Windows Media Player and Netscape Gecko
Version Number is Important
The Windows Media Player download page from Microsoft is referenced below, and all hyperlinks that refer to Windows Media Player download locations stem from this main page, which is: http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/download/default.asp
The Microsoft Windows Media Player 9 installer recognizes Netscape 7+, and thus will install a plugin for Netscape 7+ in addition to the other browsers on a user's system (such as Netscape 4.x and IE). However, the installer for the standalone Windows Media Player Netscape Style Plugin does not recognize Netscape 7+, and thus won't copy a plugin into the plugins directory of Netscape 7+. Netscape 7+ will detect if the Windows Media Player is on the system and incorporate the Windows Media Player plugin automatically.
Windows Media Player 9 doesn't work on WinNT and Win 95. Netscape 6+ users on Win95 and on WinNT do not have the option to run Windows Media Player as a plugin, since Windows Media Player 6.4 , which covers those platforms, does not install a plugin for Netscape 6+, and the Windows Media Player Netscape Style Plugin installer is only designed to recognize Netscape Communicator 4.x.
Scripting the Plugin Fails
If you embed the Windows Media Player plugin in a web page (using 'embed' tag for Netscape, and 'object' tag for IE), you cannot invoke JavaScript commands on the player in Netscape 7+ browsers. In order for this important feature to be available, Microsoft has to make some changes to the source code of the Media Player plugin. These changes essentially replace the use of the Netscape Communicator 4.x style LiveConnect code (the JRI/JNI bridge) with newer methods, and the suggested changes for Windows Media Player engineers are documented in an article in the plugins section of mozilla.org
The absence of scriptability means that web sites cannot count on this feature
for user-interface design on web sites. Therefore, Netscape proposes
the following for developers wishing to use Windows Media Player as an embedded
application:
- Ensure that the version running is Windows Media Player 9.
- Embed the player within a web page, but do not invoke JavaScript methods on the player.
- Launch the player as a helper application outside of the context of the browser by sending one of the file types associated with Windows Media Player over HTTP. Ensure that the file being sent is sent along with the appropriate Content-type HTTP headers so that Netscape 7+ understands how to handle the file. It will not automatically recognize the file based on file extension.
