Launchy Extension Allows Links to be Opened with External Applications

Friday December 19th, 2003

Henrik Gemal writes in with information about his new Mozilla extension, Launchy: "Launchy will enable you to open links and mailtos with external applications like Internet Explorer, Opera, Mozilla, Mozilla Firebird, Netscape, Outlook, BSPlayer, Windows Media Player and others. Launchy will auto detect all applications. It's a Windows only extension!

"Wanna open a link with Winamp? Just right click and say 'Open link with Winamp'. Wanna send an email to the selected mailto link using Outlook? Just right click and say 'Send email using Outlook'. I think you get the picture. It's great for testing and also for using external mail and media applications."

Launchy 1.5.0 can be downloaded from http://gemal.dk/mozilla/launchy.html.

#1 PDF files?

by ecarlson

Saturday December 20th, 2003 12:01 PM

I was just now trying to get Mozilla 1.5 to open PDF files using Acrobat 5.0 externally, instead of opening them in a Mozilla window. Unfortunately, I didn't see Acrobat listed in the app list for this new add-on. Does anyone know how to permanently force Mozilla to open PDF files in the external Acrobat app? When I setup Acrobat as an external viewer for PDF files, Mozilla says it will only use the external app if the web page indicates that it should use an external app, otherwise it will open it in a Mozilla window.

There is a setting in Acrobat preferences to "Display PDF in browser", and if I uncheck this setting, then when I use IE to view a PDF, the PDF is opened in Acrobat instead of an IE window, but Mozilla ignores this setting.

#2 Bug 147309 - Is there a workaround?

by ecarlson

Saturday December 20th, 2003 12:20 PM

I found the bug, and added my observation. Does anyone know a good work-around? http://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=147309

- Eric, http://www.InvisibleRobot.com/

#3 Re: PDF files?

by AlexBishop

Saturday December 20th, 2003 12:25 PM

Search for nppdf32.dll (the Adobe Acrobat Reader plug-in file) and delete it. Then Mozilla won't be able to find the plug-in, so it'll launch Adobe Acrobat as an external helper application to open the file.

Alex

#5 Renaming nppdf32.dll

by ecarlson

Sunday December 21st, 2003 9:11 AM

Thanks. That helped for now, until they fix the bug in Mozilla.

- Eric, http://www.InvisibleRobot.com/

#6 Re: Renaming nppdf32.dll

by thecameleon

Monday December 22nd, 2003 5:17 AM

AFAICT from the bug report, it is more of a bug in acrobat. It takes care of moving the plugin for Netscape (and I assume IE) but doesn't recognise Mozilla.

#7 Well, not exactly

by ecarlson

Monday December 22nd, 2003 3:26 PM

If I change the Acrobat setting, IE elegantly opens the linked PDF file in Acrobat. When I rename the DLL, Mozilla opens a new window, then tries to open Acrobat. If Mozilla was properly reading the Acrobat setting, it wouldn't have opened a new window before trying to open Acrobat.

#9 OOPS! Correction to my last post

by ecarlson

Wednesday December 24th, 2003 6:34 PM

I tried clicking on a PDF link again in Mozilla 1.5, and it is working fine after having renamed the DLL. If I click on a PDF link, the PDF file opens directly in Acrobat, so ignore my last post that said it opened another window first.

- Eric, http://www.InvisibleRobot.com/

#4 Extension allows you to choose apps

by davidboydca

Saturday December 20th, 2003 12:30 PM

This has been around a long while from Japan. Not on MozDev, I don't know why because it is one of many with pretty cool features.

http://white.sakura.ne.jp/~piro/xul/_ctxextensions.html.en#features

"Open with Applications

Opens the current page (, the frame, the link) or the selection text by your favorite applications (ex. external web browser, HTML editor, etc.)."

#8 sounds like... Mozex

by gwicke

Tuesday December 23rd, 2003 5:51 AM

http://mozex.mozdev.org/ lets you configure any apps and supports fancy things like external editors for text fields or the source view. The config is not done automatically, but has presets.

I use it for a few months, it's just great.

#10 Displaying PDF files in Mozilla or outside

by gregoryk7

Saturday January 31st, 2004 4:35 PM

Does anyone know how to cause mz to autolaunch acrobat and display the contents of the doc? How about just displaying the contents of the .pdf doc inside of mozilla? I prefer to have it externally as I would rather keep navigating while that doc stays open in reader.

#11 No PDF view

by cmcook41

Thursday October 21st, 2004 10:00 PM

After I updated to Acrobat 6.0 I have no longer been able to view PDF files online. How do I fix it?