[imp] Mime problems? application/x-unknown

[Brent J. Nordquist]

On Fri, 15 Jun 2001, Neil Johnson <njohnson10@yahoo.com> wrote:

> When I try to download a word doc attacment(xls,ppt,jpg,zip do much
> the same) by clicking the download icon on a message.  I get the
> netscape unknown file type dialog and the type that netscape seems
> detect is (for word doc example)
> application/x-unknown-application-msword.  At that point you have to
> go pick your exe file for the association(even though netscape has
> application/msword set correctly) or you can save the file.

Yes, this is by design; that MIME type forces the browser to prompt for
saving the file, which is the desired default behavior for the Download
link.

> I have tried setting mime.php3 to allow viewing the attachments inline
> and that seems to work better but, netscape will open a blank browser
> which doesn't close until the user closes it manually.  Netscape does
> prompt to open or save as correctly.  I assume this means that the
> mime type is correct and netscape knows the file is a word doc(which
> is the way I'd like the download icon to work).

In other words, by changing the MIME type for the Download link to
application/msword or whatever, you're getting the browser to prompt for
open vs. save?  Well, that sounds right too; I guess I'm not clear on what
the problem is.  How the browser reacts to MIME types and extensions
(whether it just launches an application, always prompts for save, gives
the user the open vs. save choice, etc.) is a browser configuration
setting, right?

There have been people who have talked on the list about changing
Horde/IMP at their site so that clicking Download launches MS Word itself,
but it sounds like you've gotten that far, if I'm understanding you right.
And of course, that requires Word to be on the client machine, so we don't
want that to be the default.

> I did not install the wordviewer or any of the other viewers.

And that, of course, is the other way Horde/IMP is designed to work; it
presents an icon in addition to the Download link, which when clicked will
run the viewer and show the document in the browser (HTML).

-- 
Brent J. Nordquist <bjn@horde.org> N0BJN
Yahoo!: Brent_Nordquist / AIM: BrentJNordquist / ICQ: 76158942