Helper applications are programs that are assigned to handle multimedia
file formats (audio, video, images etc) that a web browser itself does
not understand. This page contains helper applications and set-up instructions
for Solaris versions of Netscape Navigator. The helper programs are verified
with Netscape 3.x, and I believe everything except plugins (and the
HTML table background colors on this page) also works with the 2.x version.
"Ready-to-go" means that no source code for the helper applications
can be downloaded from this page, only binaries and documentation. But
most of the programs are freely available on the net as source code. They
are copyrighted by their respective authors, who I have contacted to get
permission for making only the binaries available here.
The SPARC executables run on Solaris 2.4 or later releases, but because of
their general nature, they can of course just as well be used standalone
or as helpers for other HTML browsers. SPARC binaries are compiled and
optimized for the sun4m architecture (SPARC V8) using the latest Sun
compiler, SPARCompiler 4.0. SPARC audio applications are built for and
tested on systems with 16-bit (CD quality) audio, but should also work with
the older 8-bit (phone quality) audio interface. See the man pages for
application-specific options.
Solaris/x86 binares are created with Sun ProCompiler 3.0.1 on
Solaris/x86 version 2.5.
This table is a summary of the multimedia file formats that become supported
if all helper applications on this page are installed. Netscape will start
the appropriate helper if the data arrives from an HTTP server (assuming
that the server is properly configured), by FTP, as attachment in
Netscape news or Netscape mail (by clicking the attachment) or when loaded
from a local file.
When Netscape loads data by HTTP, it first checks if it can handle the
MIME type in the protocol itself (HTML text, GIF or JPEG image,
etc), then checks if a helper application is defined in the ~/.mailcap
file for that MIME type. If there is one, the data is sent to the helper
application as a temporary file, otherwise Netscape pops up a "Save
As..." file selector. The extension of the file that is downloaded
doesn't matter in this case.
On the other hand, if a local file is opened or a file is downloaded
by FTP, Netscape uses the ~/.mime.types file to look up the MIME type for the
file, identified by the file extension. Unlike some earlier browsers, Netscape
has a long list of built-in MIME types (the complete list can be found
in http://home.netscape.com/assist/helper_apps/mimedefault.html),
and doesn't normally need any mime.types file at all. But this page defines
helpers for a number of file types it doesn't know about (mid, fli, flc, wrl
and all the module audio file types mod, xm, s3m, stm, mtm, ult, uni and it),
and a ~/.mime.types file must therefore be installed. To
better document the setup and make things work with other browsers, it
contains the complete list of types.
It is still possible to save file types that have had helper applications
defined for them by shift-clicking the left mouse button or selecting "Save
Link As.." from the menu (right button).
The applications are divided into categories (audio, video, ...) and the
structure of each application that can be downloaded as a binary from this
page is identical: first a short description with usage hints, then four
links:
Setup information for applications that can be downloaded
as Solaris binaries from other sites (Adobe Acrobat Reader, VRweb, etc)
have three links: Download, Home, Vendor. The Download link should
lead to the vendor's download page or anonymous ftp site.
Below the links are additional installation instructions (which are only
necessary for a few programs), and then a table listing the mime.types
and mailcap definitions for the application. To make it possible
to verify that the
programs really work after the installation, most
applications also have one or more test files (located below the table).
All test files are believed to be in the public domain, but I will remove
any files that are not such at the copyright owner's request.
Open the Options->General Preferences window and click "Ok"
to close it again. This makes Netscape read the new mime.types and mailcap
files.
Then download the helpers applications you are interested in and install
the binaries and manual pages. The only program that includes files that
must be installed in a specific location is TiMidity (but there's a workaround,
see the TiMidity installation instructions).
Click each "test" link to verify that the helpers applications
work as expected.
Setup instructions and download information are currently available
for the following programs (links to the application categories are in the
left column).
The programs on a red background can be downloaded as Solaris binaries
from this page, and the programs on a white background are already part of
Solaris or can be downloaded as binaries from other sites, with
links from this page.
The program has restrictions: compressed AIFF and WAVE files are
not supported and the number of WAVE formats that can be played are
limited, but it adapts the input to the available hardware, doing rate-conversion
and converting stereo to mono as required for the older 8-bit harware,
while taking advantage of the 16-bit CD-quality audio interface on newer
machines.
mikmod 2.13 is a portable module player written
originally by Jean-Paul Mikkers (MikMak). It plays the XM, MOD, MTM,
S3M, STM, ULT and UNI module formats, and IT support is currently being
worked on. The Unix version of the player is controllable via
an ncurses interface and extracts and plays modules from a variety of
archive formats. As of version 1.90 and higher, mikmod is shareware.
This only means that you have to give the author a one-time $25 US
registration fee if you want to use mikmod commercially. See
register.frm included in the archive for more information.
The following keyboard commands are recognized
when files are played from the command line
Key Action
--- ------
x,e,q quit
<space> pause (also releases sound device until needed again)
n, down, CR next mod
p, up restart current/previous mod
>, right next pattern
<, left restart current/previous pattern
, down tempo
. up tempo
/ normal tempo
- down volume
+ up volume
* normal volume
d toggle deletion marking on/off
y delete current mod if marked
The Solaris binary that can be downloaded here includes three performance
enhancements and a new "quiet mode" command line option -q which
makes it possible to use mikmod as a helper application.
TiMidity 0.2i is a MIDI to WAVE converter that uses Gravis
Ultrasound-compatible patch files to generate digital audio data from General
MIDI files. The audio data can be played through any sound device
or stored to disk. On fast machines, music can be played in real time.
TiMidity runs under Linux, FreeBSD, HP-UX, SunOS, Solaris and Win32.
The default mailcap file starts up TiMidity to output audio data in
real-time, mono mode, at a sample rate of 22.05 kHz. It is possible to
increase the sampling frequency and switch to stereo to get even better sound
quality (and consume more CPU). Take a look at the midiplay script
(see below) for a list of valid sampling frequencies and the stereo/mono
flag.
The TiMidity volume control may be a little confusing. It controls the
volume of the sound that is generated and not the volume control of the
workstation. Because the output is buffered, volume changes are delayed.
It's easier to use /usr/openwin/bin/audiocontrol as volume control
instead.
Note: the timidity tar file includes another tar file usr-local-lib-timidity.tar
in addition to the binary and documentation. This file contains a number
of configuration files and two sound patches that must be installed in
/usr/local/lib/timidity (the path name is compiled into the binary).
To install the config and patch files, create the directory /usr/local/lib/timidity
and extract the tar file from that directory.
Root access is normally needed to create directories and files in /usr/local/lib,
but it should also be possible to install the config file somewhere else
by pointing to it with the -c command line option. In this case, the config
file must be edited to load the instrument patches from the new location.
Because TiMidity is released under the terms of the GNU General Public
License, the file "timidity-solarisDiffs.29sep96" that
contains my source code changes is also included. To add these fixes to the
original 0.2i source code, patch the source using this command "patch
-p < timidity-solarisDiffs.29sep96".
| mime.types |
mailcap |
| audio/x-midi mid midi |
timidity -s 22050 -imq -OdM %s |
cavatina.mid (6K, General MIDI file)
Only guitar and piano audio patches are included in the TiMidity tar
file, but it's possible to download a complete sound patch collection for
the General MIDI instrument set from the MIDIA archive: ftp://archive.cs.umbc.edu/pub/midia/instruments.tar.gz
(8MB).
To install the instrument files, cd to /usr/local/lib/timidity
and extract instruments.tar.gz there (or extract it somewhere
else and make "instruments" a symbolic link to wherever
it's installed), then get this new timidity.cfg
configuration file and copy it to the same directory (but save a backup
copy of the original file as timidity.cfg.orig first).
Now TiMidity is ready to play the full General MIDI instrument set!
Try this Rush favourite "Tom Sawyer" from Moving Pictures
sawyer.mid (36K, General MIDI file)
Here is also a little utility of my own, a script midiplay
that starts TiMidity with the same options as mailcap does. Put it in the
search path, and you can type "midiplay yourfile.mid"
to play MIDI files from the command line.
raplayer 3.0 is the popular RealAudio player that plays audio
in real time over 14.4 or 28.8 modems. Version 3.0 supports broadcast-quality
audio, including stereo at 28.8 kbps speeds and near-CD quality at ISDN and LAN
speeds. Solaris 2.4 users must currently still download the 2.0 version.
The player is free for individual use.
| mime.types |
mailcap |
| audio/x-pn-realaudio ra ram |
raplayer %s |
welcom288.ra (27K, RealAudio 28.8
file). This file is
played non-streaming from the HTTP server. |
The following two files initiate streaming-audio connections from
www.technohouse.com
and play techno by G.O.T - "Runnin High"
- 80033r2.ram
(36 bytes, RealAudio 2.0 audio format)
- 80033r3.ram
(36 bytes, RealAudio 3.0 audio format)
|
Visit Timecast or
Entertainment Radio Networks
for guides to RealAudio sites on the web, or why not an Italian radio
station, Radio X.
Video players
Netscape includes built-in support for GIF89 animations, but many sites
misuse this feature by putting dozens of animations on a single HTML page, which may
slow down the browser too much.
Here is a simple, lightweight example: a beating heart.
Press the Stop button to stop the animation (this only works in Netscape 3.x).
XAnim 2.70.6.3 is a well-known program on Unix systems for displaying
animations, video and audio files of various formats. It also provides
many options that allow the user to alter colormaps, playback speed, looping
modes and it can provide on-the-fly scaling of animiations.
| mime.types |
mailcap |
| video/quicktime qt mov |
xanim +Zpe +q %s 2>&1 >/dev/null |
| video/x-msvideo avi |
xanim +Zpe +q %s 2>&1 >/dev/null |
| video/x-fli fli |
xanim +Zpe +q %s 2>&1 >/dev/null |
| video/x-flc flc |
xanim +Zpe +q %s 2>&1 >/dev/null |
mpeg_play 2.0 MI is a public domain MPEG video decoder, that
displays an MPEG-1 video stream in an X window. This particular version
(MI) has an improved Motif user interface. It plays only MPEG-1 video streams,
and can not handle multiplexed MPEG or video+audio streams.
| mime.types |
mailcap |
| video/mpeg mpeg mpg mpe |
mpeg_play -quiet %s |
head.mpg (61K, MPEG-1 movie)
mtv 0.9 (MpegTV player) is a real time software-only
MPEG-1 video player with audio/sync for Unix/X-Windows platforms
with 8-bit, 16-bit, 24-bit or 32-bit frame buffers.
The MpegTV player plays MPEG-1 video and systems streams with Layer I
and II audio in realtime. Audio is played in sync with video and
graceful degradation is achieved with frame dropping if necessary.
Free demo versions of the player can be downloaded for Solaris
(SPARC/UltraSPARC) or Linux (x86 ELF), but the demo versions
are time limited and the audio is disabled after 30 seconds.
To install the MpegTV player as the MPEG video helper application (as a
replacement for mpeg_play), follow the installation instructions on the home page
and simply edit ~/.mailcap and replace the startup command for the
video/mpeg MIME type "mpeg_play -quiet %s" (see mpeg_play
above) with "mtv %s".
Image viewers
Solaris Netscape supports the most popular web image types GIF, JPEG
and X bitmaps, but doesn't have built-in support for other formats. Therefore,
some external image viewers might be useful.
xli 1.16 is a version of xloadimage that can view several image
types under X11, or load images onto the root window. A variety of options
are available to modify images prior to viewing. These options include
clipping, dithering, depth reducing, zoom, brightening or darkening, input
gamma correction and image merging.
The default mailcap configuration starts xli with the -fit -colordither
options to avoid colormap flashing, but to get the best possible color
quality the options can be removed if colormap flashing is acceptable.
Type xli -support to see the supported image types.
The mailcap entry also defines xli as a helper for the Photo CD format,
but a Photo CD test file is too big to include on this page.
By the way, if you are interested in using Photo CD images in web browsers,
visit http://www.kodak.com/digitalImaging/cyberScene/
and read about "Photo CD on the Web", a new technology for interactively
zooming, panning and enlarging Photo CD images in most popular web browsers.
A collection of Photo CD links can be found at http://www.kodak.com/digitalImages/cS/sites.shtml
xtiff 2.0 is a tool for viewing TIFF files. The xtiff
source release contains two user interfaces: an Xlib and an Athena
widgets version. This is the Xlib version with one enhancement: the q key
can be used to exit the viewer (like xli and xv). xtiff has two major limitations:
it always installs a private colormap (which results in colormap flashing)
and it cannot dither images that are deeper than the available visuals.
