How do I develop browser plugins with cross-platform and cross-browser compatibility in mind?

Question

My company currently has a product which relies on a custom, in-house ActiveX control. The technology it employs is itself cross-platform by design, but our solution is obviously limited to Internet Explorer on Windows.

Long term we would like to become cross-browser and cross-platform (i.e., support other browsers on Windows, support the Macintosh or Linux).

Obviously if we wanted to support Firefox on Windows I would need to write a plugin for it. But if we wanted to support the Macintosh, how do I attack that? Is it possible to compile a version of the Firefox plugin that runs on the Mac? Would I be remiss to not also support Safari on the Mac? Are there any plugins which are cross-browser on a platform? (i.e., can any browsers run plugins for other browsers)

What do people generally do when they want to support multiple platforms with a process that will need to be cross-platform and cross-browser compatible?

Solution 1

The answer is firebreath

Solution 2

You could also try kango

Solution 3

Maybe FireBreath is a good choice for you! I just compile a test plugin on vs2010 and it's compatible with IE9, Firefox and google chrome.

Solution 4

I would consider using Java with native libraries. Long time age I've seen video chat developed in such way. Applet included native code for every supported platform. I'm not a java programmer, I can't tell you details, but it worked.

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