Specifying Graphics Viewers for NCSA's Mosaic

For Most Graphics Files

Xv is Mosaic's default viewer for many types of graphics files. If you do not have it, you can get it as follows:
  1. Use the middle mouse button to click here. (This way, Mosaic spawns a new window, so that you can still refer to this page for instructions.)
  2. In the new window, toggle the Options/Load to Local Disk to on.
  3. Click xv-3.00.tar.Z (or whatever is the highest version number).
  4. When the dialog box appears, use it to move to the desired directory and to store the file with its original name (xv-3.00.tar.Z)
  5. Close this second Mosaic window.
  6. Now go to a shell window. You may move the file you just downloaded to some other directory (for example, ~/bin). The final location of xv must be included in your $PATH environment variable, for Mosaic to find it. If you do not know how to do this, please see your system administrator.
  7. Move (cd) to the directory containing the downloaded xv file. Then enter: 

    uncompress xv-3.00.tar.Z
tar -xf xv-3.00.tar
cd xv-3.00
more README
more INSTALL
    Follow the instructions in these files to install xv. If this is something that you do not feel comfortable doing, please see your system administrator.
If you want to use some other viewer instead of xv, it must be able to display xbm, rgb, and gif files (most graphics files in the Discover hypertext documentation are in gif format) and it must be able to display a graphics file if you invoke it from the system prompt in the format program_name file_name. In addition, you need a file in your home directory that is named .mailcap and that contains a line similar to: 

image/*;     your_viewer   %s
Use any text editor to create or edit the .mailcap file. If your site has a global .mailcap file that all users access by default, please ask your system adminstrator to modify it.

Main access page General Help access.

For PostScript Files

Mosaic's default viewer for PostScript files is ghostview. It can be obtained (analogous to the above procedure for obtaining xv) by clicking here. If you have ghostview, you do not need to modify your .mailcap file, and you do not need to read the rest of this page.

Be forewarned, however, that ghostview is more difficult to install than xv, and, if you already have some program that can display PostScript files, you may prefer to use it instead.

To do this, your PostScript viewer must be able to display a PostScript file if you invoke it from the system prompt in the format program_name file_name. In addition, you need to tell Mosaic to use your viewer instead of the default ghostview. For this, you need a file in your home directory that is named .mailcap and that contains, for example, the line: 

application/postscript;   xpsview   %s
or 

application/postscript;   showps    %s
or 

application/postscript;   psprev    %s
depending on what program you already have available (ask your system adminstrator if you do not know). Use any text editor to create or edit the .mailcap file. If your site has a global .mailcap file that all users access by default, please ask your system adminstrator to modify it.

Main access page General Help access.

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