Helper Applications and Plug-Ins
The Problem: Helper applications or plug-ins are programs that your Web Browser uses to play/display file formats it can not handle. Because there are many kinds of media in existence and many kinds of formats each kind of media can be stored in, it is not possible for your Web Browser to be able to handle all of them. Sometimes, you may come accross a new format just created or a format that is not that popular or simply one not yet handled by your browser. What do you do?
The Solution: You must find a program that can play/display the media format in question and install it on your machine and configure your Web Browser to automatically call this helper program any time it comes across this media format on the Web.
How do you do it?
- Well, you must first know whay kind/format of media you are trying to view. This is usually characterized by the file extension used:
Examples:
paper.doc ----> This is a Microsoft Word Document (.doc) paper.gif ----> This is an Image of format type GIF (.gif) paper.ppt ----> This is a Power Point Presentation (.ppt)- Secondly, you must find a helper application/ Web browser plug-in that will play/display the media. You can find this by searching on the web for the application. For example, if you were looking for a Helper Application that will let you view .WRL/.wrl files which are Virtual Reality Markup Language (VRML) files, you could search at your favorite search engine with the following strings:
Example Search Strings:
VRML player Virtual Reality player WRL player- Lastly, you will need to follow the instructions to download your helper application. Commonly, the installation process will automatically update your browser's Preferences section that lets it know from know on whenever it sees the media format in question to call this helper application.
Browse below to learn about the many available Helper Apps and Plug-Ins. Find where they may be downloaded to your system.
Remember the best way to find sites and resources is with a search engine, such as...
lycos
yahoo
The section below is a table adapted, but has omissions of changing technology
Common Internet File Formats
Updated from a table compiled by Eric Perlman and Ian KallenLast update: 1998
Find the file type you are looking for quickly in the INDEX, following the table
Note: This list is mainly intended for use on PC's running MS-Windows and for Macintosh computers. This is only a partial list of what really is out there but for these common platforms, the majority of the file types encountered on-line can be handled with the referenced tools. For compression info for all platforms check the comp.compression FAQ (126Kb).
Where to get the Software packages
- Adobe Acrobat Reader
- Freeware program from Adobe to read Adobe Acrobat Portable Document Format files.
Source site: http://www.adobe.com/Software/Acrobat/
- BinHex13
- Use this in a DOS window to get the original file.
- ESS-Code
- A Windows 32 bit program. Allows drag and drop uuencoding/decoding and MIME support. Look for tile name like ecdXXw95.zip where XX is a version number
ftp://ftp.cica.indiana.edu/pub/pc/win95/txtutil/
- Ghostscript
- Freeware program for viewing Postscript files on screen, saving to PICT format, etc. The program requires that you install a large (~6 MB) collection of files though. It also crashes alot.
Macintosh source site: http://www.glyphic.com/free/macgs.html
To run Aladdin Ghostscript on a PC you need gs###ini.zip, gs###fn1.zip and one of gs###dos.zip, gs###os2.zip, gs###win.zip or gs###w32.zip. Be sure to read the README and Index files in this directory.
ftp://ftp.cs.wisc.edu/ghost/aladdin/
- GIFConverter
- Shareware program (~$30) for viewing and converting between GIF, PICT, TIFF, RLE, JPEG (JFIF), EPSF, RIFF, Macpaint, StartupScreen and "Scan Image" formats. Some primitive file editing can be done such as cropping and re-sizing (scale-by-percent) and adjusting file resolution and dither pattern. GIFConverter will save GIFs in Interlaced format if you choose, but cannot handle transparent colors.
The main site: http://www.kamit.com/gifconverter.html
- JPEGView
- JPEGView is a freeware graphic program to read GIF, JPEG, TIFF, and PICT files. Runs fast and will dither nicely to any size of screen/color palette.
Source Site: http://mac.simplenet.com/graphics/jpegview
- Ladybug
- The Ladybug 1.00 for Windows95/NT can only play MPEG files less than 800KB but it looks promising, watch for updates.
- Laserwriter Font Utility
- This comes with your Macintosh. It's on the Printing Tools disk, or it may already be installed in your Utilities folder. If you need to download it from Apple, you can.
Source site: http://www.support.apple.com/
- Lview Pro
- Lviewpro provides support for a variety of graphics formats including GIF '89 (transparent backgrounds), conversion between different formats and image editing functions.
Pick it up at http://www.cmis.csiro.au/ITSG/lview.htm
- Netscape
- Netscape is by far one of the fastest and most powerfull World Wide Web browser.
http://netscape.com
- PolyView
- PolyView is a Windows NT/95 program that displays GIF, JPEG, TIFF, and photo-cd graphics files and converts between these file formats.
http://www.polybytes.com/pvbetha.htm
- Programmer's File Editor
- Programmer's File Editor is a large-capacity multi-file programming oriented editor for Windows 3.1x, Windows NT on Intel and PowerPC platforms, and Windows 95. http://www.lancs.ac.uk/people/cpaap/pfe
- QuickTime
- QuickTime is Apple's video format. Players for Macintosh and Windows are available.
http://quicktime.apple.com/
- Quicktime VR Player
- This is a QuickTime moview player that will aslo play QuickTine VR movies
Source Site: http://qtvr.quicktime.apple.com/InMac.htm
More Information: http://qtvr.quicktime.apple.com/
- Shrinkwrap
- Shrinkwrap is a free Mac utility that allows you to mount and use disk image files as if they were a mounted floppy disk. You can also copy disk images to floppies with Shrinkwrap by simply dragging the floppy icon onto Shrinkwrap.
http://wwwhost.ots.utexas.edu/mac/pub-mac-compression.html#shrinkwrap-142
- Sound Player
- Sound Player is a multipurpose sound program that can record and play back .au and aiff format sounds.
http://wwwhost.ots.utexas.edu/mac/pub-mac-sound.html
- SoundApp
- SoundApp is a small featureless program that will play most audio files you may find
http://wwwhost.ots.utexas.edu/mac/pub-mac-sound.html
- Sparkle
- Sparkle is the best MPEG player for the mac. You can play and convert between Quicktime and MPEG.
Sumex: ftp://ftp.ncsa.uiuc.edu/Mac/Mosaic/Helpers/sparkle-245.hqx
- Stuffit Expander with Expander Enchancer
- Stuffit Expander is the decompression program for the mac. With Expander Enchancer (It is installed when you install DropStuff) you can expand a LOT of formats!
get both Stuff Expander and Drop Stuff w/ EE from Aladdin
- Tar
- Tar 4.0 will read and write tar files.
gopher://gopher.archive.umich.edu:7055/40/mac/util/compression/tar4.0b.sit.hqx
- UNSIT
- UNSIT is a simple utility for PC users to extract files from a StuffIt file.
http://www.opus.co.tt/library/atari1.htm
- UU Undo
- UU Undo is a simple program to decode uu encoded files on the mac.
http://helpdesk.uvic.ca/how-to/support/mac/uuundo.html
- VMPEG
- VMPEG can play MPEG system layer streams containing both video and audio. This is a win32s program.
http://mirror.queen.it/cws/32video.html#vmpeg
- Waveform Hold and Modify (WHAM)
- WHAM provides support for a variety of formats, conversion between them and file editing functions.
Pick it up from http://www.inc.net/disks/pc/wham131.exe
- WinCode
- Wincode is a Windows 3.x program which converts 8-bit BINARY (EXE, COM,GIF, etc) files to 7-bit ASCII (Text) files (and vice versa) through a process known as bit-shifting. Wincode currently supports UU/XX and Base64 (MIME 1.0 conformant) coding.
To be had from http://www.surnames.com/organizations/agcig/shareware/wincode.htm
- WinZip
- WinZip is an essential tool for it's excellent handling of many different archiving and compression formats. Downloads as a self-extracting archive.
Get it off the Network and Computing Page at http://www.monterey.edu
- WordView
- For MS-Windows users, displaying Microsoft Word documents without having to allocate the memory resources required to fire up MS-Word is very handy. Get yours at ftp://ftp.microsoft.com/Softlib/MSLFILES/
- ZipIt
- A fast program for the Macintosh to extract and create Zip archives.
Home Site: http://www.awa.com/softlock/zipit/zipit.html
INDEX
A .arj .au .aiff Acrobat B .bin BinHex13 C D .doc E .exe ESS-Code F G .gz GhostScript H .htm .html .hqx I .image J .jpg .jpeg .jfif JPEGView K L Laser Font Utility Ladybug Lview Pro M .mpg .mpeg .mov .movie N Netscape O P .pdf .ps PolyView Programmer's File Editor Q .qt QuickTime QuickTime VR R S .sea .sit Shrinkwrap Sound Player SoundApp Sparkle Stuffit Expander T .tar .tgz .tif .tiff .txt TAR U .uu UNSIT UU Undo V VMPEG W .wav WHAM WinCode WinZip WordView X Y Z .Z .zip ZipIt
Important file types not included within the above list include Schockware (for Director, Authorware, etc. from Macromedia), dxf/dwg viewers for 3D objects (Autodesk, 3DS files from Kinnetix, and general layout viewers Envoy and Common Ground software.