247980 - Enable Windows Media Player [WMP] in Firefox

Status: RESOLVED WONTFIX

(Firefox :: Shell Integration, defect, P1)

Description

[Brendan Eich [:brendan]]

See bug 215823.

/be

Comment 1

[Bill Mason]

*** Bug 248022 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

Comment 2

[Ben Goodger (use ben at mozilla dot org for email)]

I need a test case to test the patches from 215823

Comment 3

[Daniel Guido]

reading the discussion from bug 215823 it looks like this feature should be
implemented as an extension to please everyone.  it is not rooted in standards
and thats what mozilla is all about isn't it?  if someone wants it on their
intranet, they can install it themselves.

Comment 4

[Daniel Guido]

reading the discussion from bug 215823 it looks like this feature should be
implemented as an extension to please everyone.  it is not rooted in standards
and thats what mozilla is all about isn't it?  if someone wants it on their
intranet, they can install it themselves.

if there is a way to get it working without adding in this (ax) and activex.js
stuff and stick to standards, then go for it.

Comment 5

[Brendan Eich [:brendan]]

Cc'ing bclary, who says site evangelism is needed in any event (sites sniff UA
and do not ship or run ActiveX scripting, or all of WMP, if the browser is not IE).

If this bug is blocked by an evangelism bug, that's yet another reason not to
block aviary1.0.  An extension sounds fine, provided users can know they need
it.  That's the trick -- if sites start sniffing for IE *or* (ax)-enabled Gecko,
then we would want some clear yet disclaimer-filled hand-holding to get users
who must have WMP up and running with it.

/be

Comment 6

[Doug Halamay]

I ran into this bug at mtv.com and vh1.com when trying to view several different
music videos in wmp9 format.  After a close look at the code in the sites (they
are practically carbon-copies), it appears that there is a good deal of ActiveX
sniffing going on.  Here's a vote for this bug!

UA: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; compatible; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.7)
Gecko/20040712 Firefox/0.9.1+

Comment 7

[Bob Clary [:bc] (inactive)]

Doug, fwiw adding wmp activex wouldn't fix mtv since they use vbscript to detect
activex.

Comment 8

[Peter van der Woude [:Peter6]]

*** Bug 262433 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

Comment 9

[Adam Lock]

Building & shipping the plugin by default and controlling it from a pref sounds
like the easiest solution.

It could still be disabled by default. Sites that need it could refer users to a
small XPI extension that turns on ActiveX support (for whitelisted controls) and
adds a simple switch to control it.

I don't know if the new Firefox extension mechanism is suitable to house the
whole plugin in the XPI package. It's an extension / plugin hybrid with files
needing to go in components/ plugins/ and prefs/.

Comment 10

[Aurélien]

[mozactivex-ff-10 running on FF 1.0.2]
When scriptically creating an OBJECT element via DOM methods createElement etc..
( in this case a windows media player v9) it seems not possible to access its
"controls" sub object:

document.player.controls.pause() doesn't work, despite fully functionnal if
OBJECT tag statically defined.

static object:
alert(document.player.controls) = [xpconnect wrapped IDispatch]

dynamic object
alert(document.player.controls) = undefined

Some things don't happen when using DOM element creation of a WM-type OBJECT
element. 

Maybe an issue with current version of extension and FF 1.0.2 ?
Maybe solved in upcoming new version of the extension [14042005]

cheers all !

Comment 11

[Brian 'netdragon' Bober]

Are there any updates on this? Based on what I can see, this is one of the
biggest things holding back Firefox from reaching a significant market. It's
unfortunately the nature of the beast (Windows) having market dominance, and the
superiority of some of the Windows Media codecs that corporations having
streaming videos and users require this functionality for some or all of the
things they do. I see this firsthand where I work, as we don't have full
functionality for Firefox and the only workaround I've seen is to point
window.location.href to an asx which launches ASXFile in Windows. I'd like to
support Firefox, but there's internal pressure based on market share to just
perfect it for IE first before we start looking at other browsers. I despise
Microsoft for using ActiveX and not standard plugins, but unfortunately that's
the reality and that's what Firefox will need to work with for the time being.
Flash 8 may change all that because it's going to have a much improved codec.

Comment 12

[Jeff Johnson]

(In reply to comment #2)
> I need a test case to test the patches from 215823
> 

Try the clips embedded in this Slate article:
http://www.slate.com/id/2097404/

Comment 13

[redshorty4]

Try this,
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/player/version64/plugin.aspx

and download and execute the file. It will install windows media player for
firefox.

Comment 14

[Robert Strong (they/them - no direct email)]

I don't think this is needed anymore.