109 lines
4.5 KiB
Plaintext
109 lines
4.5 KiB
Plaintext
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== ACTIVEX Control for VLC ==
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The VLC ActiveX Control has been primary designed to work with Internet
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Explorer. However it may also work with Visual Basic and/or .NET. Please
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note, that this code does not rely upon Microsoft MFC/ATL code, hence
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good compatibility is not guaranteed.
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I. Compiling
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The ActiveX Control should compile without any glitches as long as you
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have the latest version of mingw gcc and headers.
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In order to script the ActiveX Control on Internet Explorer, a type
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library is required. This type library is usually generated from an IDL
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file using Microsoft MIDL compiler. Therefore, for convenience I have
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checked in the output of the MIDL compiler in the repository so that you
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will only need the MIDL compiler if you change axvlc.idl. the generated
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files are as follow:
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axvlc_idl.c
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axvlc_idl.h
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axvlc.tlb
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To use the MIDL compiler on cygwin, you will need to set some
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environment variables before configuring vlc. If you have a copy of
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'Microsoft Visual C++ 6.0' installed, the following settings are
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correct:
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export PATH=$PATH:"/cygdrive/c/Program Files/Microsoft Visual Studio/COMMON/MSDev98/Bin":"/cygdrive/c/Program Files/Microsoft Visual Studio/VC98/Bin"
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export INCLUDE='C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio\VC98\Include'
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export MIDL="midl"
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If you are cross-compiling on Linux, you can use 'widl' which is part of
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the WINE project (http://www.winehq.com). At leat wine-dev-0.9.57 works,
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the comand line to compile IDL should looks like the following :
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widl -I/usr/include/wine/windows/ \
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-h -H axvlc_idl.h -t -T axvlc.tlb -u -U axvlc_idl.c axvlc.idl
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NOTE: widl breaks compatibility with Visual Basic. If that is important
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to you then you must use midl.
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II. Debugging
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The ActiveX control is compiled with verbose output by default, but you
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will need to launch Internet Explorer from a Cygwin shell to see the
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output. Alternatively, the plugin will also use the VLC preferences, so
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if you enable the file logging interface through the player and save the
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preferences, the control will automatically log its verbose output into
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the designated file.
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Debugging the ActiveX control DLL with GNU GDB can be difficult.
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Fortunately the ActiveX control can also be compiled as an executable
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rather than a DLL. In ActiveX terms, this is called a local server. The
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advantage of a local server is that it will never crash its client,
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i.e. Internet Explorer, even if the local server crashes. The build
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system does not currently allow to create an executable version of the
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ActiveX control, you will need to manually define the BUILD_LOCALSERVER
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pre-processor variable and modify the Makefile to exclude the '-shared'
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option at the linking stage. Once this is done, launch axvlc.exe to have
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a working Activex control. Please note, that executable version of the
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ActiveX control will override any settings required for the DLL version,
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which will no longer work until you (re)register it as shown in the
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following section
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III. Local Install
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The VLC NSIS installer will install the ActiveX Control without
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requiring any further manual intervention, but for people who like to
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live on the edge, here are the steps you need to perform once you have
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built the ActiveX Control.
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The ActiveX control DLL file may be copied anywhere on the target
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machine, but before you can use the control, you will need to register
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it with Windows by using the REGSVR32 command, as per following example:
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REGSVR32 C:\WINDOWS\AXVLC.DLL
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If the control needs to use external VLC plugins (i.e other than the
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built-in ones), make sure that the plugin path is set in the registry as
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per following example:
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[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\VideoLAN\VLC]
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InstallDir="C:\Program Files\VideoLAN\VLC"
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The InstallDir must be the parent directory of the 'plugins' directory.
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WARNING: Both control and plugins must come from the same source build
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tree. Otherwise, at best, the control will not play any content,
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at worse it may crash Internet Explorer while attempting to load
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incompatible plugins.
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IV. Internet Install
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The activex control may be installed from a remote through Internet
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Installer if it is packaged up in a CAB file. The following link
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explains how to achieve this
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http://msdn.microsoft.com/workshop/components/activex/packaging.asp
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For convenience, I have provided a sample axvlc.INF file, which assumes
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that the VLC NSIS Installer has been packaged up a CAB file called
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AXVLC.CAB.
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The ActiveX Control DLL file can also be distributed by itself if it has
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been compiled with built-in VLC plugins; check developer information for
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more information on built-in plugins.
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