Rights-Managed HTML SDK

The Rights Management Add-on for Internet Explorer allows users to read MIME Encapsulation of Aggregate HTML Documents (MHTML) content that has been protected with Windows Rights Management (RM) technology. This software development kit (SDK) describes the format of rights-managed HTML which can be viewed with the Rights Management Add-on. The sections included in this SDK describe this format primarily for the benefit of developers of content publishing software, so that their applications can include functionality to create content with restricted permission.

This topic contains the following sections.

• Prerequisites
• Terminology
• Topics in this SDK
• Download the SDK

Prerequisites

Before reading the sections in this SDK, you should be familiar the following subjects.

• Compound files, including the manipulation of stream and storage.
• Publishing scenarios described in the RM client SDK.
• Compression using the zlib library.
• MHTML files and how to generate them using Collaboration Data Objects (CDO) for Windows 2000.

Additionally, to compile and run the samples included with this SDK or the example code included in the documentation, you should understand how to use Microsoft Visual C++ and Microsoft Visual Basic Scripting Edition (VBScript) and how to set up a build environment to work with the Windows Software Development Kit (SDK).

Terminology

The following terms are used throughout this SDK.

Transform - An operation performed on data to change it from its original form. Compression and encryption are two examples of transforms.

Data Space - A series of transforms that operate on data in a specific order. The first transform in a data space takes untransformed data as input and passes the transformed output on to the next transform. The last transform in the data space produces the data that is stored in the compound file. When the process is reversed, each transform in the data space is applied in reverse order to return the data to its original state. It is then ready to be processed by client software.

Compound file - A form of structured storage originally created for Component Object Model (COM). The structure of a compound file is analogous to the structure of many file systems. Streams are regions of data or objects, similar to files. They can contain text, HTML, XML, audio data, or even application code. Storages are conceptually similar to folders or directories. They can contain streams or other storages and serve as a method of organization within a compound file. For further information about compound files, see About Structured Storage [Structured Storage].

Rights-Managed HTML - A compound file which contains MHTML content which has been encrypted with RM technology and optionally compressed. Access to the unencrypted content is managed by the Rights Management Add-on, so that only the intended recipient can view or print the MHTML content in its original format. Rights-managed HTML files can have any file name extension as defined by the client application that consumes the file. The standard extension, .rmh, is always recognized by the Rights Management Add-on.

Topics in this SDK

The following topics are included in this SDK.

Download the SDK

You can view the documents in this SDK online using the table of contents or the hyperlinks in the previous section. You can also download an offline version of the SDK that includes samples.