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+/*!
+ \inmodule QtWebKit
+ \page qtwebkit-bridge.html
+ \title The QtWebKit Bridge
+ \contentspage QtWebKit
+ \section1 Overview
+ \section2 The technology
+
+ The QtWebKit bridge is a mechanism that extends WebKit's JavaScript environment to access native
+ objects that are represented as QObjects. It takes advantage of the inherent introspection of the
+ \l{Qt Object Model}, which has a natural alignment to the way JavaScript worked.
+
+ For example, both JavaScript and QObjects have properties: a construct that represent a getter/setter
+ pair under one name.
+
+ \section2 Use Cases
+
+ There are two main use cases for the QtWebKit bridge. Web content in a native application, and Thin Client.
+
+ \section3 Web Content in a Native Application
+
+ This is a common use case in classic Qt application, and a design pattern used by several modern
+ applications. For example, an application that contains both a media-player, playlist manager, and
+ a music store. The playlist manager is usually best authored as a classic desktop application,
+ with the native-looking robust \l{QWidget}s helping with producing that application.
+ The media-player control, which usually looks custom, can be written using \l{The Graphics View framework}
+ or with in a declarative way with \l{QtDeclarative}. The music store, which shows dynamic content
+ from the internet, and gets modified rapidly, is best authored in HTML and maintained on the server.
+
+ With the QtWebKit bridge, that music store component can interact with native parts of the application,
+ for example, if a file needs to be saved to a specific location.
+
+ \section3 Thin Client
+
+ Another use case is using Qt as a native backend to a full web application,
+ referred to here as a thin client. In this use-case, the entire UI is driven by
+ HTML, JavaScript and CSS, and native Qt-based components are used to allow that application
+ access to native features not usually exposed to the web, or to enable helper components that
+ are best written with C++.
+
+ An example for such client is a UI for a video-on-demand service on a TV. The entire content and
+ UI can be kept on the server, served dynamically through HTTP and rendered with WebKit, with additional
+ native components for accessing hardware-specific features like extracting the list of images
+ out of the video.
+
+ \section2 Difference from Other Bridge Technologies
+
+ Of course QtWebKit is not the only bridge technology out there. NPAPI, for example,
+ is a long-time standard or web-native bridging. Due to Qt's meta-object system, full applications
+ built partially with web-technologies are much easier to develop. NPAPI, however, is more geared
+ towards cross-browser plugins, due to it being an accepted standard.
+
+ When developing a plugin for a browser, NPAPI is recommended. When developing a full application
+ that utilizes HTML-rendering, the QtWebKit bridge is recommended.
+
+ \section2 Relationship with QtScript
+
+ The QtWebKit bridge is similar to \l{QtScript}, especially to some of the features described in the
+ \l{Making Applications Scriptable} page. However, as of Qt 4.7, full QtScript API is not supported for web applications.
+ That is planned as an enhancement for future versions. You might notice that some of the features
+ described here are an exact copy of the ones described in the \l{Making Applications Scriptable} page. That is because
+ the QtWebKit bridge is a subset of that functionality, and this page tries to capture the full
+ capabilities available through the QtWebKit bridge specifically.
+
+ \section1 Accessing QObjects
+
+ \section2 Creating the link via QWebFrame
+
+ By default, no QObjects are accessible through the web environment, for security reasons.
+ To enable web content access to a native QObject, the application has to explicitly grant it access,
+ using the following call:
+
+ \snippet webkitsnippets/qtwebkit_bridge_snippets.cpp 0
+
+ See \l{QWebFrame::addToJavaScriptWindowObject()} for more information.
+
+ \section2 Using Signals and Slots
+
+ Qt Script adapts Qt's central \l{Signals and Slots} feature for
+ scripting. There are three principal ways to use signals and slots
+ with Qt Script:
+
+ \list
+ \i \bold{Hybrid C++/script}: C++ application code connects a
+ signal to a script function. The script function can, for example, be
+ a function that the user has typed in, or one that you have read from a
+ file. This approach is useful if you have a QObject but don't want
+ to expose the object itself to the scripting environment; you just
+ want a script to be able to define how a signal should be reacted
+ to, and leave it up to the C++ side of your application to establish
+ the connection.
+
+ \i \bold{Hybrid script/C++}: A script can connect signals and slots
+ to establish connections between pre-defined objects that the
+ application exposes to the scripting environment. In this scenario,
+ the slots themselves are still written in C++, but the definition of
+ the connections is fully dynamic (script-defined).
+
+ \i \bold{Purely script-defined}: A script can both define signal
+ handler functions (effectively "slots written in Qt Script"),
+ \e{and} set up the connections that utilize those handlers. For
+ example, a script can define a function that will handle the
+ QLineEdit::returnPressed() signal, and then connect that signal to the
+ script function.
+ \endlist
+
+ Note that QtScript functions such as qScriptConnect are unavilable in the web environment.
+
+ \section3 Signal to Function Connections
+
+ \c{connect(function)}
+
+ In this form of connection, the argument to \c{connect()} is the
+ function to connect to the signal.
+
+ \snippet webkitsnippets/doc_src_qtscript.qdoc 2
+
+ The argument can be a Qt Script function, as in the above
+ example, or it can be a QObject slot, as in
+ the following example:
+
+ \snippet webkitsnippets/doc_src_qtscript.qdoc 3
+
+ When the argument is a QObject slot, the argument types of the
+ signal and slot do not necessarily have to be compatible;
+ the QtWebKit bridge will, if necessary, perform conversion of the signal
+ arguments to match the argument types of the slot.
+
+ To disconnect from a signal, you invoke the signal's
+ \c{disconnect()} function, passing the function to disconnect
+ as argument:
+
+ \snippet webkitsnippets/doc_src_qtscript.qdoc 4
+
+ When a script function is invoked in response to a signal, the
+ \c this object will be the Global Object.
+
+ \section3 Signal to Member Function Connections
+
+ \c{connect(thisObject, function)}
+
+ In this form of the \c{connect()} function, the first argument
+ is the object that will be bound to the variable, \c this, when
+ the function specified using the second argument is invoked.
+
+ If you have a push button in a form, you typically want to do
+ something involving the form in response to the button's
+ \c{clicked} signal; passing the form as the \c this object
+ makes sense in such a case.
+
+ \snippet webkitsnippets/doc_src_qtscript.qdoc 5
+
+ To disconnect from the signal, pass the same arguments to \c{disconnect()}:
+
+ \snippet webkitsnippets/doc_src_qtscript.qdoc 6
+
+ \section3 Signal to Named Member Function Connections
+
+ \c{connect(thisObject, functionName)}
+
+ In this form of the \c{connect()} function, the first argument is
+ the object that will be bound to the variable, \c this, when
+ a function is invoked in response to the signal. The second argument
+ specifies the name of a function that is connected to the signal,
+ and this refers to a member function of the object passed as the
+ first argument (\c thisObject in the above scheme).
+
+ Note that the function is resolved when the connection is made, not
+ when the signal is emitted.
+
+ \snippet webkitsnippets/doc_src_qtscript.qdoc 7
+
+ To disconnect from the signal, pass the same arguments to \c{disconnect()}:
+
+ \snippet webkitsnippets/doc_src_qtscript.qdoc 8
+
+ \section3 Error Handling
+
+ When \c{connect()} or \c{disconnect()} succeeds, the function will
+ return \c{undefined}; otherwise, it will throw a script exception.
+ You can obtain an error message from the resulting \c{Error} object.
+ Example:
+
+ \snippet webkitsnippets/doc_src_qtscript.qdoc 9
+
+ \section3 Emitting Signals from Scripts
+
+ To emit a signal from script code, you simply invoke the signal
+ function, passing the relevant arguments:
+
+ \snippet webkitsnippets/doc_src_qtscript.qdoc 10
+
+ It is currently not possible to define a new signal in a script;
+ i.e., all signals must be defined by C++ classes.
+
+ \section3 Overloaded Signals and Slots
+
+ When a signal or slot is overloaded, the QtWebKit bridge will attempt to
+ pick the right overload based on the actual types of the QScriptValue arguments
+ involved in the function invocation. For example, if your class has slots
+ \c{myOverloadedSlot(int)} and \c{myOverloadedSlot(QString)}, the following
+ script code will behave reasonably:
+
+ \snippet webkitsnippets/doc_src_qtscript.qdoc 11
+
+ You can specify a particular overload by using array-style property access
+ with the \l{QMetaObject::normalizedSignature()}{normalized signature} of
+ the C++ function as the property name:
+
+ \snippet webkitsnippets/doc_src_qtscript.qdoc 12
+
+ If the overloads have different number of arguments, the QtWebKit bridge will
+ pick the overload with the argument count that best matches the
+ actual number of arguments passed to the slot.
+
+ For overloaded signals, JavaScript will throw an error if you try to connect
+ to the signal by name; you have to refer to the signal with the full
+ normalized signature of the particular overload you want to connect to.
+
+ \section3 Invokable Methods
+
+ Both slots and signals are invokable from script by default. In addition, it's also
+ possible to define a method that's invokable from script without it being a signal or a slot.
+ This is especially useful for functions with return types, as slots normally do not return anything
+ (it would be meaningless to return values from a slot, as the connected signals don't handle the returned data).
+ To make a non-slot method invokable, simply add the Q_INVOKABLE macro before its definition:
+
+ \snippet webkitsnippets/doc_src_qtscript.qdoc 20
+
+ \section2 Accessing Properties
+
+ The properties of the QObject are available as properties
+ of the corresponding JavaScript object. When you manipulate
+ a property in script code, the C++ get/set method for that
+ property will automatically be invoked. For example, if your
+ C++ class has a property declared as follows:
+
+ \snippet webkitsnippets/doc_src_qtscript.qdoc 13
+
+ then script code can do things like the following:
+
+ \snippet webkitsnippets/doc_src_qtscript.qdoc 14
+
+ \section2 Accessing Child QObjects
+
+ Every named child of the QObject (that is, for which
+ QObject::objectName() is not an empty string) is by default available as
+ a property of the JavaScript wrapper object. For example,
+ if you have a QDialog with a child widget whose \c{objectName} property is
+ \c{"okButton"}, you can access this object in script code through
+ the expression
+
+ \snippet webkitsnippets/doc_src_qtscript.qdoc 15
+
+ Since \c{objectName} is itself a Q_PROPERTY, you can manipulate
+ the name in script code to, for example, rename an object:
+
+ \snippet webkitsnippets/doc_src_qtscript.qdoc 16
+
+ \section2 Data types
+
+ When calling slots, receiving signals or accessing properties, usually some payload is involved.
+ For example, a property "text" might return a \l{QString} parameter.
+ The QtWebKit bridge does the job of converting between a given JavaScript data-type, and the
+ expected or given Qt type. Each Qt type has a coresponding set of rules of how JavaScript treats it.
+
+ The data type conversions are also applicable for the data returned from non-void invokable methods.
+
+ \section3 Numbers
+
+ All Qt numeric data types are converted to or from a JavaScript number. These include int, short, float,
+ double, and the porable Qt types (qreal, qint etc). A special case is \l{QChar};
+ If a slot expects a QChar, the QtWebKit bridge would use the unicode value in case of a number,
+ or the first character in a string.
+
+ Note that non-standard (typedefed) number types are not automatically converted to
+ or from a JavaScript number - it's advised to use standard number types for signal, slots
+ and properties.
+
+ When a non-number is passed as an argument to a method or property that expects a number,
+ the appropriate JavaScript conversion function (parseInt / parseFloat) would be used.
+
+ \section3 Strings
+
+ When JavaScript accesses methods or properties that expect a \l{QString}, the QtWebKit bridge
+ will automatically convert the value to a string (if it's not already a string), using the
+ built-in JavaScript toString method.
+
+ When a QString is passed to JavaScript from a signal or a property, The QtWebKit bridge will
+ convert it into a JavaScript string.
+
+ \section3 Date & Time
+
+ Both \l{QDate}, \l{QTime} and \l{QDateTime} are automatically translated to or from the JavaScript
+ Date object. If a number is passed as an argument to a method that expects one of the date/time
+ types, the QtWebKit bridge would treat it as a timestamp. If a sting is passed, QtWebKit would
+ try different Qt date parsing functions to find the right one.
+
+ \section3 Regular Expressions
+
+ The QtWebKit bridge would automatically convert JavaScript RegEx object to a \l{QRegExp}.
+ If a string is passed to a method expecting a \l{QRegExp}, the string would be converted
+ to that \l{QRegExp}.
+
+ \section3 Lists
+
+ The QtWebKit bridge treats several types of lists in a special way: \l{QVariantList}, \l{QStringList},
+ \l{QObjectList} and \l{QList}<int>. When a slot or property expects one of those list types,
+ the QtWebKit bridge would try to convert a JavaScript array into that type, converting each of
+ the array's elements to the single-element type of the list.
+
+ The most useful type of list is perhaps \l{QVariantList}, which can be converted to from any
+ JavaScript array.
+
+ \section3 Compound (JSON) objects
+
+ JavaScript compound objects, also known as JSON objects, are variables which hold a list
+ of key-value pairs, where all the keys are strings and the values can have any type.
+ This translates very well to \l{QVariantMap}, which is nothing more than a \l{QMap} of \l{QString}
+ to \l{QVariant}.
+
+ The seamless conversion between JSON objects and \l{QVariantMap} allows for a very convenient
+ way of passing arbitrary structured data between C++ and the JavaScript environment. The native \l{QObject} has
+ to make sure that compound values are converted to \l{QVariantMap}s and \l{QVariantList}s, and JavaScript is
+ guaranteed to receive them in a meaningful way.
+
+ Note that types that are not supported by JSON, such as JavaScript functions and getters/setters,
+ are not converted.
+
+ \section3 QVariants
+
+ When a slot or property accepts a \l{QVariant}, the QtWebKit bridge would create a \l{QVariant} that best
+ matches the argument passed by JavaScript. A string, for example, would become a \l{QVariant} holding a \l{QString},
+ a normal JSON object would become a \l{QVariantMap}, and a JavaScript array would become a \l{QVariantList}.
+
+ Using \l{QVariant}s generously in C++ in that way makes C++ programming feel a bit more like JavaScript programming,
+ as it adds another level of indirection - passing \l{QVariant}s around is very flexible, as the program can figure out
+ the type of argument in runtime just like JavaScript would do, but it also takes away from the type-safety and robust
+ nature of C++. It's recommended to use \l{QVariant}s only for convenience high-level functions, and to keep most of your
+ \l{QObject}s somewhat type-safe.
+
+ \section3 QObjects
+
+ A pointer to a \l{QObject} or a \l{QWidget} can be passed as payload in signals, slots and properties. That object
+ can then be used like an object that's exposed directly; i.e. its slots can be invoked, its signals connected to etc.
+ However, this functionality is fairly limited - the type used has to be \l{QObject}* or \l{QWidget}*. If the type
+ specified is a pointer to a non-\l{QWidget} subclass of \l{QObject}, the QtWebKit bridge would not recognize it to be
+ a \l{QObject}.
+
+ In general its advised to use care when passing \l{QObject}s as arguments, as those objects don't become owned by
+ the Javascipt engine; That means that the application developer has to be extra careful not to try to access
+ \l{QObject}s that have already been deleted by the native environment.
+
+ \section3 Pixmaps and Images
+
+ \since 4.7
+
+ The QtWebKit bridge handles \l{QPixmap}s and \l{QImage}s in a special way. Since QtWebKit stores \l{QPixmap}s to
+ represent HTML images, \l{QPixmap}s coming from the native environment can be used directly inside WebKit.
+ A \l{QImage} or a \l{QPixmap} coming from the Qt environment would convert to an intermediate JavaScript object,
+ that can be represented like this:
+
+ \snippet webkitsnippets/qtwebkit_bridge_snippets.cpp 1
+
+ The JavaScript environment can then use the pixmap it gets from Qt and display it inside the HTML environment,
+ by assigning it to an existing <img /> element using assignToHTMLImageElement. It can also use the toDataURL() function,
+ which allows using the pixmap as the src attribute of an image or as a background-image url. Note that the toDataURL()
+ function is costly and should be used with caution.
+
+ Example code:
+
+ C++:
+ \snippet webkitsnippets/qtwebkit_bridge_snippets.cpp 2
+
+ HTML:
+ \snippet webkitsnippets/qtwebkit_bridge_snippets.cpp 3
+
+ When a Qt object expects a \l{QImage} or a \l{QPixmap} as input, and the argument passed is an HTML image element,
+ the QtWebKit bridge would convert the pixmap assigned to that image element into a \l{QPixmap} or a \l{QImage}.
+
+ \since 4.7
+
+ \section3 QWebElement
+
+ A signal, slot or property that expects or returns a \l{QWebElement} can work seamlessly with JavaScript references
+ to DOM elements. The JavaScript environment can select DOM elements, keep them in variables, then pass them to Qt as
+ a \l{QWebElement}, and receive them back. Example:
+
+ C++:
+ \snippet webkitsnippets/qtwebkit_bridge_snippets.cpp 4
+
+ HTML:
+ \snippet webkitsnippets/qtwebkit_bridge_snippets.cpp 5
+
+ This is specifically useful to create custom renderers or extensions to the web environment. Instead of forcing Qt
+ to select the element, the web environment already selects the element and then send the selected element directly to Qt.
+
+ Note that \l{QWebElement}s are not thread safe - an object handling them has to live in the UI thread.
+
+ \section1 Architecture issues
+
+ \section2 Limiting the Scope of the Hybrid Layer
+
+ When using QtWebKit's hybrid features, it's a common pitfall to make the API exposed to JavaScript very rich and
+ use all its features. This, however, leads to complexity and can create bugs that are hard to trace.
+ Instead, it's advisable to keep the hybrid layer small and manageable: create a gate only when
+ there's an actual need for it, i.e. there's a new native enabler that requires a direct interface
+ to the application layer. Sometimes new functionality is better handled internally in the native layer
+ or in the web layer; simplicity is your friend.
+
+ This usually becomes more apparent when the hybrid layer can create or destroy objects, or uses
+ signals slots or properties with a \l{QObject}* argument. It's advised to be very careful and to treat
+ an exposed \l{QObject} as a system - with careful attention to memory management and object ownership.
+
+ \section2 Internet Security
+
+ When exposing native object to an open web environment, it's important to understand the security
+ implications. Think whether the exposed object enables the web environment access to things that
+ shouldn't be open, and whether the web content loaded by that web page comes from a trusted. In general, when
+ exposing native QObjects that give the web environment access to private information or to functionality
+ that's potentially harmful to the client, such exposure should be balanced by limiting the web page's
+ access to trusted URLs only with HTTPS and other security measures.
+
+
+*/