Method of hosting a first application in a second application

A computer executable method performed by a runtime engine executing on a host operating system implemented on a computing device, the runtime engine being configured to provide at least a portion of a runtime environment, the method comprising:

• executing, on the computing device, an application inside the runtime environment provided at least in part by the runtime engine, the application being configured to instruct the runtime environment to generate a first user interface when executing, the application comprising one or more threads;
• setting up a corresponding hook procedure, by a management process executing on the computing device, for each of the one or more threads of the application, each corresponding hook procedure being executable by a corresponding hook configured to monitor the thread for user interface messages generated by the executing application, the corresponding hook triggering the execution of the corresponding hook procedure whenever the corresponding hook detects a user interface message, when executed, the corresponding hook procedure captures the user interface messages generated by the executing application, the user interface message including instructions to the runtime environment to generate or modify the first user interface, the capturing of the user interface message preventing the generation and modification of the first user interface by the first application and the host operating system;
• sending, by the management process executing on the computing device, the captured user interface message to an external process executing on the computing device, the external process being configured to generate a second user interface different from the first user interface, both the external process and the second user interface executing outside the portion of the runtime environment provided by the runtime engine;
• receiving, by the management process executing on the computing device, one or more application programming messages from the external process in response to having sent the captured user interface message to the external process;
• and
• calling, by the management process executing on the computing device, inside the runtime environment, one or more application programming interfaces associated with a first portion of the one or more application programming messages.

A computer executable method comprising:

• executing an application inside a runtime environment generated at least in part by a runtime engine, the runtime engine comprising a plurality of hooks, the application comprising one or more threads and calling user interface functions that when executed inside the runtime environment generate a first user interface, the runtime engine comprising a hook procedure for each of the one or more threads, each hook procedure being executable by a corresponding one of the hooks, the corresponding hook being configured to monitor the corresponding thread for calls to the user interface functions, the corresponding hook triggering the execution of the hook procedure whenever the corresponding hook detects that one of the user interface functions has been called by the corresponding thread, when executed, the hook procedure generates a message comprising information associated with the call that triggered execution of the hook procedure, the runtime engine forwarding the message to a user interface manager, the user interface manager being a separate application from the runtime engine;
• receiving the message at the user interface manager, the user interface manager translating the information associated with the call into instructions for a control displayed by a web browser, and sending the instructions to the control;
• and
• receiving, at the control, the instructions sent by the user interface manager, the control displaying a second user interface for the application based on the instructions.