Plug-ins aren't able to launch and run as helper apps in their own window yet. (e.g. clicking a .ra or .rm link and seeing RealPlayer launch and run in its own window.) This is supposed to be working for beta2 on Win32 and Mac at least. (On Linux we need some upgraded plug-ins to test before we'll know if they work.) Verified not working in 5/5 Commercial 2000050513 on WinNT 4.0 SP4. To repro: 1) Go to above URL 2) Click any of the "RealPlayer" links in the black area on the right edge of the page Expected: RealPlayer launches in its own window and starts playing the clip. Actual: Get a "Unknown File Type: You are about to download a file of type audio/x-pn-realaudio. This file is unrecognized by Netscape. You can save it or open it with another application" stickup. Nominating nsbeta2 as this is on the beta 2 criteria list.

Marking M16 and realplayer and flash.

Renominating nsbeta2 as this is on the beta 2 criteria list and my previous nomination seems to have disappeared.

Don...moving to you to make sure this gets done.

Per discussion in PDT today, changing wording from "need to enable plug-ins running as helper apps" to "need to enable helper apps." We believe this bug is a DUP of another bug (but I haven't been able to find it). We also believe that this bug really belongs somewhere in the browser team, most likely XPApps. Changing component to XPApps. Leaving assigned to av until we figure out who owns this.

hmm...bug 10958 ?

Reassigning to davidm as I believe this bug is a DUP of bug 13784, "[FEATURE] Mime Type/File Extension/Application Service Registration" but am not certain. davidm: This bug tracks the need for us to support launching of external helper apps in their own window. When you implement 13784, will you have associated file extensions and MIME types to helper apps, and enabled the launching of external helper apps, so that (for example) when I click on a TodaysNews.ra file at news.com, RealPlayer launches as a helper app in its own window and plays the clip? If so, please close this tracking bug as a DUP of 13784. If not, please accept this bug or reassign it to whoever's responsible for implementing the launching of helper apps. Thanks!

The mime service is there. It currently doesn't do plugins or external apps. It is easy to extend the service to add that bit of data but I have been unable to pin down who is doing the connecting work to associate actions with mimetypes. This is largely independant of my other mime bug.

Mozilla does not crash on this page. Tries sereval times on different machines browser - N6 Preview release 1

Gagan, who owns this now that davidm is gone?

Adding Exception Feature status.

I will own this for now. cc'ing relevant people.

This bug should probably be owned by me

Putting on [6/27] - PDT ok'd late delivery of this beta2 feature.

moving to M17.

I've filed separate feature exception bugs for the UI issues that got this bug the extension: prefs ui for adding external applications: Bug #43581 popping up a dialog before we launch helper app: Bug #43583 Mac integration using internet config: Bug #43585 This feature is working user both user specified over ride information (even though there is no UI to add new entries) and using OS defaults on windows. Mac and Linux both use user specified defaults. Two caveats: 1) As seen in Bug #43075. layout has some hard coded content types for plugins. So layout trys to digest the following content types even if it doesn't actually have a plugin for them: // XXX temporary static char* gPluginTypes[] = { "video/quicktime", "video/msvideo", "video/x-msvideo", "application/vnd.netfpx", "image/vnd.fpx", "model/vrml", "x-world/x-vrml", "audio/midi", "audio/x-midi", "audio/wav", "audio/x-wav", "audio/aiff", "audio/x-aiff", "audio/basic", "application/x-shockwave-flash", "application/pdf", "application/npapi-test", 0 }; Try to load a url with any of these content types will NOT cause a helper app to be invoked even if such an app is properly registered until this bug is fixed. 2) if your url does not specifically have a content type inside of it, it won't necessarily launch the right helper application. This is because, the networking layer currently "guesses" a content type based on file extension if the content type isn't explicitly set. The list they use to do this is a hard coded list of content types. So for many helper app required content types, we don't guess the content type correctly and you get the unknown content handler dialog. Most files you download on the net will have the content type set so you should be okay. But trying it out on local files will fail. Bug #43556 has been filed to cover this. I think that about does it. Marking this as fixed!!

I see realplayer and quicktime working on windows(2000062608). Is this supposed to be fixed for mac too?

This needs to work on Mac and Linux as well. On Mac, we can test this using the existing Nav4 Mac plug-in binaries. Shrirang, could you please check this on Mac using at least Real (and any others that apply -- Acrobat?) as part of your verification? On Linux, the launching of plug-ins as helper apps needs to work as well. However, I'm not sure how to test that right now. It can't be tested using Nav4 Linux plug-in binaries b/c of the Motif-to-GTK issue. And we're awaiting a number of plug-ins being fully upgraded on Linux. Suggestions, anyone? Are any of the sample plug-ins for Linux on mozilla.org usable as helper apps as well? Or are there other "true helper apps" (i.e. apps that *only* exist as a helper app, not things like RealPlayer that can be used in both ways) that could be used for verification on Linux?

IMHO, mp3 players are good helper apps to test such as xmms.

you can download xmms from http://www.xmms.org/ It supports everything that winamp does, mp3s, playlists, shoutcast & icecast etc.. There's source, rpms and debs.

Ok, tested on linux. Here's how I tested: 1) Open Edit ... Preferences ... Helper Applications. 2) Pick "New Type" 3) Enter in info: Description of type: audio/x-scpls File extension: .pls MIME type: audio/x-scpls Application to use: /usr/bin/xmms 4) Hit OK. 5) Hit OK on the prefs window to save changes. 6) load www.shoutcast.com 7) Click on one of the "Tune In!" Buttons. tadah! xmms launches and starts playing. However, there are hoardes of bugs throughout the process I described. Lots of new bugs will need to be made. :(

Joseph, be sure you looked at all the bugs I listed above before you start filing new ones so we don't have any extra dups. I didn't realize the prefs UI was up and running for adding new helper apps. I guess it is. Also this feature has platform specific code for each platform. So we need to verify it on windows before we can mark this as verified I think.

I have verified that helper apps are working fine on windows,precisely : winamp, windows media player, Realplayer, quicktime (build 2000070608).

So, how about Linux and Mac? Can sox be used as an input helper application for audio? More information: http://www.bovik.org/devup

mac has a seperate bug (bug 43585)

Manually (setting mime type in Prefs) trying to get realplayer working on mac is not working all the time for me.Sometimes, realplayer does launch but the file does not play and at other times, nothing happens when I click on a realaudio file. Should I reopen this bug as mac only or file another one? Does anyone see this too? Thanks!