GBM plugin for Netscape/Mozilla/Firefox/SeaMonkey

Introduction

This is a plugin for the Webbrowsers Netscape, Mozilla, Firefox and SeaMonkey available for OS/2 and eComStation that extends them with the support of reading all bitmap formats supported by GBM.DLL.

For being able to use it, the following additional files are required:

Note:
GBM.DLL version 1.41 must not be used as it contains a compiler optimization issue that reduces stability. When used together with the GBM plugin, the browser might crash when opening bitmaps. Please upgrade to GBM.DLL version 1.60 or higher.

Note:
This plugin requires so far that the browser cache is enabled. Further version might be able to directly stream the images into the system memory.


Supported features

There is the embedded mode with reduced functionality and the fullscreen mode with full functionality. Both viewers automatically detect the file format, so also wrongly named bitmaps often found in the world wide web can be shown.

Fullscreen mode viewer with a load of features:
Embedded mode viewer with reduced functionality of the fullscreen mode viewer:

Installing GBM for Netscape/Mozilla/Firefox/SeaMonkey

Simply copy npgbm.dll into the plugin directory of your browser. Please check the requirements listed for gbm.dll above. Copy gbm.dll to a directory somewhere in your LIBPATH (defined in CONFIG.SYS).

The plugin will try to use the GBM File Dialog (gbmdlg.dll) if it is found somewhere in the LIBPATH. The GBM File Dialog online help (gbmdlg.hlp) is used if it is found somewhere in the paths defined by HELP environment variable. If gbmdlg.dll is not found, the standard OS/2 file dialog will be used. Save options for bitmap export cannot be specified in the OS/2 file dialog and thus the plugin will use the default export options of each bitmap format.

The zoom quality the plugin used to show images as well as other settings can be customized via the configuration file npgbm.cfg. Simply create the configuration file right beside the plugin DLL npgbm.dll using your favourite ASCII text editor and add the options. There is also an example file included in the package. You can use the # sign to start a comment. Everything behind this sign is ignored on this line. If the configuration file does not exist, the plugin will use the default options.

Example of npgbm.cfg :

# The scaling algorithm can be one of the following:
# scaler={simple,nearestneighbor,bilinear,bell,bspline,mitchell,lanczos}
#
# By default the simple scaler is used. This is the fastest scaler which uses
# less resources compared to all other scalers. Though it provides acceptable
# quality for normal viewing.
scaler=simple

# Defines the number of pages of a multipage image that should be
# calculated in background for faster drawing (costs more memory).
# Always progressive_render_pages/2 pages backward and forward will
# be calculated in background. If not specified, no progressive
# rendering will be used.
progressive_render_pages=4

Testing the plugin:
You can test the correct installation of the GBM plugin with the links provided below.


License of GBM for Netscape/Mozilla/Firefox/SeaMonkey

Copyright (C) 2006-2009 Heiko Nitzsche

This software is provided 'as-is', without any express or implied warranty. In no event will the author be held liable for any damages arising from the use of this software.

Permission is granted to anyone to use this software for any purpose, including commercial applications, and to alter it and redistribute it freely, subject to the following restrictions:

  1. The origin of this software must not be misrepresented; you must not claim that you wrote the original software. If you use this software in a product, an acknowledgment in the product documentation would be appreciated but is not required.
  2. Altered source versions must be plainly marked as such, and must not be misrepresented as being the original software.
  3. This notice may not be removed or altered from any source distribution.

Screenshots

SeaMonkey showing embedded PNM and TIF images by using the GBM plugin:

GBM plugin embedded

SeaMonkey showing a PNM image fullscreen by using the GBM plugin:

GBM plugin fullscreen