News 

The Mozilla Foundation, Adobe, Apple, Macromedia, Opera and Sun Microsystems will extend the Netscape Plugin Application Program Interface, making it more open and scriptable, to allow greater interactivity with plug-in technologies such as Flash, Shockwave, QuickTime and Java.

The Mozilla Foundation explains: 'For example, a user shopping for clothing on a website that takes advantage of the new plugin capabilities could mix and match different styles and colors for shirts and pants using an interactive Flash movie, and pricing and other information in an associated Web page would be updated as a result.'

'This initiative will significantly improve the web experience for users of Firefox, the Mozilla 1.x Internet suite, Safari, and Opera

ADVERTISEMENT

browsers and will ultimately benefit the overall health of the Web,' said Mitchell Baker, president of the Mozilla Foundation.

'Plug-ins are a critical component of the Web experience and require ongoing enhancements and improvements in the way they integrate with world-class browsers. Without these improvements, enhanced interactivity could remain tied to a single, proprietary browser solution, which reduces choice and leads to monoculture on the Web,' he continues, making a barely-disguised reference to Microsoft's ActiveX plug-in technology.

Philip Schiller, Apple's senior vice president of Worldwide Product Marketing, added, 'Apple is a strong advocate for Web standards and will ensure that Mac OS X Safari users have access to the latest standards-based web technology.'

David Mendels, general manager of Flash developer Macromedia, said, 'Macromedia has always supported the Netscape Plugin API, and these improvements will enable developers to deliver rich Internet applications that integrate more holistically with the browser to greatly benefit end users.'

The new plug-in APIs will first be seen in Mozilla's Firefox browser and Mozilla Web software suite. Details, SDKs and scripting examples will appear at www.mozilla.org/projects/plugins.