HTML Manipulation on the Web Server (ISAPI?)

Problem Statement:

Following a law suit, Microsoft released a patch that affects Internet Explorer by forcing end users to “active” Flash, Java and other ActiveX controls by clicking on them. We have a number of static pages (part of online courses) that have Flash and Windows Media Player objects embedded in them. We would like to solve this issue by introducing “something” on the server (Internet Information Server) that will look through the outgoing HTML and if appropriate “object” tags are found, replace them with workaround outlined in the following document:

http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/workshop/author/dhtml/overview/activating_activex.asp

Proposed Solution:

Our experience tells us that this most likely has to be a C++ ISAPI. We have a number of websites and we don’t want to make any changes to each one.

We envision the following solution:

-Installation runs on the server

-Administrator running the installation has a chance to select:

Which sites should be affected

File types: he can choose

Exclude:

Include – this should support “*” for ALL

-Once installed, ISAPI will “look” through the output of all specified files and search for regular expressions identified in the settings file

-Settings file will allow us to adjust search strings without having to reinstall

-ISAPI should pick up changes to the settings file w/o a restart (or by forcing it through in interface)

-There should be an interface that allows modifications to settings. Preferably in IIS MMC

-Interface should provide a way to modify which “object” tags get replaced with what JavaScript

Platform:

IIS5 & 6 -- required

IIS4 -- optional

Platform:

IIS5 & 6 -- required

IIS4 -- optional

If possible to adapt to other web servers (java, php, etc) -- even better. can discuss as an additional project

Whenever user requests a page that contains one of the ActiveX controls

-ISAPI will check if Browser is IE (if possible also check that the update is installed)

-If browser is not IE, do not do anything to the page. EXIT

-ISAPI will parse through the page

-Find appropriate ActiveX object tags

-Extract appropriate text into JS file

-Create JS file on the fly (either physical file or virtual)

-Insert reference to JS file in its place

-Surround original object tag with to handle browsers with turned off Scripting

Code has to modularized in such a way that “parsing” logic should be extracted into separate DLL/module – we might want to create .Net HttpHandler that will only handle one site at a time.

Delivery:

All the source code

Installation that installs ISAPI

Instructions on how to set it up manually in IIS

We can discuss the following 2 requirements based on the price to accomplish

You will need to test performance impact of the ISAPI filter and provide results to us. You can use any of the free load testing tools.

Example of .Net HttpHandler using the “parsing” module on IIS that doesn’t have our ISAPI installed

1) Complete and fully-functional working program(s) in executable form as well as complete source code of all work done.

2) Deliverables must be in ready-to-run condition, as follows (depending on the nature of the deliverables):

a) For web sites or other server-side deliverables intended to only ever exist in one place in the Buyer's environment--Deliverables must be installed by the Seller in ready-to-run condition in the Buyer's environment.

b) For all others including desktop software or software the buyer intends to distribute: A software installation package that will install the software in ready-to-run condition on the platform(s) specified in this bid request.

3) All deliverables will be considered "work made for hire" under U.S. Copyright law. Buyer will receive exclusive and complete copyrights to all work purchased. (No GPL, GNU, 3rd party components, etc. unless all copyright ramifications are explained AND AGREED TO by the buyer on the site per the coder's Seller Legal Agreement).