[FreeWRL-develop] Roadmap > launcher funcs > linux?

[doug s. <hig...@ho...>]

> > Roadmap ideas:
> > FreeWRL and libfreewrl
> > user uptake
> > 10 -- GoogleEarth snapshot, pluginPicker, URL tester, Gui Launch parameter setter, ???
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Win32 > Freewrl_Launcher
These -GE snapshot, pluginPicker, URL tester, gui launch parameter setter - are in a separate C# app freeWRL_Launcher on win32 only, installed with the .msi installer. The C# source code is in the support files section of the download page.
https://sourceforge.net/projects/freewrl/files/freewrl-win32/SupportFiles/ 
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1. launch parameters - when I started out in windows, there was just a command line .exe. I started the win32 Launcher because freeWRL takes command line 
parameters -which I'm too lazy to type- and I was too lazy to do an MFC 
gui for freewrl. So a separate launcher program was a quick hack. Then 
it grew with a few more panels. 
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Meanwhile I also put a 
statusbarHud.c in win32 freewrl -and used it a modification of it on a blackberry qnx 
playbook version- that also allows setting some parameters at runtime, 
so it can be used on various platforms but I don't know which distros 
use it
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2. GoogleEarth snapshot - you point down in GoogleEarth then hit the Launcher's snapshot button and the ground image and elevationGrid are captured in .x3d format. I suspect the googleEarth's snapshot interface doesn't exist in linux - 
it's a COM interface in win32 and they are retiring it: 
http://googlegeodevelopers.blogspot.ca/2010/08/sunset-for-google-earth-com-api.html 
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I have no idea if or how to use their javascript interface to do something equivalent.
https://developers.google.com/earth/documentation/   
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3. plugin picker - works just for Internet Explorer, and works by tinkering in windows registry on mime and filetype handlers. I have a number of web3d browsers installed, and Internet Explorer figures out which one to use based on windows registry, so when I'm comparing for testing, I'll quickly switch plugins this way. I don't know how to do the equivalent for Firefox in win32 -something I'll need- or how to do anything equivalent in linux. Perhaps modern versions of IE and FF have panels for selecting a plugin handler?
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4. url tester - just a handy gui panel where I can type an http:// url, hit a button and get all the hidden junk displayed that's sent from the server, such as mimetype, error codes, server type.
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-Doug