Python Programming On Win32

Internet Explorer

Internet Explorer, Version 4 and above, supports Active Scripting by embedding script code inside the HTML. As the HTML is parsed and rendered by IE, the code is detected, the particular language loaded, and the code executed. The script code is embedded in the HTML inside blocks delimited by <SCRIPT> and </SCRIPT> tags. The following is an example script that displays a message box:

<SCRIPT>
alert("Hello there")
</SCRIPT>

The default language for IE is VBScript, so this code is executed using VBScript. Because the script is so simple, the only change needed to make it use Python is to specify the language, as shown:

<SCRIPT Language=Python>
alert("Hello there")
</SCRIPT>

If you wish to experiment, you can save these three lines as a HTML file and open it in Internet Explorer. You should see a message box, followed by a blank web page.

You may be wondering where the alert() function came from, since it’s not a standard Python built-in function. This is the key to how Active Scripting works. As the application (in this case IE) loads the particular language, it notifies the language of global functions and objects the language should make available; alert() is one of the functions made available by Internet Explorer. This is how the application exposes its object model to the language; the programmer uses these functions and objects to manipulate the application.

The object model exposed by Internet Explorer is similar to the Dynamic HTML object model. There is a ...