As long as there will be no interoperable API that allows integrating any player or browser as component objects of applications, there's little chance it will appear.
Integrating only the audio player was already a big job, taking lots of resources, and something that still cannot be completed to support all audio formats (and there are still some MP3 and OGG internal formats that don't work with the builtin player).
So at most, such integration would just be a limited preview, and it won't replace a full-featured external player or browser.
Developing players takes CONSIDERABLE time and resources since years by lots of large companies or organizations, and it is still not finished.
The same will be true for mail agents, document readers (PDF and so... except for plain-text which could be integrated rapidly in limewire, if users did not ask immediately also support for an editor, or rich-text features...), and even image viewers (other than common viewers like GIF, JPG and PNG which could be integrated very rapidly in LimeWire).
For now the best integration is at the filesystem-level, with applications associated with file types.
So the good question is: do we really want limited players/viewers/browsers in LimeWire? Can we place reasonnable limitations about their capabilities, and still provide to users an easy access to more complete external applications without complicating too much the user interface?
Last edited by verdyp; September 16th, 2005 at 07:42 PM.
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