mozplugger(7)
NAME
mozplugger - a streaming multimedia plugin for UNIX mozilla
DESCRIPTION
MozPlugger is a Mozilla plugin which can show many types of multimedia
inside your Mozilla. To accomplish this, MozPlugger uses external pro-
grams such as mplayer, xanim, mtv, timidity and tracker.
CONFIGURE FILE
You can configure mozplugger by changing the file mozpluggerrc which
can be located in any of the following directories:
$HOME/.netscape/
$HOME/.opera/
$MOZILLA_HOME/
$OPERA_HOME/
/usr/local/netscape/mozpluggerrc
/etc/mozpluggerrc
/usr/etc/mozpluggerrc
/usr/local/etc/mozpluggerrc
The format of mozpluggerrc is very simple. The general layout is to
have one or more lines describing mime types followed by one or more
lines describing commands used to handle those mime types. Lines begin-
ning with # are considered comments and are ignored. Here is a simple
example:
video/mpeg; mpeg; Mpeg video
video/quicktime; qt; Mpeg video
: xanim +W$window -Zr +q +Ze +f $file
Each line describing a mime type has three fields:
mime type ; extensions ; description
mime type
The mime type is the standardized name for the content type you
want MozPlugger to handle. This must be the same type as the web
server claims the file to be, or MozPlugger will not be used for
that file, regardless of the extension.
extensions
This is a comma separated list of extensions that should be
associated with this particular mime type. The extensions are
only used when a web server does not report what type of file it
is, or when loading files directly from disk.
description
This is the description that shows up in about:plugins and in
the application preferences section in Mozilla.
Lines that describe what command to use for a mime type must
begin with a whitespace and have two fields:
flags : command
flags This is a comma-separated list of flags which tells mozplugger
how to handle this particular application. See below for further
details.
command
This is a command which is sent to /bin/sh when handling this
mime type.
FINDING THE RIGHT COMMAND
When MozPlugger is called from your browser, it looks through the con-
figuration file and tries to find a matching mime type. For an appli-
cation to be chosen it has to fulfill certain criteria, it has to
exist, and it must match the flags given to mozplugger.
When it does, it tries to figure out which command to use. First, it
looks through all the commands for that particular mime type to see if
it can find an application that has the stream flag. If it cannot find
a streaming application it downloads the file and tries again. Note
that MozPlugger will check the first word of the command and search
your $PATH for that command. If that command is not found MozPlugger
will go to the next line in your mozpluggerrc.
FLAGS
repeat This indicates that the command uses the $repeat variable.
loop This indicates that the application loops forever. If the
<EMBED> tag used to start MozPlugger indicated that the file
should not loop forever, the command on this line will not be
used.
stream This indicates that this application can take an url. In this
case, the variable $file contains the URL of the file to play
and the browser does not download it.
ignore_errors
This flag tells MozPlugger to ignore the exit status of the
application.
noisy This flag tells MozPlugger to redirect the stdout and stderr of
the application to /dev/null.
nokill This will tell MozPlugger not to try to kill the application
when leaving the page. This is normally used for programs which
start in their own window and can play multiple files, such as
xmms.
swallow ( name )
This is the only flag that takes an argument so far. It will
tell mozplugger that the application will open a window with the
specified name and that this window will then be moved to inside
your browser.
fill This keyword is used to maximize an swallowed window.
maxaspect
This keyword is used to maximize an swallowed window while keep-
ing the width/height ratio constant.
controls
This flag is typically used with audio files to display a con-
troller with the buttons play, pause and stop while playing. It
only works with EMBED tags.
embed, noembed
These flags can be used to define embed-only or full-window-only
commands.
hidden In conjunction with the swallow keyword, this tells the plugin
to swallow windows which are not visible yet.
VARIABLES
MozPlugger gives some variables to /bin/sh when starting the applica-
tion, these variables are:
$repeats
This variable contains how many times the file should be played.
Applications which use this variable should also set the repeat
flag.
$window
This is the X window Mozilla has given the plugin. This can be
used with applications such as MPlayer to display graphics
inside the mozilla window.
$width This is the horizontal resolution in pixels.
$height
This is the vertical resolution in pixels.
$file This is the file to play. If the application uses the stream
flag, this this variable contains the URL of the file to play.
$mimetype
This variable contains the mime type of $file.
$VAR_<parameter_name>
All the parameters of the <EMBED> tags are made available in
mozpluggerrc through environment variables. For example the
parameter loop="1" in an <EMBED> tag defines the variable
VAR_loop=1.
BUGS
You have to remove ~/.netscape/plugin-list or ~/.mozilla/pluginreg.dat
after changing the configuration, or nothing will happen. This is a
Netscape/Mozilla bug, not a MozPlugger bug.
Netscape 3.x will not play anything for <EMBED> tags for which height
or width are zero. This too is a Netscape bug.
AUTHORS
Fredrik Hbinette, hubbe@hubbe.net
Louis Bavoil, louis@bavoil.net
mozplugger(7)
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