>[1] Why is IE claiming it doesn't know how to handle image/png when this >is explicitly set in file helpers?
My descriptions here are based on MacIE 5.0 behavior. Apple changed some things about Internet Config for OSX, but the basics should still apply. For actual files, the behavior differs depending on whether the file is ultimately loaded via the file system or http. This means behavior while testing a page locally (or via a file-share) may differ from accessing the file via http. HTTP relies on the server's MIME content-type (with some reality-checks in IE), and file-system access relies on "Outgoing" File Helpers to turn a file suffix and file type into a MIME type. This is one of the most confusing parts about file helpers: they serve two purposes. There are two types of file helpers from Internet Config: "Outgoing" and "Incoming." Depending on what you used to edit the Internet Config File Helpers, this info property might be expressed differently, but basically it means "how to serve a file" and "how to dispose of the data stream as a client." In my opinion, these two tasks should have never been mixed, and most weird data handling problems I've seen come from a conflict in this area. Technically, local files would use an "outgoing" file helper to turn the ".png" into "image/png" and then look through the "incoming" file helpers to determine what should handle it. You might have an incorrect "incoming" file helper that doesn't specify the correct handler for the file. >[2] Why does file helpers say the file should be saved to disk instead >of being displayed in the browser? IE wouldn't have done that. You might want to delete the file helpers for PNG. Graphic utilities frequently modify the Internet Configurations so that they are used as the creator for specific formats, as do some FTP programs. The problem is not limited to graphics; MP3 files have lots of interests competing for their handling as well. >Also, if I attempt to change the handling for PNG in file helpers, the >settings are not preserved. They have reverted to the defaults each time >I open the file helpers panel. That sounds like some utility or startup program is stomping on them. Or else there's a problem with IE or the system with saving the file after changes are made. You might try creating a new Internet prefs file from scratch, or see if one of your graphics utilities has a "handle downloaded files" preference. When a prefs file is updated for IE 5, a helper for each plug-in supported type was created so that a user could see what was happening. At least in IE 5, most of these issues were not related to something IE was doing, other than attempting to use the system-supported method for handling file-helpers. Please try the "support" button in the about dialog to help diagnose problems like this. The report contains a list of the file helper mappings in use (just in case there are multiple handlers). --bp -----Original Message----- From: Scott Stevenson [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Tuesday, October 09, 2001 6:30 PM To: Mac Internet Explorer Talk Subject: Re: IE 5.12 -- PNGs no workie! On Tuesday, October 9, 2001, at 05:01 PM, Brad Pettit wrote: > There is a difference, to, in how the images are referenced. OBJECT or > EMBED might get mapped to a plug-in, depending on file helper settings. > IMG tags are always handled by the browser. This was more a legacy > behavior than an ideal one. When an image file is accessed directly, > file helpers win. The problem we're talking about has no involvement with HTML tags whatsoever. IE 5.1.2's inline PNG display is perfect (thank goodness for that). The problem we're talking about arises when loading a PNG *directly*. For example, let's consider the following fictional URL: http://domain.com/my_image.png When a stock install of OS X 10.1/IE 5.1.2 encounters such a URL, it doesn't display the image. It does this instead: "Internet Explorer doesn't know how to handle the type of file you have selected." Obviously, this is incorrect behavior. PNGs need to have exactly the same status in IE as JPEGs and GIFs. There's no reason for it to be any other way. You guys have the best PNG support in the industry. The fact that IE can't deal with a PNG file being loaded directly is a source of frustration among site authors and end users. On Tuesday, October 9, 2001, at 04:48 PM, Brad Pettit wrote: > I'm not sure if this is what you're seeing, but Quicktime had a habit > of hijacking the PNG type, overriding IE's built-in support with its > inferior support. The best thing to do is turn it off in the Quicktime > preferences, and "fix" the helper in IE to view PNG with the browser. I'm aware of the issue of QuickTime hijacking PNG. Wow, was that annoying. PNG support without transparency -- great. But I think this is a different (though still long-standing) problem. I tried switching PNG support off in System Preferences -> QuickTime, but it had no effect. Though I doubt this matters because IE's file helpers panel does not indicate that QuickTime is responsible for dealing with either image/png or image/x-png. IE 5.1.2's file helpers look like this: .jhf - image/jpeg :: Handling - "View with Browser" .jpe - image/jpeg :: Handling - "View with Browser" .jpeg - image/jpeg :: Handling - "View with Browser" .jpg - image/jpeg :: Handling - "View with Browser" .gif - image/gif :: Handling - "View with Browser" .png - image/png :: Handling - "Save to File" .png - image/x-png :: Handling - "Save to File" See the problem? :) So, two questions: [1] Why is IE claiming it doesn't know how to handle image/png when this is explicitly set in file helpers? [2] Why does file helpers say the file should be saved to disk instead of being displayed in the browser? Also, if I attempt to change the handling for PNG in file helpers, the settings are not preserved. They have reverted to the defaults each time I open the file helpers panel. Just for the sake of argument, let's say this is QuickTime's fault. I imagine you guys have better access to the QuickTime/OS X folks than we do. Somebody from your group should shoot them an email and say "Hey, QuickTime is breaking IE's PNG support and driving our mutual users nuts. Here's what you have to fix..." Here's a post by Jimmy on the topic of the QuickTime hijacking issue -- from six months ago: ----------------------- From: "Jimmy Grewal" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Date: Fri Apr 06, 2001 04:35:05 AM US/Pacific To: "Mac Internet Explorer Talk" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: RE: IE 5.1b1 PNG Support Reply-To: "Mac Internet Explorer Talk" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> No, this is because QuickTime slams all the file helper settings to map all the file types it handles to itself. Contrary to popular belief, QT does not do the best job in handling some of the file types it supports. An example of that is PNG. The PNG parser in MacIE is probably one of the best ones shipping in any browser and is quite a bit better than the one that ships with QT (plug-ins don't support transparency). I have mentioned this to the QT folks several times, but I think I'm going to have to bring it up again next week when I'm in Cupertino. For an example of how cool the PNG support is in MacIE, check out: http://www.panic.com/audion/faces.php The way to fix all these problems is to set your file helper settings in IE to "View with Browser" in the bottom pop-up. Unfortunately, it's difficult to make changes to File Helper settings in the IE 5.1 under OS X...this should be fixed in the next public release of IE for OS X. -Jimmy ----------------------- Perhaps the issue with QuickTime swallowing PNGs was fixed. But if it was fixed, there is another issue. The most frustrating thing about all of this is that IE can display PNGs -- it just seems like a simple misconfiguration, but its impact is large. Best Regards, - Scott To unsubscribe send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] To search the archives: <http://www.mail-archive.com/macie-talk%40lists.boingo.com/> To unsubscribe send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] To search the archives: <http://www.mail-archive.com/macie-talk%40lists.boingo.com/>
