NCSA Mosaic for the Macintosh User Guide: MIME Types and External Viewers

External Viewers

These freeware and shareware programs are available via anonymous FTP from sumex-aim.stanford.edu, mac.archive.umich.edu, or one of their mirror sites.

Images

Most of the images on the World Wide Web are in GIF format (and some JPEG files).

The following lists a number of freeware and shareware image viewing programs. The recommended viewer for both GIF and JPEG images is JPEGView. However, JPEGView requires Color QuickDraw. For Macintoshes without Color QuickDraw (those with the 68000 processor), use GIFConverter. GIFConverter is also the default viewer for TIFF images.

CyberGif

System requirements
System 6.0.2 or later; Color QuickDraw
Supported formats
GIF
Cost
$15 or a disk filled with GIF images

GIFConverter

System requirements
System 7.0 or later
Supported formats
GIF, TIFF, RIFF, PICT, JPEG, MacPaint, and Thunderscan
Cost
$35
Comments
This is the only program that can view JPEG files without QuickTime.

Giffer

System requirements
System 6.0 or later
Supported formats
GIF, Thunderscan, Startup screen, PICT, TIFF
Cost
$20
Comments
This is a fairly old program (last updated in 1991).

JPEGView

System requirements
System 7.0 or later; QuickTime; Color QuickDraw
Supported formats
JPEG, PICT, GIF, TIFF, BMP, MacPaint, Startup screen
Cost
Send a postcard to the author
Comments
This one program can view virtually all of the images found on the World Wide Web. There is a PowerPC version of the program available.

NIHImage

Supported formats
TIFF
Cost
Free
Comments
NIH Image is a powerful image processing program and is probably overly sophisticated if you just want a TIFF viewer.

PICTshow

System requirements
System 7 or later; Color QuickDraw
Supported formats
PICT, GIF
Cost
Postcard

PixelCat

System requirements
System 7 or later; Color QuickDraw; QuickTime necessary for viewing JPEG files
Supported formats
PICT, Startup screen, GIF, JPEG, several Japanese formats
Cost
Free
Comments
The program takes at least four megabytes of memory.

Sound

Most sounds on the World Wide Web are in the AU format. There are also some sounds in the AIFF format.

SoundMachine is the recommended viewer for both AU and AIFF sounds, but it requires a minimum of a 68020 processor. If you have a 68000 Macintosh, try SoundBuilder.

CanonTwo

System requirements
System 6.0.7 or later; Macintosh sound chip (does not run on Macintosh Classic, SE, Plus, or earlier).
Supported formats
AIFF, snd
Cost
Send postcard to author

SoundApp

Supported formats
AIFF, AU, Amiga MOD, Amiga IFF, DVI ADPCM, snd, System 7 sound, SoundCap, SoundEdit, Windows WAVE
Cost
Free

SoundBuilder

System requirements
System 7 or later
Supported formats
snd, AIFF, AIFC, WAV, and VOC
Cost
Free

SoundHack

System requirements
Macintosh II or above; floating point co-processor.
Supported formats
AIFF, AU, IRCAM
Cost
$30
Comments
Includes a number of filters for manipulating sound files.

SoundMachine

System requirements
System 7 or later; 68020 or above.
Supported formats
AIFF, AIFC, AU, FSSD
Cost
Free

UlawPlay

System requirements
System 7 or later; 68020 or above
Supported formats
AU
Cost
Free

Animation

There two main formats: MPEG and QuickTime. Macintosh users can view both. QuickTime includes audio support. The MPEG format supports sound but the available viewers do not. If you are interested in including animations in documents you produce, you should know restrictions on other platforms.

IBM PC users need to purchase QuickTime, and most UNIX workstation users cannot view files produced with QuickTime at all. So while QuickTime is universally available to Macintosh users, other platforms have limited or no access to these files.

The MPEG format does support sound, but available MPEG viewers do not support this feature. SimplePlayer is the default QuickTime player; Sparkle is the default MPEG player.

If your machine doesn't have a 68020 or above, you won't be able to view MPEG or QuickTime movies at all.

BijouPlay

System requirements
System 7 or later; QuickTime
Supported formats
QuickTime
Cost
Free

EasyPlay

System requirements
System 6.0.4 or later required; System 7 or later, Color QuickDraw, QuickTime recommended
Supported formats
QuickTime
Cost
$20

MPEGPlay

System requirements
System 7 or later; 3 megabytes or more for application; 68020 or above
Supported formats
MPEG
Cost
Free
Comments
A companion program, MPEG to QuickTime, converts MPEG movies to QuickTime.

Popcorn

System requirements
System 6 or later; QuickTime
Supported formats
QuickTime
Cost
Free

SimplePlayer

System requirements
QuickTime
Supported formats
QuickTime
Cost
Free
Comments
Available via anonymous FTP from NCSA's FTP server in
/Mac/Mosaic

Sparkle

System requirements
System 7 or later; QuickTime 1.6 or later; 68020 or above
Supported formats
MPEG
Cost
Free

PostScript

PostScript is a page-description language developed by Adobe Systems, Inc. Some complex documents on the Web are distributed in PostScript format. Usually, the best thing to do with PostScript files is to just print them out on a PostScript printer using Apple's LaserWriter Utility that comes with the system software.

If you don't have a PostScript printer or if you want to preview the document first, MacGS is an acceptable alternative. However, it requires a lot of hard disk space and often runs fairly slowly.

MacGS

System requirements
System 6 or later; 2 megabytes memory

RTF

RTF (rich text format) is a word-processing format developed by Microsoft to allow easy exchange of documents between word processors. Most of the common Macintosh word processors support RTF, but there are no public domain Macintosh programs available to display RTF files.

Compression Utilities

Many files on the Internet are reduced in size via a number of compression utilities. The following are sufficient for virtually all of the commonly used formats.

MacCompress

System requirements
128K ROMs or later
Supported formats
Unix compressed files
Cost
Free

MacGZip

System requirements
System 7 or later
Supported formats
GZipped files
Cost
Free

StuffitExpander

System requirements
System 6 or later
Supported formats
Stuffit, Compact Pro, BinHex
Cost
Free

Tar

System requirements
System 6.0.5 or later
Supported formats
Tar file archives
Cost
Free

UULite

Supported formats
Uuencoded files
Cost
$29

ZipIt!

Supported formats
Zipped files
Cost
$10-$12, depending on registration method


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