I am trying to create a CD with FFportable and a set of HTML pages and PDF docs.
The PDF docs are accessed via the HTML pages.
on vista:
- created a directory with FFportable and html pages to show
- copied the contents of the plugins directory of the FF version installed on vista to the plugins directory for FFportable
- created bootable ISO file from directory
- mounted ISO
- FFportable starts ok
- selecting a PDF file from a html page launches plugin (nppdf32.dll) to view the PDF
- started virtual machine running W2K.
on W2K:
- copied the bootable ISO file to W2K
- mounted ISO in W2K
- FFportable starts ok
- selecting a PDF file from a html page does not launch plugin to view the PDF
On W2k:
If i look at 'about:plugins' the plugin (nppdf32.dll) for PDF is listed.
If i look at the 'application/pdf' settting via 'Tools/Options', 'Applications' tab. nothing is shown for 'application/pdf'.
When i do 'about:config' and change 'browser.download.hide_plugins_without_extensions' from true to false the 'application/pdf' setting is shown and it says the plugin should show the content.
But the PDF is not shown via the plugin.
So:
- is the problem that the nppdf32.ddl (version: 9.3.0.148) does not work on W2K?
- what is the problem?
- what is the solution?
The reason for doing this I cannot be sure of what platform the users of the CD have when viewing the HTML/PDF. When a first test on bare W2K already fails what to think of other situations?
Thanks for any advice.
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Plugins, in the sense that you mean, such as Acrobat, Media Player, Flash Player, etc, generally depends on having the full application installed on the PC, and then just a little loader stub installed into the browser that knows where to find the full app, and can render it into a browser tab.
So all that you would be putting onto the CD at that point would be the stub loader, and not the application itself.
Further than that, there can be significant issues with the plugins using the registry to find the installed application (e.g. the java plugin), which prohibit their portability without requiring administrator rights.
Also, there would be licencing issues with you distributing that CD, since you would be shipping a modified Firefox, which you would need their permission for, and also an installed Acrobat reader, which also breaches their distribution licence.
I'm afraid that I can't off-hand think of an easy way to create a simple page to launch a selection of PDF documents in the way you want, short of coding up a simple menu application to select between them, which would be way more work than an html page would have been.
You could possibly try having a PDF index page with embedded links to the other PDFs, which theoretically should work, and then use something like Sumatra to show this page and navigate to the others, but without trying it, I'm not sure how well it would work.