لطفا منتظر باشید ...
Plugging In Plug-Ins
Mozilla performs the tasks you expect from a browser, like displaying graphics along with text. Without help, Mozilla doesn’t go the extra mile and display things like animation and JavaScript. When it comes to special functions, Mozilla is a blank slate.
However, with a little help from friends such as you, Mozilla can go that extra mile. That help comes in the form of plug-ins. A plug-in is software Mozilla uses when needed to perform extra functions. To make use of plug-ins, all you need to do is — sorry — plug it in.
The plug-in process is straightforward:
Obtain the plug-in and place it in the Mozilla plug-in directory.
Optionally, configure the Mozilla preferences to use the plug-in.
We describe how to download and install several popular — and necessary — plug-ins. Let’s start with the popular Macromedia Shockwave Flash plug-in. Mozilla can show animation and other cool stuff. Follow these steps:
Start up Mozilla and your Internet connection (if necessary) and then check to see which plug-ins Mozilla already has access to by clicking the HelpAbout Plug-ins menu.
Mozilla shows that only the default plug-in, libnullplugin.so, is installed. You need to download and install some useful plug-ins.
Tip Clicking the Netscape.com link at the top of the Installed Plug-ins page sends you to the Netscape plug-in Web page. That page describes what plug-ins do and which popular ones are available.
Enter the address www.macromedia.com/downloads in the text box and press Enter.
The Macromedia download page opens.
Click the Get Macromedia Flash Player button in the Download Free Players section (in the middle of the page).
Click the Download Now button and the Opening install_flash_player_6_linux.tar.gz window opens.
You need to save the file that contains the Flash software, so click OK.
A second window opens, labeled Enter name of file to save to. Mozilla saves by default to the directory you’re working from — generally, your home directory.
Click the Save button and the software is saved to your computer. (The Download Manager window shows the progress of the download.)
Now you need to unpack and install the Flash plug-in. Open a Gnome Terminal window.
You need to become root (the superuser), so enter this command in the terminal window:
su
Enter the root password when prompted.
Enter this command to unpack the Flash Media software:
tar xzf install_flash_player_6_linux.tar.gz
The directory install_flash_player_6_linux directory is created, in which the Flash plug-in is placed.
Copy the Flash plug-in to the Mozilla plug-in directory:
cp install_flash_player_6_linux/libflashplayer.so /usr/lib/mozilla-*/plug-ins
We specify using the asterisk (*) in this command because you may be using a different version of Mozilla than we are. The asterisk substitutes for the Mozilla version number.
Choose HelpAbout Plug-ins and the window opens, as shown in Figure 11-1.
The Mozilla window described in Step 1 opens and displays the new Flash Player plug-in you just installed.
Figure 11-1: The Plug-in window shows the Flash plug-in.
Your Mozilla browser can now display any Web page that uses Flash content.
Installing the Macromedia Flash Player plug-in helps you a great deal. This list shows some more common plug-ins, available for Linux, that you should consider installing:
Acrobat (Adobe): Reads the Adobe Portable Document Format (PDF) files. Many Web sites provide information via PDF files rather than via HTML or other formats. You can download the Adobe Acrobat plug-in from ftp://ftp.adobe.com/pub/adobe/acrobatreader/unix/4.x. (Note that you can use the open source xpdf program to view PDF files.)
Shockwave (Macromedia): Provides multimedia, graphics, and game-oriented support. You can download the Shockwave plug-in from www. macromedia.com/downloads.
RealPlayer (RealAudio): Allows you to play the RealNetworks audio and video streams. Many Internet radio stations still use the RealNetworks protocols to stream their content. You can download the RealPlayer plug-in from
http://proforma.real.com/real/player/unix/unixl?src=>
Install the RPM package and then copy the plug-in to the Mozilla plug-in directory, just like with Macromedia Flash:
cp /usr/lib/RealPlayer8/rpnp.so /usr/lib/mozilla-*/plugins
You can also use the RealPlayer8 application to listen directly to RealAudio streams.
Java (Sun Microsystems): A programming language that many Web sites use to provide dynamic content. Although dynamic content comes in many forms, it’s basically anything that changes over time. Java is good at providing those interesting and often annoying Web thingies that spin around and do other silly tricks. Download the Java 2 Platform, Standard Edition (J2SE) RPM for Linux from java.sun.com/j2se/1.4.1/ downloadl.
Speaking of tunes, the next section shows how to play music from your CD-ROM.
