Subject:
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Re: Making the DAT links work in safari.
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.cad.dev.mac
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Date:
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Fri, 23 May 2008 02:22:17 GMT
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Reply-To:
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CJMASI@*NOGARBAGEPLEASE*VERIZON.NETstopspam
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Viewed:
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Jim DeVona wrote:
> In lugnet.cad.dev.mac, Don Heyse wrote:
>
> > > Can't the user just use "Get Info" to assign an application of their
> > > choice to open files of a certain type? Reasonable defaults are
> > > important, of course. I'm trying to reproduce the problem Don describes
> > > but I'm not exactly sure what is expected to happen.
> > I'll have to look into "Get Info". Being new to the Mac, I don't know
> > what it means.
>
> Select a file in the Finder and select "Get Info" from the "File" menu (or press
> Command-I). Under the "Open With:" section of the little window that appears,
> choose an application to open the selected file when double-clicked. Click
> "Change All" if you want to use that application for all files of the selected
> type.
>
> Applications can claim support for various file types, but it's the user's
> choice (via this interface) which application should be used by default if the
> file is understood by multiple programs.
>
> > My problem was that I could make a bundle for
> > ldglite (or whatever) that makes it open the file in my app when you
> > double click on a local file. However I could only get safari to dump
> > the DAT file on the desktop when I clicked on the DAT links. Is
> > "Get Info" is a way to set the Safari Risk settings preference file
> > through the Mac GUI? Anyhow, with the safe settings I can Safari
> > still dumps the DAT file on the desktop, but now it also automatically
> > opens it in ldglite for viewing. Not quit as nice as the Windows
> > setup, but getting much closer.
>
> OK, as I understand it you want a DAT link to open the file directly in a
> program without saving the file to disk. While this might be convenient for
> LDraw, in general this sort of behavior is viewed, unfairly or not, as rather
> shady. If an HTML link to an LDraw file can run a program on my computer without
> my assistance, what's to stop a link to some other seemingly-innocuous file from
> running a not-so-innocuous program on my computer?
>
> I have Leopard, but I don't really know about the "risk settings" stuff. A user
> definitely should not be instructed to edit property lists, though, to use
> programs of their choice. Isn't that approval taken care of automatically the
> first time you run a newly downloaded program?
>
> Anyway, it sounds like the remaining obstacle in your setup is that the
> downloaded file is visibly saved to disk before being opened in another program;
> I assume you would prefer it download to a temporary location?
>
> It may be that the Mac simply does not handle this sort of integration as well
> as Windows. Hopefully others can help you work out a satisfactory solution.
>
> Jim
OK, long time Mac users here. In the days of long ago, most/all browsers
could be configured so that when the browser didn't know what to do with
a file, a helper application, specified by the user, could jump in to
open the file for you. (I imagine that this was true for Windows too,
no?) The ability to specify helper applications for file types that were
not supported by the browser was never available in Safari, so when
Safari encounters a ".dat" file it just displays the file on the screen
since the file is a text file.
In the Mozilla progeny, the ability to specify a helper application
still exits. For example, SeaMonkey still allows the user to specify
what gets done with individual mime types. You can create an entry
yourself in the Helper Applications field of the Preferences dialog, or
you can wait until the first time you encounter the file and set the
preference then. Thus, SeaMonkey can download a dat file and pass it
directly to LDGLite because I told SeaMonkey to do that with
application/x-ldraw files ".dat" or ".ldr" files.
Firefox, behaves similarly, accept, you cannot add the information
directly to the "Manage" area of the "Content" preferences tab. To
create a editable preference, you must click the "Always perform the
following action" box when FireFox asks you what to do with a file.
Thus, FireFox and SeaMonkey can both download ".dat/.ldr" files and pass
those files directly to LDRAW file viewers. They can do the same thing
with ".lxf" files.
It would be cool to if we could get Safari to behave similarly, but I am
unwilling to give Safari the blanket permission to open all files _it_
considers safe, especially since I don't control what Safari considers
to be a safe or unsafe file types. I'm willing to accept the security
risk posed by the automated passing of a dat file to LDGLite, because,
well, frankly, even if LDGLite has gaping security holes, what are the
odds that someone is going to write an exploit for it? (It doesn't have
gaping security holes, does it Don :)
So, I guess I'm suggesting a switch to a Mozilla based browser that will
allow you to specify what the browser should do when presented with
new/unknown mime types. Safari just isn't equipped to hand it
gracefully, which is too bad really :(
By the way, I did bring this up a few years ago when you and I used to
talk about LDGLite more, Don :)
Chris
--
http://mysite.verizon.net/cjmasi/lego/
Learn about brittle bone disease
http://www.oif.org/
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Message has 1 Reply:
 | | Re: Making the DAT links work in safari.
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| (...) Hi Chris, it's like swiss cheese, but let's keep that a secret. (...) Yeah I remember, but now I actually have a junky used Mac of my own to play with, so I want to learn as much as I can before it dies. I was sorta assuming Mozilla still (...) (17 years ago, 23-May-08, to lugnet.cad.dev.mac)
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Message is in Reply To:
| | Re: Making the DAT links work in safari.
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| (...) Select a file in the Finder and select "Get Info" from the "File" menu (or press Command-I). Under the "Open With:" section of the little window that appears, choose an application to open the selected file when double-clicked. Click "Change (...) (17 years ago, 15-May-08, to lugnet.cad.dev.mac)
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