Subject: Re: netscape

From: "Brian C. White" <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 08 Sep 1996 14:38:15 -0400

> Found to my great surprise that netscape now doesn't default to ghostview'ing
> a .ps file --- could you post me your /etc/mailcap file to overcome this?

It's a bug in Netscape that causes it not to poperly evaluate the test
condiditon.  I have reported this bug to Netscape, so hopefully it will
be fixed in the next revision.  For some reason they 'tolower' the entire
test line so that variables like "$DISPLAY" become "$display" which makes
it useless.

The best thing to do for now is to copy the ghostview line into the "user"
section and omit the 'test' clause.  Something like:

  # ----- User Section Begins ----- #
  application/postscript; /usr/bin/X11/ghostview %s
  # -----  User Section Ends  ----- #

You should remove this line once Netscape gets fixed, though.
                                             
                                          Brian
                                 ( [email-masked] )
                                             
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From: "Larry 'Daffy' Daffner" <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 08 Sep 1996 16:15:54 -0500

"Brian C. White" writes:
-> > Found to my great surprise that netscape now doesn't default to ghostview'
ing
-> > a .ps file --- could you post me your /etc/mailcap file to overcome this?
-> 
-> It's a bug in Netscape that causes it not to poperly evaluate the test
-> condiditon.  I have reported this bug to Netscape, so hopefully it will
-> be fixed in the next revision.  For some reason they 'tolower' the entire
-> test line so that variables like "$DISPLAY" become "$display" which makes
-> it useless.
-> 
-> The best thing to do for now is to copy the ghostview line into the "user"
-> section and omit the 'test' clause.  Something like:
-> 

I also reported this bug.  However, it seems like Netscape 3.0 (at
least the later betas) messes around with making a Windows-like
configuration for helper apps, rather than letting you specify an
alternate mailcap file, like it used to.  The problem is, if you use
this to do anything at all, it'll stomp over any test clauses, and
extra entries that use it.  It's a major point against netscape
IMHO. The way I found to avoid this problem is to copy your .mailcap
file to, say, .mailcap.netscape and make it X-specific (no test
fields), then edit .netscape/preferences by hand, and change the
PERSONAL_MAILCAP: entry to point to the copy you made.  It says in the
preferences file not to edit it by hand, but it's the only way to
change it in newer releases (sigh).

HTH

-Larry

--
  Larry Daffner        |  Linux: Unleash the workstation in your PC!
  [email-masked] / http://web2.airmail.net/vizzie/
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