IE Toolbar Browser

Table Of Contents

Architecture
... 1

Overview
... 1

ExplorerBar (Client Side)
... 1

Protocol
... 1

Functionality
... 2

Basic
... 2

Extendet
... 2

Inside ExplorerBar.DLL
... 3

Project
... 3

Global Definitions
... 3

Architecture

The different modules will be described in detail. The current demo version of the Server application allows the Administrator to define different toolbars and toolbar objects. The toolbar database contains information about the defined by the administrator toolbar objects and their properties.

Overview

The Company toolbar is in fact a one-line HTML browser (height 22 pixels, which is the standard size of the IE Address Bar), which encompases all the features of a standard HTML browser. In addition to that several mechanisms for controlling the behavior and the content of the main browser of the IE were added.

ExplorerBar (Client Side)

The Company toolbar is an ActiveX control based on COM object technology plugin to the Microsoft InternetExplorer version 5.0 or higher. The toolbar can be turned on and off in the ‘View/Toolbars’ menu of the InternetExplorer.
The Company toolbar is functional only under Windows 95,98, Milenium, 2000, NT. The toolbar DLL file is packed in a CAB file which is digitally signed by a Company Object Signing certificate. The users are invited to install the toolbar by accepting the Company certificate. Upon acceptation of the certificate the Company toolbar is automatically installed on the client’s browser.
The HTML document, which is loaded by the Toolbar browser on the client’s computer has the following format:

<HTML>
<HEAD>
</HEAD>
<FRAMESET rows=100%>
<FRAMESET cols=100%>
<FRAME scrolling=no src="http://www.ttechgroup.com/static_toolbar_server/index.html">
</FRAMESET>
</FRAMESET>
</HTML>

It is essential that the toolbar is displayed in a different frame because this is the only way to forbid the browser to display a vertical scrollbar. In the rest of this document the automatically generated HTML by the toolbar server refers to the content of the frame:
<FRAME scrolling=no src="http://www.ttechgroup.com/static_toolbar_server/index.html">
This page is hard coded in the toolbar’s DLL.

Protocol

The toolbar is communicating with the Server via HTTP protocol. The Toolbar communicates with the server application which is a Java servlet running on the Server’s Web Server. Upon activation every toolbar sends a registration signal to the server application that it has been activated. The server Java servlet returns the HTML content which is to be loaded by the toolbar. This mechanism enables the toolbar to work behind a firewall.

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Last updated: Jan 10, 2006 (Ver: 1.0)