Using the ActiveComport Serial Port Toolkit with the Mozilla Firefox browser

ActiveComport is a software development kit (SDK) that enables the user to communicate to a device over a serial interface.

Such a device can be: a weight indicator, a modem, a scanner, or any other device that is equiped with a serial port. It can even be another PC, connected via a NULL modem cable.

ActiveComport features the following:

Direct COM port support (like 'COM1'), TAPI (Windows Telephony Device) support (like 'Standard 56000 bps Modem'), support for RS-232/RS422/RS485, up to 256 simultaneous ports, support for all types of Hayes compatible modems, support for serial cable, USB cable or Bluetooth connections, support for GSM/GPRS modems, support for Virtual COM ports (i.e. COM ports redirected through the network), hardware flow control (RTS/CTS, DTR/DSR), software flowcontrol (XON/XOFF), configurable baudrate/parity/stopbits, full buffered data transfer, text/binary data transfer.

ActiveComport can be used from the Mozilla Firefox browser.

This document describes how to setup Mozilla Firefox for use with the ActiveComport Toolkit.

Step 1: Download and install the ActiveComport Toolkit

Download the ActiveComport Toolkit from the ActiveXperts Download Site and start the installation. The installation guides you through the installation process.

Step 2: Install Mozilla Firefox

Download the Mozilla Firefox webbrowser from the Mozilla Website and start the installation. The installation guides you through the installation process.

Step 3: Install Mozilla Firefox ActiveX plugin

Because the Firefox browser does not support ActiveX by default, you have to download a plugin to run ActiveX controls.

It is also possible to compile your own Firefox browser with ActiveX support from the Mozilla Firefox sourcecode.

You have to download the plugin from within Firefox. The plugin can be found on the following page.

Select "click here" from the downloads section, please download the plugin for the correct version. The plugin for Firefox 1.5 also works okay for 2.0.

If you download a plugin from this site the first time, the 'Allowed Sites - Add ons installation' dialog will appear to verify that this site is save for downloading add-ons.

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Click on 'Allow' and 'Close' and click the download link again.

The 'Software Installation' dialog is displayed. Click 'Install Now' to start the installation:

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When the installation process has finished, close the browser.

Step 4: Configure the ActiveX trusted controls

By default, all ActiveX controls are prohibited to run, except the Windows Media Player.

To add the ActiveComport ActiveX to the trusted controls, open the following file for editing:

X:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox\defaults\pref\activex.js (where X: is the drive you installed the browser).

Add the following lines to this file:

/* ActiveXperts ActiveComport */
pref("capability.policy.default.ClassID.CID07ECB42B-322A-40B9-A8A9-3815AF3C4F60", "AllAccess");

The activex.js file will now look like this:

pref("general.useragent.vendorComment", "ax");
pref("security.xpconnect.activex.global.hosting_flags", 9);
pref("security.classID.allowByDefault", false);
/* Windows Media Player */
pref("capability.policy.default.ClassID.CID6BF52A52-394A-11D3-B153-00C04F79FAA6", "AllAccess");
pref("capability.policy.default.ClassID.CID22D6F312-B0F6-11D0-94AB-0080C74C7E95", "AllAccess");
/* ActiveXperts ActiveComport */
pref("capability.policy.default.ClassID.CID07ECB42B-322A-40B9-A8A9-3815AF3C4F60", "AllAccess");

Step 5: Start the browser and load the demo

You should now be able to start the ActiveComport Demo from the Firefox browser.

Start the browser, and type the URL in the address field.

The following screen should now appear:

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If the sample does not work correctly, select 'Tools' => 'Error Console' from the menu to see if there are any errors.

You can download the full samples here.