MIME Types and Manifest Files

MIME Types

MIME Type is an object with four properties. (MIME stands for Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions and was originally related to data types used with email.) A MIME Type object is related to the mimeTypes[] array belonging to the navigator object. The navigator object is a scriptable object in both Netscape Navigator and Internet Explorer, but note that it is not part of the Document Object Model (DOM) and that IE does not use the mimeTypes[] array.

A MIME Type is often thought of as an external media type (or external content) that a browser can support (display or play) if it has the required plugin, but this is not necessarily the case. There may be no external media involved with a plugin; i.e., the Plugin is launched in the browser via an HTML EMBED element that includes no SRC attribute.

(Note also that in an HTML EMBED element the TYPE attribute is typically the type property of the MIME Type object.)

A MIME Type object has the following properties: description, enabledPlugin, suffixes, and type.

description is a String description of the Plugin or Pluglet.

enabledPlugin is an object reference to the Plugin or Pluglet

suffixes is a comma-separated list of the suffixes associated with the object; e.g., ... mpg, mpeg, as associated with an MPEG movie.

type is a String description of the MIME Type object; it includes a type description, followed by a slash (/), followed by a subtype description; e.g., video/mpeg.

Manifest Files

A manifest file for a Pluglet should be of the following form:

MIME Description: type0; type1; ...; typeN: suffix0; suffix1; ... suffixM: Pluglet name
Plugle-Class: pluglet_class_name

name is the Pluglet name and is arbitrary. pluglet_class_name is the specific class name of the Pluglet.

E.g.,

MIMEDescription: video/mpeg: mpg; mpeg: Pluglet JavaMediaPlayer
Pluglet-Class: JMPlayer

where JMPlayer corresponds to a JMPlayer.class file.