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Topic: NWC Browser Plugin (Read 7226 times) previous topic - next topic

NWC Browser Plugin

I can't see how to play nwc files in the browser. Using 98 SE and IE6. What do I do to make it work? The demo Moonlight Sonata looks great and just what I want but how do I do that. I have installed the setup, but what should I see?

Re: NWC Browser Plugin

Reply #2 –
Yeh thanks, I got it to work by associating the file type .nwc with iexplore.

Re: NWC Browser Plugin

Reply #3 –
When visiotor access to my website, I want to make NWC Browser plugin installed automatically, if it is not installed at his computor.

How to make it?

Re: NWC Browser Plugin

Reply #4 –
The Browser Plug-in is really a dead duck. It doesn't work with IE 5 or 6 and this is the browser used by the majority of users. Pity!

Re: NWC Browser Plugin

Reply #5 –
Even worse, MS is about to issue a change to IE (now in beta test) in response to patent litigation. The changed browser will no longer automatically embed media in response to an object or embed tag, regardless of the ActiveX or plugin type. Instead, there will be a temporary icon, inviting the user to click on it, to complete media embedding in the web page. No click, no see/hear.

That will occur at each instance of object embed. If a page has ten embeddings, the user would have to click ten places, even if the same kind of media player is called.

The work-around suggested by MS (and mentioned by Netscape, which may follow for all I know), is to use JavaScript document.write to place the object embed tags in the HTML as the page is written. There are tricks to this, of course. There are two ways to do it, one of which works in IE but not Netscape, the other works in all browsers. Guess which method MS suggests web designers use.

But the bottom line is that the revised IE browser will not automatically launch ANY embedded media (not even Windows Media Player on the Windows platform) if the object embed is in normal HTML tags. I'm not sure whether things like Flash animation is included.

This will happen soon - within the next couple of months.

Re: NWC Browser Plugin

Reply #6 –
Here is an example of the NWC browser plugin at work:

http://www.icogitate.com/~ergosum/others/sevenlastwords.htm

If you are not on the Windows platform, or if your browser is IE, then clicking the link to the "display" page will be intercepted by my own script.

If you are on Windows and your browser is not IE (currently, the only combination that will play the NWC plugin without a registry hack), then the link works. If you have the plugin, or are willing to download it, then you can see and hear the music.

The object tag is written with document.write from an external *.js file. That's important - it cannot use script on the same HTML page, to comply with the new method.

Re: NWC Browser Plugin

Reply #7 –
Thank you Bob.
I myself installed this with registry hack but I'd like to make it automatically installed.
Do you mean it is impossible due to MS'Intereuption?
I'll call Bil Gates tomorrow, to solve this matter.

How shockwave, swf and others do that?

Re: NWC Browser Plugin

Reply #8 –
Shockwave, etc. do not use a browser plug-in for Internet Explorer on Windows. They use an ActiveX control. These are specific to MSIE on Windows only.

If you open your IE, and look at Tool > Internet Options > Settings > View Objects, then you will see the ActiveX controls that are available for use by your browser.

Some of the ActiveX controls have obvious names, indicating what they are. A few may have code numbers. You can tell what those are by right-click, properties.

Some malicious or undesirable ActiveX controls can get in there, if you haven't been careful. So if you see anything that is clearly not supposed to be there, you can delete it. But if you are not sure, don't delete things just for the heck of it. Some of the obscure ActiveX controls may be important.

I would suppose that corporations such as Macromedia (Flash) have an inside track to knowing what Microsoft is going to do in the future, with respect to its browser. Anyone with the proper software tools can build an ActiveX control (I don't know if it has to be licensed by MS). But I would also suppose that from the perspective of most software developers, it would be a big nuisance if a lot of effort went into creating and debugging the control, and making an installer for it, only to find out that next month MSIE will use a different technology. Also, since ActiveX controls sometimes carry malicious code, it might be difficult to persuade many users who have protection software to install the control. I don't know.

But I don't work for NWC, nor do I program. Merely a user.

Lest you feel that MS is out to get everyone, I recently discovered some Mac quirks (via friends who had Macs) with respect to media players in web pages.

Re: NWC Browser Plugin

Reply #9 –
As Bills Chills points out, the primary NWC reference on this is available at news headline #21.

FreeFax Sender writes:
>I want to make NWC Browser plugin installed automatically

The browser plug-in is not installed automatically. It requires a small effort on the part of your web visitor, and they must be running Windows 95 or later. More recently, they must also be using a browser which complies with the Netscape plug-in standard, which rules out the most recent releases of Internet Explorer.

Peter Edwards writes:
>The Browser Plug-in is really a dead duck

It is just too early to tell whether this statement has any merit. The rather unpredictable world of software patents and US patent office/legal authority would seem to have nudged its way into the world of browser plug-ins (software patents are gradually having major, but not necessarily positive, impacts in all facets of the software industry). We (NoteWorthy Software, Inc.) are not in a gambling mood, so we continue to monitor the browser situation, but we do not plan to make any major decisions/changes until the issue is more settled. A reasonable person might have thought, naively, that a 7 year old browser plug-in technology with lots of prior art to be stable, but the courts have proven this assumption to possibly (allegedly) be incorrect.

Re: NWC Browser Plugin

Reply #10 –
Apart from the great issues: Automatic (that is, hidden) installation of any browser plugin (or ActiveX control) is, by and large, a thing of the past. System security protection usually inserts at least one dialog box to intervene.

Re: NWC Browser Plugin

Reply #11 –
Interesting from the WSJ:
The U.S. is reconsidering a patent affecting Internet pages that critics contend could disrupt millions of Web sites.
***

.. I dont have an online subscription, but maybe "you" do.

Re: NWC Browser Plugin

Reply #12 –
funny, the "Establish My Identity" button keeps giving me a 403 error.

Re: NWC Browser Plugin

Reply #13 –
The W3C apparently is urging that the patent in question be reconsidered. http://www.w3c.org

I already re-wrote my web pages to comply with the changes that MS intends to make to IE. So, when they do it, I'm already there. For me it was no big deal, since I don't have thousands of pages.

Re: NWC Browser Plugin

Reply #14 –
The "Establish My Identity" is now fixed (actually, redesigned).

Re: NWC Browser Plugin

Reply #16 –
Once again, a cumulative update for IE has re-set the internal flag that disables traditional browser plugins. So, if you had the NWC plugin working in IE three days ago, but then updated IE, you may have to re-install the plugin.

No problem on non-IE Windows browsers.

Re: NWC Browser Plugin

Reply #17 –
It's truly ironic that we have to fix things after every update. There's something seriously wrong with this picture!

Re: NWC Browser Plugin

Reply #18 –
The only problem, as I see it, is that the flag set by MS disables ALL traditional plugins, even those previously installed, and makes no provision for user choice (say, by offering a diaolg box).
 

Re: NWC Browser Plugin

Reply #19 –
Reinstalling the NWC plugin for IE does not reset the flag that Microsoft is disabling in their updates. Since this is a claimed security issue, we do not recommend that you re-enable the flag. Rather, it is better to switch to a browser that does not have a security issue with Netscape style browser plug-ins (news headline #21).