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WebPlugin with full HTML5 support like Chrome

I can`t use Royal TSX to manage vCenter and ESX today via html5 interface. Safari webplugin is not supported by VMware because lack of full html5 compatibility. For example, tasks are not displayed, blue screen instead of login prompt in esxi.



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Hi,


we don't currently have a Chrome plugin for Royal TSX and there are no plans to change that in the near future.

Unfortunately there's no Chrome framework on macOS that we could use to integrate Chrome into Royal TSX without major effort and a huge increase in download size and performance impact for the whole app.


While it's really unfortunate that the VMware web client currently does not work properly with Safari, that's something VMware has to fix on their end.


best regards,

felix

On the webpage about Royal TSX 4.0 Beta you have written "Web connections can now be used in Chrome and Firefox browser extensions". I installed this version but I cant find Chrome extension. How can I install them?


Regards


https://www.royalapplications.com/ts/mac/features-beta

Hi Wojciech,


I think you misunderstood that statement.

This actually refers to being able to use web connections created in Royal TSX from our Firefox and Chrome browser extensions. Previously, only credential objects were shown and usable from the browser extensions. Now you also access web connections.


So to clear up the confusion: There are no new web plugins included in Royal TSX V4.


cheers,

felix

Mailplane uses https://github.com/brave/brave-browser , it's based on Chromium, and developed pretty actively.

Hi Stephan,


interesting. I'll look into it. However, I strongly suspect that the same limitations as other Chromium-based SDKs applies to brave. Probably also needs deep hooks into the main application which effectively is a no-go for our plugin architecture. Also, since it's based on Chromium the additional binary size will likely be significant. And last but not least, the example app you gave (Mailplane) is essentially a browser with an interface dedicated to displaying Google webapps so it's not really comparable to Royal TSX.


cheers,

felix

Hi again,


just looked into Mailplane's app bundle. The full app is around 200MB. The brave framework totals 156MB. So if this framework needs to be linked directly to the app (instead of a dynamically loaded plugin) that's already a no-go for Royal TSX. Currently, Royal TSX comes in at below 40MB (without plugins) and I'm not going to add almost 4 times as much just to support a new browser engine.


If the brave framework can be loaded dynamically from a plugin, it would still be possible but I have to do more fiddling before I can comment on that.


cheers,

felix

I understand, but lack of full html 5 support is a big problem :( A lot of admins are using Vmware vSphere, and it is not working well on Royal TSX :(

I rather give up 200MB and have full HTML 5 support. If it will be added is always up to the user to make the choice between small royal tsx footprint and installing the 200MB plugin with HTML 5 support.

The problem is not shipping a 200MB plugin. The problem is that all of the chromium based SDKs require some kind of hook into the app which makes a plugin impossible. The 200MB would need to be added to the app with no way of letting the user decide if he wants or needs those extra 200MB for a browser engine that's based on the same roots as Safari (WebKit).

How about a plug-in based on Firefox's engine instead of Chrome (I like Chrome as a browser but it does 'do it's own thing' a bit too much)? As the others have noted, not being able to use the vSphere HTML5 client in Royal TXS is a pain, especially when I can manage pretty much everything else from TSX (which I really like!).

Hi Andrew,


exactly what problems do you have with the vSphere client in Royal TSX?

We have multiple ESX lab installations here and all can be accessed using the Royal TSX WebKit plugin just fine.


If you're aware of a SDK/API for embedding Firefox in Mac applications I'm all ears.


cheers,

felix

Hello Felix,


Well I've not gone beyond the point that vSphere warns you that you are using an unsupported browser (Firefox ≥ 34 or Chrome ≥ 39 on MacOS) - I don't have a test vSphere environment to try it on and I'm not risking a live one.


Sorry, no idea about Firefox SDKs or APIs - I'm just a lowly sysadmin :) I'd assumed there would be something seeing as FF is open source but it seems not.


Regards,


Andrew. 

Hi Andrew,


which version of vSphere would that be? I'm not seeing such a warning here.

In any case, this is likely due to a hard-coded browser version check which is bad practice. Instead, one should check if the required features are supported by the browser. It's unlikely that this causes any issues since I'm not aware of any API calls that are made by the VMware web client which aren't supported by Safari.


Do you see the same warning when accessing your vSphere environment using Safari?


cheers,

felix

Hello,


It's using the VCSA, ver 6.5.0.22000. I've not tried vSphere in Safari, it's not a browser I tend to use (Chrome, Firefox preferred).


I think when I have a few moments to spin up a lab environment I'll try using TSX with the Webkit plugin, I see I can set a custom UI string in the plug-in so I could make the message go-away and see how things work.


Thanks,


Andrew. 

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