48:56] <shaver> (which would be guaranteed to match, binary-wise0
[10:49:50] <dawn> that would be a lot better than building xpi's that completely
replace the layout libs
[10:50:09] <shaver> yes
[10:50:15] <shaver> because we could mix and match
[10:50:28] <shaver> I should write up a bug, with our combined knowledge of how
to attack the problem
[10:50:31] <dawn> combining mathml and svg would rock so much
[10:52:21] <shaver> dawn: could you file a bug, against me, cc:ing hyatt and
waterson and brendan and blizzard?
[10:52:41] <shaver> "Layout should permit pluggable support for new
frame/content types"
[10:52:56] <shaver> mention that I should dump my brain there
[10:53:41] <dawn> shaver: if you dump your brain there can i copy and sell it?
[10:54:09] <shaver> dawn: we'll need to figure out the royalty terms, but I'm a
reasonable man

	Mike Shaver (:shaver -- probably not reading bugmail closely)
	Comment 1 • 25 years ago

So here's how I'd do it:

- Move all the core frame and content stuff into libgeckobase.so, which would be
a library and not a component (like libxpcom).  We could even move all of the
current non-XUL/MathML/SVG/XBL stuff into the library, since we're not doing
this to reduce binary dependence.
- Teach nsCSSFrameConstructor to dispatch to a frame factory based on the
namespace of the element
- Make frame factories for XUL, HTML (a thin layer around the library), XBL,
SVG, etc. that register in the frame-factory category for their namespaces

This wouldn't really reduce binary dependencies at all -- if someone makes a
change to nsFrame, the previous day's XUL plugin will crash all over -- but it
would at least allow us to be modular.  And if someone wanted to trade space for
binary independence, they could pull all the frame goop into
libxulbulletproof.so.

	David Hyatt
	Comment 2 • 24 years ago

Adjusting summary.  Layout does permit support for pluggable content types.

	Dawn Endico Reporter
	Comment 3 • 24 years ago

adding helpwanted keyword

	rbs
	Comment 4 • 24 years ago

Adding that this bug blocks bug 33339 - HTML <RUBY> support

	Mike Shaver (:shaver -- probably not reading bugmail closely)
	Comment 5 • 24 years ago

We all know what a joke it is, but I'll accept this to keep terry's bot from
spamming me.

	Mike Shaver (:shaver -- probably not reading bugmail closely)
	Comment 6 • 24 years ago

Who's a lazy quitter? _I_'m a lazy quitter.

(We all knew that waterson was going to end up doing the heavy lifting here,
didn't we?)

	Chris Waterson
	Comment 7 • 24 years ago

See also bug 51684

	Chris Waterson
	Comment 8 • 24 years ago

Who am I kidding.

	Kevin McCluskey (gone)
	Comment 9 • 23 years ago

Build reassigning Buster's bugs to Marc.

	Benjamin Smedberg
	Comment 10 • 22 years ago

Pluggable frame/content types are important for using
the Mozilla architecture in independent projects.  Thus one could write new
objects for custom functionality, and wrap them in XUL for the UI.

I am fairly new to the project, but I would be willing to code some of this,
given the proper guidance.  What do you think of having namespaces register some
sort of nsIFrameFactory, just as we currently have nsIElementFactory?

I think this should have 'embed' keyword, but I don't have privs for that.

	Boris Zbarsky [:bzbarsky]
	Comment 11 • 22 years ago

This came up again in bug 184746

	Anne (:annevk)
	Comment 12 • 20 years ago

Now formats like XForms can be implemented as extension, what is the status of
this bug?

	Mats Palmgren (inactive)
	Comment 13 • 6 years ago

I don't think this bug is relevant anymore.  It seems the project has
moved in the opposite direction by making most features non-optional.
Removing --disable-mathml in bug 660762 as an example.