In KM75 I'm trying to bring up the dialog asking what to do with a video or audio file when I click its link, so that I can specify an external player. Instead, those files are opening and playing in the browser, which is not what I want. In about-preferences, the applications tab does not show the types MP3 and MP4, etc. Yet Windows has all the necessary associations to my media file types. Double-clicking any of them in Windows Explorer always opens them with Media Player Classic by default.

Ideas, anyone?

Try to install RVJ Mime editor, repacked by me tonight.

It gives you an editor for filetypes where you can add, change and remove filetypes handlers.





Edited 4 time(s). Last edit at 07/13/2015 01:14AM by rodocop.

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rodocop
Try to install RVJ Mime editor, repacked by me tonight.

It gives you an editor for filetypes where you can add, change and remove filetypes handlers.

I just tried that, rodocop. The filetypes now show up in about:preferences, along with the dropdown list of handling options. Your extension's dialog even shows the proper icons for those filetypes, and they also show up with the chosen application in mimetypes.rdf when I open it in a text editor. All indications are that the types are now recognized, but no matter what option I try (ask me first, save to disk, etc.), they still open immediately in the internal player.

The only other thought I had was to somehow disable KM's internal media handling, but I don't know how to do that.

You have something wrong with the system setup, I suppose.

I haven't faced the prob like this with any KM-build - installed, portable or even set as default.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/13/2015 11:16AM by rodocop.

There are also some "media" prefs in about:config, for mp3 etc., but no idea if those have any effect.

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foliator
In KM75 I'm trying to bring up the dialog asking what to do with a video or audio file when I click its link, so that I can specify an external player. Instead, those files are opening and playing in the browser, which is not what I want.

Does it work the way you wish with other browsers? E.g. Firefox?
Any links so we can test?

@siria: I noticed the media items there and experimented with them, but didn't see any difference, and besides, the specific string "MP3" is nowhere to be found in my about:config.

There is some inconsistency in the way about:config works, anyway, because about:config has a lot of the old Firefox settings I was familiar with in FF, but are apparently not used by KM.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/13/2015 05:55PM by foliator.

@rodocop: I doubt if it's a system problem, for the following reasons:

The same thing happens on my friend's computer using the default WMP player configuration. Also, on my machine the default programs list in Windows 7 correctly shows Media Player Classic as the associated program for all the audio and video types I use.

What I don't understand is that even though your extension seems to work properly and the filetypes show up under Applications, the instructions there are ignored by the browser.

BTW, in KM74, all my videos opened internally against my wishes, while MP3s brought up the familiar dialog asking me whether to save or open them, with no option to set a default. Moreover the file handling dialog in KM74's preferences menu (F2) showed my settings for PDFs; in KM75 they open correctly, but that dialog is empty!

---

@Yogi: IE9 always opened them externally, and so did an old version of Firefox (after I responded to the confirmation dialog), although I don't use either of those browsers anymore.

---

Anyway, KM75 is otherwise running very smoothly, so I won't waste my time reverting back to 74, or worse still, to Firefox or IE.

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foliator
@Yogi: IE9 always opened them externally, and so did an old version of Firefox (after I responded to the confirmation dialog), although I don't use either of those browsers anymore.

The Web has changed since. Most media content is embedded and not meant to be played externally so you are forced to use the provider's player and made difficult to grab the content.

So, if you have a link which you can open externally with another browser, post it so we can test.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/13/2015 06:16PM by Yogi.

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foliator
the specific string "MP3" is nowhere to be found in my about:config

In that case I'd add it manually. Just because a pref isn't shown doesn't necessarily mean it wouldn't exist or has no effect. Can remember for sure that somewhere on the mozilla pages mp3 was listed among those media prefs.

siria wrote:
> In that case I'd add it manually. Just because a pref
> isn't shown doesn't necessarily mean it wouldn't exist
> or has no effect. Can remember for sure that somewhere
> on the mozilla pages mp3 was listed among those media prefs.

(Quoting a message is not working for me today.)

Hurray! Thanks, siria! Following your suggestion, I googled "Firefox mp3 about:config", which led me to this discussion about a similar problem:

https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/992625

So in about:config, I set "media.windows-media-foundation.play-stand-alone" to false. This brought back the missing dialog and solved my problem with MP3s. Videos were still coming up in the browser, however, until I also set "media.directshow.enabled" to false.

In fact, this worked without the extension mentioned earlier, which I had uninstalled and backed up for possible later use.

But how is the average user -- either of Firefox or K-Meleon -- supposed to know all that? (rhetorical question)

We'd be lost without these web forums -- and I consider myself an average user.

Whoa - thanks to you!
What an ever-growing pref-jungle they create, incredible! Just to make it as hard on us as possible to do things our own way, not theirs.
Great find!

That extension, except its main purpose gives me Prefs-FileHandling-By Type list back to filled working state.

Well, siria - we even don't have the FULL list of prefs as we use very cutdown-version of Gecko (FF has big firefox.js with prefs, most of that are not present in KM! Some of them I add back to solve the mailto:-prob)

More possibilities, more modules - more prefs.

In general I found the prefs stuff very useful and mighty one. Almost always you can dig into it and solve the problem by editing or creating prefs.
It's great, I think.

And it's very of so to say 'K-Meleon-way'.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 07/13/2015 09:25PM by rodocop.

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siria
Whoa - thanks to you!
What an ever-growing pref-jungle they create, incredible! Just to make it as hard on us as possible to do things our own way, not theirs.
Great find!

I'm still wondering why the file handling dialog in KM's preferences is empty, considering all the changes in the Applications tab of about-preferences.

The other thing that suddenly happened was that PDFs started opening in my default reader outside the browser. When I checked the applications list there were three different PDF entries in there. One of them had a mimetype of x-application/download, or something to that effect. The word "download" didn't show up in the other two. Apparently PDFs were now treated as downloads, whereas they had originally opened in browser tabs via my PDF plugin. To fix that, I had to replace the mimetypes.rdf in my profile folder with the one in the browser defaults profile folder. This meant that I also had to redo the media types, but that's easy now. This stuff really has my head spinning! :confused:

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Yogi

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foliator
@Yogi: IE9 always opened them externally, and so did an old version of Firefox (after I responded to the confirmation dialog), although I don't use either of those browsers anymore.

The Web has changed since. Most media content is embedded and not meant to be played externally so you are forced to use the provider's player and made difficult to grab the content.

So, if you have a link which you can open externally with another browser, post it so we can test.

Actually, this problem (now solved) came up when I was testing something on my personal website. I have MP3s of my own music compositions there, but they're linked rather than embedded in order to keep the site simple -- no JS, no Flash, no ads, not even cookies, just basic HTML and some CSS. In fact, the entire site is a single page!

My idea was to have the music playing and still have the page fully visible, so that the user could also click a link to the scores and follow the music there if he wanted. The scores are PDFs that can be opened in browser tabs if the user has a plugin for a PDF reader.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 06/23/2016 03:47AM by foliator.

What a pure and peaceful site - yet it has all it needs!
So rare these days, sigh.

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foliator
I'm still wondering why the file handling dialog in KM's preferences is empty, considering all the changes in the Applications tab of about-preferences. (...) This meant that I also had to redo the media types, but that's easy now. This stuff really has my head spinning! :confused:

Yeah, must say it's way above my head too, but hopefully it gets fixed in the future. Filetype handling is a very longstanding bug in KM, with very low priority.

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rodocop
In general I found the prefs stuff very useful and mighty one. Almost always you can dig into it and solve the problem by editing or creating prefs. It's great, I think. And it's very of so to say 'K-Meleon-way'.

In general - YES, of course. But all inside reasonable limits, a bit balanced, or it starts turning into the opposite. For example this audio-video stuff wouldn't be such a pain and struggle if gecko would respect its own simple settings in "Applications".

Here's just a "little" extract from the official Mozilla page, showing the full craziness!
And it even involves different pref behaviours in operating systems!
http://kb.mozillazine.org/Changing_media_handling_behaviour#Audio_and_video_content

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Mozilla
Audio and video content

Support for open media (e.g., OGG and WebM container formats) is now built in to current versions of Firefox and SeaMonkey 2. Clicking on a download link to an "open media" file will open it automatically in the browser. There is no way to change that action, although you can context-click (right-click) on the link and save the file. [11] [12]

Starting in Firefox 21 on Windows 7 and above (Firefox 22 on Windows Vista), MP3 and M4A audio files, as well as MP4 video files with the H.264 video codec and either AAC audio or MP3 audio codec, are automatically opened in the built-in player by default using Windows Media Foundation (see bug 799315 for the background). Firefox "Options -> Applications" settings for those content types are ignored, unless you toggle the preference media.windows-media-foundation.enabled to false in about:config; however, doing so will also disable playback of supported MP3/M4A/MP4 <audio> and <video> content embedded in HTML5 webpages. [13] [14] [15] [16] [17] Windows Media Foundation isn't available on Windows XP. Starting in Firefox 26, MP3 content on Windows XP will open in the browser with the built-in player using DirectShow. The related preference is media.directshow.enabled (bug 861693).

The media.windows-media-foundation.play-stand-alone preference was added in Firefox 24 (for Windows Vista and above) which, when set to "false", was supposed to disable built-in playback of "standalone" media (downloaded files) while allowing playback of embedded HTML5 <audio> and <video> content for supported MP3/M4A/MP4 files (bug 861090). This preference rapparently no longer works; in which case, try also setting the preference media.directshow.enabled to false. [18] [19] [20] A new preference, media.play-stand-alone has been proposed in bug 861090 [21]

Note: Windows Media components may be missing on N and KN editions of Windows (sold to the European market) but you may be able to download a Media Feature Pack from Microsoft to install it. See this discussion thread, this support thread and this blog post for details.

And I even came across a site where FF users were complaining and discussing that those new prefs foliator mentioned have changed their own behaviour between FF versions 24/35/36!

Another "funny" peculiarity:
Someone wrote setting the pref "plugins.click_to_play" to "true" would give an option "Ask to activate" for plugins, on about:addons/Plugins. Note that does NOT change any settings, it only adds another possibility which should exist by default!
And in fact, when I toggle this, the 3 java-plugins that show up on my Vista are still set to "Always", but NOW the "ask" option shows up in the dropdown settings. Pure sadism that such additional hidden toggles are necessary for so basic stuff :cool:

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siria
Someone wrote setting the pref "plugins.click_to_play" to "true" would give an option "Ask to activate" for plugins,

Oh, great, there it was XDD

This afternoon I was thinking why it doesn't show in K-meleon but does in Firefox. Well, and other past times, but I never dig for this.

Thanks for dig for us siria. You are great with these annoyances.

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siria
What a pure and peaceful site - yet it has all it needs!
So rare these days, sigh.

Thanks, siria. In my 21 years of internet use I've seen so many changes! Sure, the technology used on websites has advanced tremendously, but I'm afraid it was at the expense of the content, and I kind of miss the web as it was when I started out: Simple but meaningful web pages put there by individuals, not big corporations. For me, the only real gain has been increased access to information. Wikipedia has helped in that regard, and I use it very frequently, but I try not to look up anything that could lead me into an obstacle course of technical terminology.

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Mozilla
Audio and video content

Support for open media ...

... and yada, yada, yada.

Holy cow! :O

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siria
And I even came across a site where FF users were complaining and discussing that those new prefs foliator mentioned have changed their own behaviour between FF versions 24/35/36!

Google must hate Firefox 36, because I tried using that in my user agent string, and Google wouldn't even let me manage my account. It insisted that I install a more modern browser that conformed to "basic standards". It listed Firefox, Chrome (of course), IE and Safari. More modern in this case turned out to be an older Firefox: Version 31, as found in KM75's default UA string. Now I have full access.

@foliator

I see.
Nice and clean site.

While turning off "media.windows-media-foundation.play-stand-alone" and "media.directshow.enabled" let you choose between opening the file in your default player and downloading the file, it also has a drawback.
Namely, whatever option you choose the file has to be written to the HD first so the player can read it.
The files will be written in your Windows Temp folder and stay there.
That's not something most people with a SSD would prefer. The less writing to the SSD the better for its life time.
That's why buffering the content into RAM is the better solution IMO.
In the past this wasn't possible since RAM was small.
Modern computers have between 3 and 16GB of RAM and modern browsers are taking advantage of it.

However, the user can play music and still have your page fully visible without the above settings turned off (and without any byte written to the SSD/HD).
First method: Open a new browser tab just for playing the music.
Second method: Open your default player and paste the URL of the MP3.

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foliator
I kind of miss the web as it was when I started out: Simple but meaningful web pages put there by individuals, not big corporations.

Now the internet became a business platform and stands mainly for profit.

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foliator
For me, the only real gain has been increased access to information.

Or an increased access to disinformation for that matter... A convenient way to control and to guide the minds of the lemmings

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foliator
Wikipedia has helped in that regard, and I use it very frequently

While indeed Wikipedia can be a source of information it is also more and more spoiled up by professional astroturfers.

Greets to Canada!

Once again:

foliator,
was your filetypes-list in Preferences also empty with rvjmimeedit installed?

My one got filled after adding this extension.

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foliator
In KM75 I'm trying to bring up the dialog asking what to do with a video or audio file when I click its link, so that I can specify an external player. Instead, those files are opening and playing in the browser, which is not what I want. In about-preferences, the applications tab does not show the types MP3 and MP4, etc. Yet Windows has all the necessary associations to my media file types. Double-clicking any of them in Windows Explorer always opens them with Media Player Classic by default.

Ideas, anyone?

Yes. Look for about:config browser.helperApps and edit. The old values to do it still exist. So You should be able to tie the MimeTypes to their app and open them right away.

Info at: http://kmeleonbrowser.org/forum/read.php?3,53797,54401#msg-54401

I did not remember the syntax. It took me to find, I had to search the original post by MonkeeSage (Jordan Callicoat K-dev, author of the first MIME Type Editor).



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/14/2015 10:23AM by guenter.

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Yogi
I see.
Nice and clean site.

Thanks, Yogi. That's how I want it. In fact, I'm always pleasantly surprised these days when I see a site designed by another webmaster who thinks the way I do.

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Yogi
(...) the user can play music and still have your page fully visible without the above settings turned off (and without any byte written to the SSD/HD).
First method: Open a new browser tab just for playing the music.
Second method: Open your default player and paste the URL of the MP3.

I had already tried right-clicking a media link and opening it in a new tab. Yes, it's a good option, but no longer necessary, since KM is now opening the files externally. Disk caching is something I no longer use, but of course the files in the Temp folder are a different matter. They get deleted regularly through the clean-up batch file I created. SSD's never entered my mind, as I don't have one myself.

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Yogi
While indeed Wikipedia can be a source of information it is also more and more spoiled up by professional astroturfers.

According to an old Japanese proverb, "If you believe everything you read, better not read!" It's always best to check the information against other sources. Most of the info coming from Wikipedia checks out OK, but then I usually look up stuff where personal opinions of an author or company would show up quite glaringly.

@guenter: Thanks, that's good info, although the solution I arrived at earlier is working just fine.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/14/2015 03:50PM by foliator.

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rodocop
Once again:

foliator,
was your filetypes-list in Preferences also empty with rvjmimeedit installed?

My one got filled after adding this extension.

Mine didn't. It has always stayed empty with or without the extension, and regardless of how many application settings existed in about:preferences. This is quite different from KM74, where the list was populated right from the start -- at least with the PDF settings.

Are you sure?
I've made many tests - and simple replacing your mimetypes.rdf (in your profile) with one from the extension - leads to list being populated after KM-restart.

Or replace mimetypes.rdf in browser\defaults\profile and create new profile after that.

List should be populated there.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/14/2015 04:38PM by rodocop.

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foliator

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rodocop
Once again:

foliator,
was your filetypes-list in Preferences also empty with rvjmimeedit installed?

My one got filled after adding this extension.

Mine didn't. It has always stayed empty with or without the extension, and regardless of how many application settings existed in about:preferences. This is quite different from KM74, where the list was populated right from the start -- at least with the PDF settings.

WFM.

Make sure You have an recently updated rvjmimeedit installed.

Most recent update: http://kmeleonbrowser.org/forum/read.php?9,134479,134536#msg-134536

And try with the mimeTypes.rdf file I attached in active profile.

guenter,
I think the reason is that new mimetypes.rdf which goes to defaults doesn't update one in existing profile - changes are seen only in new profile.

User needs to manually replace existing mimetypes.rdf.