Provided by:
mozplugger_1.10.2-2ubuntu1_i386 
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
programs 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/.mozilla/
$HOME/.opera/
$MOZILLA_HOME/
$OPERA_HOME/
/usr/local/netscape/
/etc/
/usr/local/mozilla/
/usr/local/netscape/
The format of mozpluggerrc is very simple. The general layout is to
have one or more lines describing mime types followed by one or more
lines describing commands used to handle those mime types. Lines
beginning with # are considered comments and are ignored. Here is a
simple example:
video/mpeg: mpeg: Mpeg video
video/quicktime: qt,mov: Mpeg video
: xanim +W$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. Note: Some web servers
incorrectly report the wrong mime type, blame the web server
adminstrator not mozplugger.
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 space 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.
USING M4
When loading, MozPlugger will pass the mozpluggerrc file through m4, a
general purpose macro processor (assuming m4 is installed). This
provides the ablity to use macros within mozpluggerrc especially for
those commonly used command lines. m4 brings text replacement,
parameter substitution, file inclusion, string manipulation,
conditional evaluation, arthemtic expressions, etc to mozpluggerrc.
Please see m4 documentation for more details.
FINDING THE RIGHT COMMAND
When MozPlugger is called from your browser, it looks through the
configuration file and tries to find a matching mime type. For an
application 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.
WHEN IT DOESNT WORK
If for some reason the embedded object fails to be rendered in the
browser, this could be a fault with the application as opposed to
MozPlugger. To diagnosis the fault it is suggested that first you make
sure that any output from the application will be visible to you by
removing the noisy flag (if set in mozpluggerrc).
Next run the browser from the shell (xterm or equivalent) passing the
appropriate browser command line flag to enable output from stdout and
stderr to be displayed.
For example, for firefox the command line string is:
firefox -debug
This should allow any output from the application to be visible at the
shell and hopefully lead to a diagnosis of the fault.
FLAGS
repeat This indicates that the command uses the $repeat variable.
loop This indicates that the application loops forever. If the
<EMBED> or <OBJECT> 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.
swallow (name)
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. If name is prefixed with ’=’ then
mozplugger looks for an exact match with the window name, if the
prefix is ’~’ then mozplugger looks for a case insensitive
match, if prefixed with ’*’ then mozplugger looks for a window
name that starts with ’name’ and is case insensitive. If none of
these prefixes then, mozplugger checks if name occurs anywhere
in the window name, but is case sensitive. Note any spaces
between the brackets are counted as part of the window name.
The window name to use in mozpluggerrc can be obtained by using
the utility xprop(). Run the application in question, type
"xprop WM_CLASS" at a shell prompt and then click on the
application window.
fmatch (string)
This flag defines a command that will be used only if the
filename or url (i.e. file) contains ’string’. If ’string’ is
prefixed with ’*’ then mozplugger defines a match when the file
starts with ’string’ (the check is case insensitive). If
’string’ is prefixed with ’%’ then mozplugger defines a match
when the file ends with ’string’ (the check is case insenstive
and ignores any parameters at the end of a url {i.e.
’?xxx=yyy’}). If none of these prefixes then mozplugger defines
a match when the ’string’ is found somewhere in the file (but
this time match is case sensitive). Note any spaces between the
brackets are counted as part of the ’string’.
nokill This tells MozPlugger to not try to kill the application when
leaving the page, and to not start the application in a loop.
This is normally used for applications that are not swallowed
and can play multiple files, such as xmms.
fill This keyword is used to maximize a swallowed window.
maxaspect
This keyword is used to maximize a swallowed window while
keeping the width/height ratio constant.
controls
This flag is typically used with audio files to display a
controller with the buttons play, pause and stop while playing.
embed, noembed
These flags can be used to define embed-only or full-window-only
commands.
links This flag is used for defining commands for embedded objects
that are really links to external applications (such objects
typically use the target and href variables to indicate a
clickable link). Embedded Quicktime objects sometimes use this
mechanism.
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
application, 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> or <OBJECT> 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/firefox/pluginreg.dat after changing the configuration, or
nothing will happen. This is a Netscape/Mozilla/Firefox 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.
Occassionally you may notice some zombie mozplugger-helper processes
(defunct), this is not a bug, this is by design. The zombie processes
occur when either the application exits or when using nokill flag
(without exiting the page with the embedded object). The zombie(s) are
reaped when closing the web page containing the associated embedded
objects.
AUTHORS
Fredrik Hubinette, hubbe@hubbe.net
Louis Bavoil, louis@bavoil.net
Peter Leese, peter@leese.net
mozplugger(7)