Using Excel as helper application

Hans de Wolf (hdewolf@fss.fokker.nl)
Fri, 27 Jan 1995 15:38:16 +0100

I am trying to convince Netscape to use MS-Excel as helper application.
The idea behind this is that a user can select a MS-Excel spreadsheet
from a html page by clicking an icon.

The html page contains:

<A HREF="spreadsheet.xls"><IMG SRC="/lib/xlicon.gif"></A>

In Netscape, the helper settings in Options->Preferences are set to
to start Excel when an *.xls file is received:
- Mime type: application
- subtype: excel
- extension: xls
- action: launch application (application specified as
excel.exe in the right directory)

What happens is that if the user clicks on the icon the file spreadsheet.xls
is loaded, but Netscape does not start Excel, but shows the spreadsheet
as a lot of garbage text.

Obviously, I am doing something wrong. Any suggestions ?

Thanks in advance!

Hans de Wolf

--
Hans de Wolf - Fokker Space & System B.V. - Business Unit Payloads & Science
PO Box 32070, 2303 DB Leiden, Netherlands -            hdewolf@fss.fokker.nl
Tel. +31 (0)71 245878                                   Fax +31 (0)71 245835