Yes. The problem is that Mozilla applications such as FireFox and Camino are very poorly designed and do not distinguish between real downloading for keeping a file vs. mere viewing. The latter does that preferably in a "hidden manner", i.e. downloads the file to a temporary folder, where the system will regularly cleanup, such as the Unix traditional tmp folders (in OS X this is /private/tmp). Unfortunately Mozilla developers seem unable to understand the issue, (coming from Windows systems and not understanding Unix?), and therefore seem to be unable to ever fix this problem since years (see discussions and complaints, including the ones from me at https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=311292). BTW, I offered simple to implement solutions including dialog design (see e.g. my Comment #161 referring to these contributions), but none of the programmer's seems to understand the issue let alone implements the simple solution. I stopped using Mozilla applications for these reasons, except Camino, which I use for a single purpose as described below.
I adjusted to these shortcomings by using several browsers. I use Camino as the default browser for BibDesk, which I have configured to use as the downloading folder /private/tmp and to "open downloaded files" when downloads finish, so that I can conveniently link those pdf's to the current BibDesk record using an AppleScript (triggered by a shortcut via DragThing). That's the only purpose I use Camino for. Any other browsing is done with the system-wide default browser, I use Safari, a browser, which is able to distinguish between merely reading a pdf vs. really downloading it to keep it. Regards, Andreas ETH Zurich Prof. Dr. Andreas Fischlin Systems Ecology - Institute of Integrative Biology CHN E 21.1 Universitaetstrasse 16 8092 Zurich SWITZERLAND [email protected]<mailto:[email protected]> www.sysecol.ethz.ch<http://www.sysecol.ethz.ch> +41 44 633-6090 phone +41 44 633-1136 fax +41 79 221-4657 mobile Make it as simple as possible, but distrust it! ________________________________________________________________________ On 24/Jan/2011, at 19:36 , Michael Kraft wrote: > For Firefox, it looks like you'll have to do something different. > http://support.mozilla.com/en-US/kb/Opening%20PDF%20files%20within%20Firefox Thanks, that plug-in seems to be just what I need. Just out of curiosity, when Safari downloads the PDF "to a temporary file in a hidden folder," does that result in the same 'writing to disk' as downloading a PDF with Firefox -- the only difference being that Firefox (without the plugin) requires the user to manually delete the PDF, whereas Safari does that automatically? Or are such 'temporary files' ever created in RAM only? Thanks again. --------------------------------------------------- --- On Fri, 1/21/11, Maxwell, Adam R <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote: From: Maxwell, Adam R <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>> Subject: Re: [Skim-app-users] Viewing PDF's without saving them To: "For general discussion about using Skim" <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>> Date: Friday, January 21, 2011, 2:10 PM On Jan 21, 2011, at 10:57, Michael Kraft wrote: > > Now if you are talking about clicking a remote URL that links to a PDF, > > than that's > > a totally different thing, and in fact has nothing to do with Skim. Remote > > URLs are > > opened by your default browser. > > I should have clarified that I was not referring to a disk file but to what > you refer to as a 'remote URL' that links to a PDF. I guess then you are > saying this is something that Firefox (my browser), and not Skim, controls. WebKit-based browsers (or at least OmniWeb and Safari) allow you to view PDF in the browser, and you can right-click anywhere on the PDF to view in your default application. To do this, it will download the PDF to a temporary file in a hidden folder. For Firefox, it looks like you'll have to do something different. http://support.mozilla.com/en-US/kb/Opening%20PDF%20files%20within%20Firefox ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Special Offer-- Download ArcSight Logger for FREE (a $49 USD value)! Finally, a world-class log management solution at an even better price-free! Download using promo code Free_Logger_4_Dev2Dev. Offer expires February 28th, so secure your free ArcSight Logger TODAY! http://p.sf.net/sfu/arcsight-sfd2d _______________________________________________ Skim-app-users mailing list [email protected]<x-msg://9/mc/[email protected]> https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/skim-app-users ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Special Offer-- Download ArcSight Logger for FREE (a $49 USD value)! Finally, a world-class log management solution at an even better price-free! Download using promo code Free_Logger_4_Dev2Dev. Offer expires February 28th, so secure your free ArcSight Logger TODAY! http://p.sf.net/sfu/arcsight-sfd2d_______________________________________________ Skim-app-users mailing list [email protected] https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/skim-app-users ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Special Offer-- Download ArcSight Logger for FREE (a $49 USD value)! Finally, a world-class log management solution at an even better price-free! Download using promo code Free_Logger_4_Dev2Dev. Offer expires February 28th, so secure your free ArcSight Logger TODAY! http://p.sf.net/sfu/arcsight-sfd2d _______________________________________________ Skim-app-users mailing list [email protected] https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/skim-app-users
