TX Text Control .NET Server
TX Text Control .NET
TX Text Control ActiveX Server
TX Text Control ActiveX
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Browsers typically offer a way to allow sections of a web page to be editable. FireFox uses Midas, while Microsoft Internet Explorer deploys its own MSHTML Editing Platform. Using these pseudo WYSIWYG editing components, basic word processors, such as Google Docs (formerly Writely) [1], WriteBoard [2] or Zoho Writer [3] can be created.
This approach to browser based-word processing, however, is seriously limited in terms of features and usability.
Web browsers that deploy the above mentioned editing components can only handle HTML. Thus, the lowest common denominator for formatting styles are those supported by HTML, and not those found in high-end word processing packages.
TX Text Control 13.0 offers a radically new approach to browser-based rich text editing. It allows developers to create true WYSIWYG word processors that offer all the formatting capabilities and user-interface comfort found in big-brand word processors, directly in the end-users's browser.
How it works
One application, two components
TX Text Control 13.0 browser based applications consist of two distinct parts:
- Browser application component
- Server application component
The browser application component runs in the end-user's web browser, while the server application component runs on Internet Information Server. The only requirements for the end-user's PC are that a) Microsoft Internet Explorer is used and b) the .NET Framework is installed.
The word processor itself runs in the browser application component, while the server is used as a deployment vehicle and for file I/O. i.e. when files are loaded into and save by the browser-based word processor.
The interplay between the two application components is illustrated in the following diagram:
Simple browser instantiation
With a compliant environment, the end-user simply needs to go to the URL at which the TX Text Control 13.0 based application is deployed and download a basic HTML page, containing the following <OBJECT /> tag.
<OBJECT
classid="http:BrowserBin/BrowserApplication.dll#BrowserApplication.BrowserAppControl"
id="BrowserApp"
name="BrowserApp"
width="100%"
height="100%"
>
</OBJECT>
where:
classid | Specifies a string composed of:
|
id | Assigns a name to the object that is used to access it from program code |
name | see 'id' |
width | Specifies the width of the browser-based word processing application |
height | Specifies the height of the browser-based word processing application |
When the above HTML is executed in the browser, an assembly container is transferred from the server to the client and stored in the local assembly download cache. The browser application component is then executed, thus enabling the end-user to perform advanced word processing.
End-user benefits
Creating browser-based word processing applications that fit the herein described paradigm offer the following advantages:
- No page refreshes
Data transfer between the client and server application components is transparent to the end-user. The HTML page in which the browser application is embedded never has to be refreshed. - Increased performance
Small amounts of data are transferred between client and server application components, thus ensuring the agile operation of TX Text Control browser-based applications. - Desktop-like behavior
The behavior of browser-based TX Text Control word processing applications is indistinguishable from their desktop pendants, thus flattening the learning curve for end-users.
Inter-application communication
The browser application component exchanges data with the server using .NET Remoting [4]. Using standard .NET Remoting protocols, a channel is simply constructed that allows the exchange of data between the two components of the application.
This inter-application exchange is transparent to the end-user. For example, when a server-based document is loaded into the browser-based word processing application, data is exchanged via this channel. Similarly, when an end-user saves a document in the browser, the data is automatically transported back to the server components of the application, where it can be stored, or be subject to a number of post-processing processes.
Summary
The major advantage of this approach over traditional browser-based word processors is that all the formatting options that TX Text Control offers are available to end-users in their browser. For example, adding headers and footers or page based views to traditional browser-based word processing is impossible. These are standard features in TX Text Control and are thus immediately available in the browser.
