I have this idea... Browser inside a java bean area

Question

10G forms
As I see questions pop up in this forum I notice that people want to do some of the same things in forms that one can do in a browser. Like Flash.. Or play a movie. Since, Im not a java expert, I have this thought, and would like any Java Bean experts to respond. I am not afraid to write Java code and will attempt to write this myself if it sounds feasible. I just need a "go for it" or "it sounds good" from some knowledgable forms/java developers.
So.. Heres what I want to do...
Basically why can't we as forms developers create a java bean area and open the default browser of the client inside the area? If we can do that then we can display flash, play a movie, run an oracle report inside a form? Cant we? We could then do whatever the browser can do inside a form java bean area?
Here is my requirement that makes me want to do this...
The requirement is "Can you display the output of an Oracle Report inside of a oracle form?" The users do not want the report output in a separate window. They want to surround report with form fields. An operater will look at the report in the center of the form, interpret hand written text (image), and update the form fields around the report with correct values. This report is very complicated. It converts xml and also converts base64 encoded images to jpegs overlaying these values on another large image of a state police form. Since this report already does all of this, we would like to just display the report output inside the form and not rewrite the whole thing so a form can do it too.
Comments are appreciated..
Im actually hoping Francois gets intriqued way over there in Paris as he sometimes does with these java questions :)
Message was edited by:
Mark Reichman

Answer 1

I've seen an example that shows how to embed MS-Word within an applet, using OLE automation, so I suspect that doing this with Internet Explorer could be achieved. It's an interesting example, called Snippet157 -- part of the Eclipse project. It also demonstrates using the SWT-AWT bridge, whose purpose is to allow AWT and SWT components to be used together. You don't need Eclipse to run the snippet, but you would need to download SWT from http://www.eclipse.org/swt (the SWT-AWT bridge is included.) Whether this example could be adapted to pure Swing/AWT, and how easily that could be accomplished, is beyond my present level of expertise.
As for using this approach with other browsers, I'm not sure that all browsers provide automation hooks, so embedding the default browser may not be so easy. Finally, trends toward tightening browser security may lead Microsoft to prevent or restrict automating even Internet Explorer.
This is all I can think of -- Francois & Frank probably have more insightful suggestions.
Hope this helps,
Eric Adamson
Lansing, Michigan