======================================================================= SwiftView Unix Plug-in Version 6.1 Release Notes ======================================================================= Nov 25, 2002 SwiftView, Inc. tech@swiftview.com or (503)885-9392 x302 ======================================================================= Supported configurations ======================================================================= Systems: HPUX 10.20, 11.x Sparc/Solaris 5.5, 5.6, 5.7, 5.8 Linux 2.2 (glibc, RedHat 5 or later) Browsers: Netscape Communicator 4.5, 4.51, 4.6, 4.7, 4.75, 4.76 ======================================================================= Installation ======================================================================= ***** Installation file provided with the plug-in ***** npsv_hpux.bin -- The HPUX installation program and archive. npsv_solar.bin -- The Solaris installation program and archive. ***** Files installed with the plug-in ***** These files are installed under the browser's program directory: sview/svreadme.txt -- This file sview/svinst.dt -- Semaphore file - date is date of install sview/sview -- SwiftView program sview/svstart.ics -- SwiftView sample startup ICS file sview/svprint -- SwiftView sample print script sview/SwiftBM -- SwiftView bird icon sview/p300x300/* -- SwiftView fonts plugins/npsview.so -- Plug-in ***** PLEASE NOTE ************************************ You will have to set MIME types on your HTTP server to utilize this plug-in. See below. ****************************************************** A simple automatic installation is provided. Download npsv_*.bin (where * is your platform) and execute it logged in as the user who owns the Netscape installation--normally root. The npsv_*.bin program will install the plug-in in $MOZILLA_HOME if $MOZILLA_HOME is defined and exists, otherwise it will use /usr/local/lib/netscape, the normal program directory for the Netscape browser. npsv_*.bin does not register the plugin with a browser currently running on $DISPLAY. Accessing http://www.swiftview.com/restart.htm or entering the URL "javascript:navigator.plugins.refresh()" will reinitialize plug-ins so you don't have to restart the browser. You will typically need to modify the svstart.ics file for your printers. If your default printer is a PCL5-compatible printer with US letter-size paper, the first printer in the sample svstart.ics should work fine. Be sure to save a copy of your modified file to restore after a reinstall. If you wish to use the plug-in with multiple installations of a browser, set $MOZILLA_HOME to point to the desired installation and rerun npsv_*.bin. If you have any problems or questions about the SwiftView Plug-in for UNIX Netscape, please contact: SwiftView, Inc. tech@swiftview.com (503)885-9392 x302 Reinstallation Once a reinstall is complete, the new plugin takes effect as soon as you leave and redisplay the SwiftView document. If you have previously installed the SwiftView plug-in, the existing sview executable and plugins/npsview.so will be renamed to sview.old and npsview.old, and can be removed when no browser is running or saved in case problems are encountered. Deinstallation To deinstall the plug-in, exit your browser and remove the installed files from under the browser's program directory, plus sview.old and npsview.old if they exist due to a reinstall. Starting Sview The plug-in starts the sview program from the first of: $MOZILLA_HOME/sview/sview /usr/local/lib/netscape/sview/sview $PATH Resource Files The plug-in looks for a resource file named NDGSview, and merges it with the Browser's resource database. It looks for NDGSview under the first of the following directories whose environment variable is defined: $XAPPLRESDIR $NDGCONFIG $NDGUTIL $MOZILLA_HOME/sview /usr/local/lib/netscape/sview Note that if $NDGUTIL is not set, it is set to the sview directory installed under the browser's home directory: $MOZILLA_HOME/sview, else /usr/local/lib/netscape/sview. This applies to all uses of $NDGUTIL described here. The Unix plug-in allows multiple translations to be installed. If the user has a locale set (e.e. $LANG), the resource file NDGSview is found in a subdirectory of the name of the locale under the directory selected above, e.g. for french: $MOZILLA_HOME/sview/fr/NDGSview The example file NDGSview.np contains resource definitions for plug-in default settings. Except for the omission of an "Exit" button, default settings remain as described for the standalone version of SwiftView. For more information about SwiftView and X resources, see the Technical Reference manual. ======================================================================= Supported MIME types ======================================================================= Plug-ins are invoked based on the resolved MIME type of the document. The default SwiftView plug-in MIME types are: Mime Type Description Filename Suffixes application/vnd.SwiftView-ICS SwiftView ics application/vnd.SwiftView-ZIP Zipped SwiftView zhp application/vnd.hp-PCL HP-pcl pcl, prn application/vnd.hp-HPGL HP-hpgl hpg, hpgl, hp, hgl, plt, pwa, pwb, sch image/tiff tiff tif, tiff, 001 image/pcx PC-Paintbrush pcx, dcx application/cals-1840 Cals cal, ras The reasoning behind this selection of MIME types is: - SwiftView does not register old, common "standard" MIME types like image/jpeg. These types are likely to appear on servers that lack SwiftView licensing, causing the 30 second no-license warning to be displayed. Also, existing users may already be comfortable with existing means of displaying the types and may not want to start using SwiftView for them. This choice minimizes interference with current installations. image/tiff is registered because most users want to use SwiftView with TIFF. - The HP types were only registered in March 1997, so there is little chance that they are in use with existing browsers. If you need to restrict your plug-in to fewer types, add JPEG support, or otherwise reconfigure your plug-in MIME types or suffixes, you can enter and modify the following text in the file $NDGUTIL/mime.typ: All the lines in the file that do not begin with '#' (comment) are concatenated together to make one configuration string. The format is: MIME:suffix,suffix...:description of mime type for file open dialog;MIME... If you have previously installed the plug-in and started Netscape, you will need to remove the file $HOME/.netscape/plugin-list in order for the new configuration to take effect. It's easy to get confused about where the mapping from file suffix to MIME type is actually done. Plug-in filename suffixes are used only for local file names, e.g. typed in the browser "Location" field. The MIME type returned from your HTTP server determines which plug-in or helper is used when documents come from your web site. However, servers also usually determine MIME types from the server file suffix. As a result you MUST do some work on your HTTP server to use the plug-in with any type other than TIFF. The easiest thing is to select all suffixes you wish to provide on the server and return them as "application/vnd.SwiftView-ICS". See below for server setup. ======================================================================= HTTP Server Setup ======================================================================= Since the HP and SwiftView MIME types have only recently been registered, you must add MIME types to your HTTP server to use SwiftView with any type except tiff. Here are some example procedures for configuring servers: Netscape Communications Server: Edit the file: .../httpd-80/config/mime.types Add these lines as needed: type=application/vnd.SwiftView-ICS exts=ics type=application/vnd.SwiftView-ZIP exts=zhp type=application/vnd.hp-PCL exts=pcl,prn type=application/vnd.hp-HPGL exts=hpg,hgl,hp,hpgl,plt type=image/tiff exts=tif,tiff,001 type=image/pcx exts=pcx,dcx type=application/cals-1840 exts=cal,ras Apache: Edit the file: /etc/httpd/conf/mime.types Add these lines as needed: application/vnd.SwiftView-ICS ics application/vnd.SwiftView-ZIP zhp application/vnd.hp-PCL pcl prn application/vnd.hp-HPGL hpg hp hgl hpgl plt image/pcx pcx dcx image/tiff tif tiff 001 application/cals-1840 cal ras Microsoft Internet Information Server 2.0 and 3.0: Edit the registry: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE/SYSTEM/CurrentControlSet/Services/InetInfo/Parameters/MimeMap Add as required: application/vnd.SwiftView-ZIP,zhp,,: application/vnd.SwiftView-pcl,pcl,,: application/vnd.hp-HPGL,hpg,,: application/vnd.hp-HPGL,hpgl,,: ... (http://www.swiftview.com/tech/npsviis.reg is a short script to load the SwiftView MIME types for IIS.) See the IIS documentation (http:///isadmin/htmldocs, chapter 10) for details on setting MIME types. Note that restarting IIS from it's manager interface or from "World Wide Web Publishing Service" in the NT Service Manager does not reliably reconfigure the MIME types - a reboot is the only reliable way. Note: if you access your server from a browser, then add the SwiftView MIME types, hitting the browser refresh/reload button does not always reliably update the new MIME type. If problems persist, empty the browser's file cache; if that fails, restart the browser. Any number of extensions can be added for files to be viewed by SwiftView. Other examples include .jpg, .cal, .pcx, .plt. Note that SwiftView does not use extensions or MIME types, but looks inside files for actual content. The result is that any file supported by SwiftView can be returned as type "application/vnd.SwiftView-ICS". However, using vnd.hp-HPGL and vnd.hp-PCL for these formats may make your web site compatible with other software in the future. ======================================================================= Client Setup for file:/// protocol ======================================================================= When you view local files with a browser (that is, the URL begins with file:/// instead of http://), the browser itself has to determine what type of file you've requested and whether to hand it off to the Plug-in for viewing. The browser makes its decision based on file suffix, because there is no webserver sending a "Content-type" message. Netscape Communicator keeps this suffix-mapping information in a file called mime.types in $MOZILLA_HOME. Individual users may also have their own settings in a hidden file called .mime.types in their individual home directories. Unfortunately, Netscape Communicator does not seem to incorporate information about the Plug-in handled suffixes automatically into a mime.types or .mime.types file, even though suffix information appears to be correct in the "Help/About Plug-ins" page. The result is that URLs using file:// will probably handled (badly) by the browser itself as HTML or plain text. To set up a .mime.types file to work correctly with the Plug-in, use Communicator's "Edit/Preferences" menu. Choose the category "Navigator", then the subcategory "Applications". For each item in the Applications list which shows the file type handled by "Plug In : SwiftView Plug-in for Unix" select the item, then click on the "Edit ..." button. The dialog which appears has text fields for Description, MIME Type and Suffixs and a group of radio buttons in a frame labelled "Handled By". The Description and MIME type fields should have information in them and the "Plug In" radio button should appear selected. The Suffixs field will probably be blank or incomplete. To re-initialize the Suffixs field with the correct values, temporarily deselect the "Plug In" radio button (just choose any of the other radio buttons) then re-select the "Plug In" button. A "question" dialog will come up telling you that the suffixes are different. Click OK on this dialog; the "Suffixs" field should now contain all the correct values. Click OK to save these edits. Be sure to repeat the edit process for all the applications in the list that are handled by the SwiftView Plug-in, and to click OK when you exit the Preferences menu so that all the changes are saved. Rename the .mime.types file you just generated to mime.types and move it to $MOZILLA_HOME (make sure read permissions are set). If individual users need different mappings, a .mime.types file in their home directories will override the defaults from $MOZILLA_HOME. ======================================================================= Licensing ======================================================================= The SwiftView plug-in is licensed software. Licensing is accomplished in one of several ways: - A web license, installed in the root directory of the web server containing the SwiftView documents - A LAN license, for installation of SwiftView on a LAN server - A client-side license, for integration of the SwiftView plug-in into a commercial software product. - SwiftStamp, which embeds a license in the document file. Without one of these license files, the plug-in functions after a 30 second delay, enforced by a non-dismisssable dialog. The intent is to induce business users to purchase web site or LAN licenses but not be unreasonable for home users to "wait it out". A license may be purchased by contacting: email: sales@swiftview.com voice: (503)885-9392 x290 fax: (503)885-9352 For more information visit http://www.swiftview.com/buy1.htm We can email you a license file within one business day of receipt of a purchase order. You must supply your company name and address and which type of license (LAN, web, or client-side). For the web license you must give the name(s) of the server host, as accessed in URL's. For the LAN license you must give the department name or other general LAN identification. In all cases, say whether each license is for users running Windows, Unix, or both. The Plug-in looks for a valid LAN or client-side license in the file sview.lic. It looks for this file first in the $NDGUTIL directory, then in the user's $PATH directories. Only the first sview.lic file is checked for a valid license. If a valid license is found, the plug-in is fully licensed for use with any server or file. The license is checked when sview is started (i.e. at the first plug-in instance in a browser session). Otherwise, each time a plug-in document is loaded, the license file http:///npsview.lic where the URL to the document begins with "http:///" is checked for a valid license for . (Note that the usual browser file caching applies to web license files.) ======================================================================= User Interface Configuration ======================================================================= The SwiftView plug-in provides extensive mechanisms to customize the user interface. Visit http://www.swiftview.com/tech/npextspec.txt for details. Translation to other languages Both standalone SwiftView and the plug-in now support translation of user-visible text strings for Western European languages. Visit http://www.swiftview.com/tech/npextspec.txt for details. ======================================================================= ***** Known problems ***** ======================================================================= Any print job being processed by SwiftView (i.e. the printing dialog is still up) will be cancelled by leaving the plug-in page. If an ICS file has an error, the error message shows the cached filename, not the URL. The running sview program must not be killed when a plug-in instance is not active. If this happens the plug-in will stop working until the browser is restarted. No plug-in download and install menu is displayed when an HTML page containing a HIDDEN plug-in is accessed and the plug-in is not installed. On displays that do not support per-window colormaps (almost all), the browser window, except for the SwiftView drawing, will go technicolor if netscape -install is combined with sview's "set colorpalette sysdefault" ICS command and color SwiftView documents. Netscape does not handle "file:" URL's correctly unless all three slashes are given, e.g. "file:///u/rel/qa/tiff.001". Simply giving a file path, e.g. /u/rel/qa/tiff.001 is fine. UNIX-specific problems Within an tag, attributes must be in name=value form; both the name and the value must be there. The UNIX version of the browser may crash if only the name is present (i.e., default value is implied). The SwiftView plug-in can only be used with the default visual type - do not use the -visual option to Netscape. The partner mode show button Swift bitmap occasionally fails to display. The gui borderwidth ICS command and EMBED attribute are not supported. Generally, no border is displayed. Multiple embedded plug-ins are not supported. Partner-mode SwiftView window does not reappear in the previous location when returning to the instance. Partner-mode SwiftView window is not brought forward when button is clicked. Partner-mode SwiftView window help dialog is width of screen, OK button messed up. Problems with embedded views The Netscape reload button does not cause cached embedded plug-in files to be reloaded. Workaround: leave the plug-in page and flush the cache. Embedded (in-context) printing is not implemented. SwiftView can print the contents of it's own embedded windows using it's own print button but the HTML page as a whole cannot be printed. ======================================================================= Feature/bug fix history ======================================================================= These notes augment the regular standalone SwiftView release notes, which also apply to the plug-in. ======================================================================= ***** Problems fixed/new features in 4.2.4 ***** ======================================================================= Help dialog size/layout can be wrong. Partner mode doc button does not bring window forward. ======================================================================= ***** Problems fixed/new features in 5.0 ***** ======================================================================= Imap mail attachments now work. ======================================================================= ***** Problems fixed/new features in 5.0.1 ***** ======================================================================= The URL "#fragment" syntax is now supported - append "#" and any ICS commands to the URL. Non-ICS files can occasionally send bad ICS commands to sview. Cannot depend on servers not returning text/html for license. Security restriction should not be applied to commands from GUI. ======================================================================= ***** Problems fixed/new features in 5.0.2 ***** ======================================================================= Empty Web npsview.ics file caused a crash. ======================================================================= ***** Problems fixed/new features in 5.1 ***** ======================================================================= HPGL files were not reliably clearing draw area with some X terminals. See general release notes for the many new features. ======================================================================= ***** Problems fixed/new features in 5.2 ***** ======================================================================= Add corporate SwiftStamp licenses. onpage http: file access now works on Unix. The "Bird" logo and all icons are now replacable in a custom install package - contact SwiftView, Inc. for details. The 30-second no-license dialog can be cancelled, rather than forcing the user to wait 30 seconds to quit using the control. ======================================================================= ***** Problems fixed/new features in 6.1 ***** ======================================================================= B2327: Cleanup multiple instance support: sview exe per-instance. F2316: Add FIRSTICS embed/object parameter: processed before ldoc.