Generally browsers will post-process files on the Mac by downloading
the file and then asking the OS to open it. The browser may also in
some situations, based on the MIME type, assign a type and/or creator
code to the file to be sure that it opens in the correct
application. Files without type/creator codes open based on their
extension.
Details on how files and applications are associated can be found here:
I can't speak for other web browsers, but I think that Safari has a
predefined list of applications it will launch to handle downloads.
This includes the application that mounts disk images, the one that
unzips zip archives, Preview, an application for viewing images and
PDFs, etc. These are all considered 'safe' applications.
We make a browser called OmniWeb and we have a similar approach. We
ship with a default list of 'safe' applications, and the user can add
additional applications to that list. When we complete a download we
ask the OS what application would launch should we ask for the file
to be opened and if the response is in our 'safe' list then we go
ahead and post-process the file.
Since not all browsers can necessarily be configured to automatically
post-process downloads with your application, your best route is
probably a plug-in (excluding custom URL schemes). All Mac browsers
(AFAIK) support the Netscape plug-in API (1), and Safari will soon
support the new extensions to the older API (2).
I'm the lead developer for Blog Torrent, a simplified tracker and
client
for BitTorrent. An important part of the user experience is being able
to have seamless uploads and downloads with BitTorrent after the
initial
install. On Windows/Linux we currently do this by serving files
containing the information the client needs to start the upload/
download
with a mime-type of either application/x-bittorent or
application/x-blogtorrent. We'd like to avoid new URL schemes because
they're not backwards compatible with other BitTorrent clients.
It seems that the only way to make files of certain mimetypes
automatically open with the correct application is to create a browser
plugin that handles that mimetype and have that plugin open the
file. Is
that correct? If not, how do I do this and where is it documented?
If that is correct, where can I find the latest documentation on
creating Safari plugins? Can I use a simple Mozilla plugin with
Safari?
The most recent document I can find is dated May 2001. http://developer.apple.com/technotes/tn/tn2020.html
Nick
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