>  Â? I would like to implement using PyXPCOM a wrapper around FireFox,
>  particularly the DOM with automated docstrings built from the Mozilla
>  documentation. This would enable autocompletion and help() ,
>  facilitating
>  easy experimentation from IPython or your choice of shell/editor. This
>  makes
>  it much more likely for people to use it Â?in the heat of the momentÂ?.
>  
>  The API would contain convenience functions for recurring useage
>  patterns so
>  people could very quickly experiment in IPython and create test macros.
>  Python wielding web developers everywhere would benefit as would
>  Â?designersÂ?
>  for whom Python is an approachable language.
>  
>  Some editors these days have inbuilt support for Live Preview of HTML
>  as you
>  type. This speeds up the creative process considerably. I have created
>  a
>  Live preview plugin for an windows editor using the win32py extensions,
>  using COM to manipulate the DOM. I would very much like to create a
>  cross
>  platform solution that is easily callable from any editor with Python
>  embedded.

I'm not sure what architecture you have in mind here - are you going to
embed the editor in a xpcom app, or embed a XUL app in the editor?  Either
way, one or the other might "object" to working with the other one for
various reasons (ie, 2 GUI toolkits in 1 process is always going to be a
problem).  You do understand that you can't currently use pure XPCOM as an
RPC mechanism between 2 processes, like you can with MSCOM?

>  As of now here are some my thoughts (subject to evolution):
>  
>      First thing I will do is create the basic Wrapper Class of FireFox
>  with
>  PyXPCOM
>      Next I will do the binding of all documented methods and
>  properties,
>  automating the process using HTML screen scraping (BeautifulSoup
>  Library)
>  	( The docstring documentation is the main part here, it seems
>  most
>  of the work is done)
>      This will give me a great sandbox to experiment with creative
>  solutions
>  to the above

I don't understand what you are trying to achieve here.  Just documentation
for the DOM expressed as Python docstrings?

>  Is this sort of thing feasible with PyXPCOM?

I'm not quite sure what you are asking.

>  Does PyXPCOM have something like the MakePY utility that win32 COM
>  extensions do?

It has a tool (xpt.py) which can dump interface info, but it doesn't need a
generated file at runtime.  In other words, pyxpcom doesn't need anything
like makepy.

>  If so does it document the methods via docstrings? Does it document the
>  DOM?

No - the interface definitions don't offer docstrings.  Note that not all of
the DOM is implemented strictly using xpcom, but there are no docstrings at
runtime for the DOM either.

>  Can you force Mozilla to do offscreen buffering?

I've no idea, but that isn't related to pyxpcom at all.

Mark

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