Investigating iexplore/activex issues

[Jacek Caban]

Hi Joel,

On 07/26/12 20:32, Joel Holdsworth wrote:
> Hi All,
>
> I've recently begun working at VCA technology on an IP security camera
> system. I'm mostly doing embedded linux stuff, but bhe code I'm
> working with uses an ActiveX control to show the video and the
> overlaid annotations.
>
> I've doing quite a lot of experimentation trying to get the page work
> correctly on Wine. So far the results have been rather disappointing:
>
> wine git-head:
>     wine builtin iexplore - page loads blank, though wireshark shows
> that html+js has been received. Various ole related fixmes.

It's most likely a problem with supporting scripts on the used b the
page. I'm fixing such problems, but the scope is so bit that it takes time.

>     IE7 & IE8 installed to seperate prefixes - IIRC page fails to load
>
> wine 1.4
>     wine builtin iexplore - page loads, but activex control fails to
> display.

Soon after 1.4 release, Wine started handling scripts itself, instead of
using Gecko for that. It causes a massive known regression, but it
allows us having IE compatibility on scripting level, which was
previously impossible. That's the most likely cause of changed behaviour.

>
> Does anyone have any suggestions for how I can better investigate
> these issues?

It's a complex question (see bellow)... The best first step would be
filling a bug and including jscript,mshtml traces.

> And what is the status of ActiveX in wine - is it likely to work at all?

>From my experience, there is a good chance that your ActiveX will work
in our builtin IE. However:
- it requires manual ActiveX installation. iexplore won't do that for you
- the page must work good enough to get to the point of embedding the
ActiveX (eg. if it's created by JavaScript code, that code must run up
to the point)
- ActiveX control may hit problems all across Wine. It's allowed to use
any win32 API, so even if its embedding code is supported by our MSHTML,
it may fail due to some random other API problem

Jacek