Thoughts on the RFB Protocol, VNC, etc.

[Joe Knapka]

Micah Parrish wrote:
> 
>      I propose that new messages be added to the RFB protocol to handle
> platform-specific and descriptive data which can be used however the viewer
> wants.  It should be easily extensible to accomodate new data types.  This would
> be a means of adding new features to VNC, or using it in new ways, without
> fragmenting the protocol.

It would be cool to do this with a plugin mechanism.
The server and client would provide a registration API
that would allow you to associate an RFB message type
(an integer) with a library and an entry-point name;
when a message of a registered type is seen, the proper
library is loaded (if necessary) and the registered
entry point called with the incoming buffer as an argument.
Then no more changes to the VNC core code would be
necessary to implement such features as file transfer,
HDD lights, or whaterer. I know Win32 and most Unices
support programmatic runtime loading of shared libraries.
How about Mac?

Micah, are you actually scripting mouse and keyboard
events to a VNC viewer? I was just wondering the other
day if it was possible to get the location of a particular
control within a running application, so you could
send events at it via RFB; that would be an awesome test
tool!

-- Joe

> -------------------------------------
> Micah Parrish
> micah "at" hpbs1443.boi.hp.com  Tel:1-208-396-6522

-- Joe Knapka
* I speak only for myself, not for these idiots:
* The Software Monastery - "Better Software Through Divine
* Intervention." Source-code prayer vigils available - nominal
* donation $0.01/LOC. http://whyme.penguinpowered.com/monastery.html

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