[Mac Tools Home] [Tools Home] [Webinfo Home]
[Mac Browsers] [Mac Editors] [Mac Translators / Filters]

MAC BROWSER HELPER APPLICATIONS

Here are a number of external helper applications that work with your browser to handle multimedia files such as graphics, movies, and sound files.

- G R A P H I C S -

Aladdin GhostScript

This product will allow you to view PostScript files. The Ghostscript, Ghostview, and GSview home page can be found at http://www.cs.wisc.edu/~ghost/index.html. It contains everything you need to know about obtaining the files for your particular platform and configuration. There is also a Ghostscript for Mac home page at http://www.glyphic.com/glyphic/projects/macgs.html.

JPEGView

JPEGView is a fast, powerful, easy-to-use image viewer for both 680x0 and PowerPC Macintoshes. The current incarnation of JPEGView can read JPEG, PICT, GIF, TIFF, BMP, MacPaint, and Startup Screen files. The original JPEGView home page is located at http://www.med.cornell.edu/jpegview.html, although this page now says this is no longer the case, and you should now look to a Mac-specific FTP site, such as info-mac (http://www.info-mac.com/), to find this file.

- S O U N D -

RealAudio Player

RealAudio allows you to play audio on demand without waiting for long sound file downloads. It's not quite real-time audio (the sound streams that you receive are still canned), but a number of news sites offer hourly updates. With a RealAudio Encoder, you can also create your own RealAudio sound files. In case you haven't "heard," Microsoft and Apple will be bundling RealAudio software in Windows 95 and the Mac Internet Connection Kit respectively. For more information on this technology, see the RealAudio home page at http://www.realaudio.com/ which contains a link to some demonstration sound streams, comprehensive installation and configuration instructions, as well as a link to download the software.

If you don't have integrated 16-bit sound, you can download Sound Manager 3.1 (194 KB) from the Apple support FTP site at http://www.support.apple.com/.

- V I D E O -

QuickTime VR Player

The QuickTime VR (Virtual Reality) Player is a very nifty package that allows you to experience virtual reality on your Mac without specialized graphics accessories. QTVR scenes are actually assembled from a series of photographs, video stills, or computer renderings which are warped and blended together to create a single continuous panoramic image. As you "look around" a QTVR scene, the QTVR Player unwarps the image on the fly and displays your "perspective" in the viewing window. For more information, see the QuickTime VR home page which includes some stunning demos of this technology, as well as instructions on how to download and install the software.

Sparkle

This public-domain program allows you to view MPEG-encoded movies and convert MPEG files to Mac QuickTime format (as of Version 2.0). It is available for download from http://hyperarchive.lcs.mit.edu/HyperArchive/Archive/gst/mov/sparkle-245.hqx or any mirror of the Info-Mac Archive. A Sparkle home page can be found at http://www.znet.com/mac/sparkle.html.
[Mac Tools Home] [Tools Home] [Webinfo Home]
[Mac Browsers] [Mac Editors] [Mac Translators / Filters]