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Mac OS X Tiger to boast Web Kit with new Safari plug-in model

Apple Computer\'s next-generation OS will ship with an updated Web Kit framework that will support a new plug-in model, allowing developers to tie in additional types of content to the company\'s Safari web browser.

A new version of Web Kit to be included with the Tiger release of Mac OS X will support HTML editing, DOM level access, and a new Safari plugin-model, reliable sources tell AppleInsider.

For the unaware, Web Kit is a Mac OS X framework that provides developers with a set of classes to easily display web content and implements browser features inside their applications.

The new version will deliver HTML editing features that will enable developers to create editable text views containing HTML. Developers will be able to use these features to replace text and manipulate the document text and attributes, including CSS properties. According to company documents, the editing support is not intended to provide the features available from professional HTML editing applications, but instead is aimed at developers who need to display and handle the basic editing of HTML content.

Another feature of the kit will reportedly lend support for creating and editing content at the DOM (Document Object Model) level of an HTML document. In particular, developers will be able to navigate DOM nodes and manipulate those nodes and their attributes. Furthermore, documents state that developers may use the feature to extract DOM information, such as a list of links on a page, modify them, and replace them prior to displaying the document to the user.

Possibly the most well-received addition to Web Kit will be support for a new \"flexible\" Safari plug-in model for tying in additional types of content to the web browser. The new model will reportedly let plug-in developers take advantage of the Tiger API (Application Programming Interface) for modifying DOM objects in an HTML page. The Objective-C-based model will also offer a medium for allowing JavaScript code to interact with the plug-ins at runtime.