NC FOREVER
The Techie Notes II
Setting Up Acrobat Reader and ActiveMovie

MicroSoft ActiveMovie is proprietary (but freely distributed) software from MicroSoft.

Adobe Acrobat Reader is proprietary (but freely distributed) software from Adobe for
viewing documents created in their proprietary .pdf format. This format is often used
for documents where the original formatting and appearance are to be retained, and can't be represented by the usual webpage language, "html".

...down to ActiveMovie

HOW TO INSTALL ACROBAT READER ON YOUR MACHINE

1. Download the latest version (3.0.1) of Adobe Acrobat Reader from
WWW.ADOBE.COM
Be sure to download the correct version for your own operating environment:
16-bit version for Windows 3.1, (and start working on your migration to Win95) or the 32-bit version for Windows 95.

2. Using either DOS commands or Windows' File Manager, make a directory for
this file on its own, and move the file there.

3. Under Windows, use File Manager to view the file in its directory, and double
click on it to start the uncompression and installation. This normally proceeds
quite quickly without further interaction, unless you have less than 20 megs or so free space
on your C: drive. If this is the case, you need a bit more working space there. If you still have problems with this, ensure that your TEMP environment is SET to the C: drive, and search for and delete all files on the C: drive suffixed with .TMP (You should do this periodically any way).

4. After installation is complete, launch Acrobat Reader, if it did not come up
automatically. Go into Edit>Preferences, and specify the location of your
Netscape browser
eg. C:\NETSCAPE\NETSCAPE.EXE

5. Launch Netscape. In Netscape, go into General Preferences>Helpers and
under File Extensions,
enter “pdf” (no quotes); and below that specify using Acrobat for .pdf files.
eg. c:\acrobat3\reader\acrord32.exe

6. Exit this function gracefully. Minimize Acrobat. Netscape will now be able to
call up Acrobat Reader automatically to view .pdf files.

7. You can test your installation by clicking on the link below which should load the only .pdf on the NC FOREVER site, namely a 2-page look at the two hymn versions of the the precursor to the NC college hymn.

Precursors of the NC College Hymn

Note: the downside to .pdf files (now i tell you) is that they are biggish. This one is about 229k.
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NOTE about clicking on external links within a .pdf document:

.pdf links may not be explicitly identified as they are in most HTML text. You can tell that a part of a .pdf document contains a hyperlink, if the cursor changes to a pointed finger at that location.

NOTE about Acrobat/Netscape windowing behaviour

If the Acrobat window is maximized when viewing a .pdf file, Netscape may not
automatically re-appear in place of Acrobat, when you click on an external link in the .pdf document. If you are viewing a .pdf document with external links, and Netscape does not appear when you click on a link, try this: View Acrobat within a window which is not maximized to full screen, and have Netscape visible in a similar window behind Acrobat. This way you will see Netscape go to the link, and can bring its window to the front manually by clicking on it.

NOTE on the foregoing Notes:
Both of these situations may have been addressed by the latest version of Acrobat: ver 3.0.1 This latest version also provides additional security in terms for links from Acrobat to the net at large.

HOW TO INSTALL ACTIVE-MOVIE ON YOUR WIN95 MACHINE

- If you have a Mac computer, you can play an MPEG file on any MPEG players that run on Macs. ActiveMovie is a Windows95 product only.

- If you have a late version of Windows95 (win95b) you already have ActiveMovie. You can verify this by going to Programs>Accessories>Multimedia. If there is an icon there labelled ActiveMovie, you're away.

- If it is not, but you have the Office97 or any late Microsoft CD, ActiveMovie is likely on the CD.

If none of the foregoing is true, you can download and install it as easily as any other piece of software, as follows at Step 1 below. If you already have ActiveMovie installed, go to Step 5 below.
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1. Use Netscape to download ActiveMovie (just over 1 meg) by typing into the command-line:
ftp://ftp.datx.com/broadway/actmovie.exe

2. Using either DOS commands or Windows' File Manager, make a directory for
this file on its own, and move the file there.

3. Under Windows, use File Manager to view the file in its directory, and double
click on it to start the uncompression. Uncompression begets another .exe, (which oddly is smaller than the compressed program). Double-click on the new executable to begin the actual installation, which should proceed quickly and easily.

4. After installation is complete, go to Multimedia (under Accessories) and launch ActiveMovie File Types.

ActiveMovie gives you an option to make it the primary (actually the only) movie viewer. (Accepting this makes it hard to run Apple QuickTime afterward, if you have QT on your system. However, ActiveMovie will run the MOV files that QT uses, so you won't lose the ability to view those. It is possible to decline the option, though kind of pre-emptively moot). Perform the next step whether you accept or decline ActiveMovie as your primary player.

5. Launch Netscape. In Netscape, go into General Preferences>Helpers and run down the list of helpers till you find "video/mpeg" in the leftmost column. Click on it. Fill in the information on the screen to launch ActiveMovie for .MPEG files, as follows. Specifically ensure that .mpg file extensions appear in the same line as "video/mpeg" - (add it to the others following a comma, if necessary), and that the application called by these is mplayer.exe:
eg. C:\WINDOWS\MPLAYER.EXE

6. Exit this function gracefully. Netscape will now be able to call up mplayer/ActiveMovie automatically to view .MPEG files. When you play an .MPEG file you can resize the movie window, but you should perhaps not attempt to make it larger than quarter-screen.

7. You can test your installation by clicking on any of designated movie links on the NC FOREVER site, bearing this temporary indicator [M] (The smallest movie on the site is a 28-second clip of The Tradition, at 800k) There are also two audio-only files [A] also playable with the .mpg player.

Note: the downside to .MPG files (now i tell you) is that they are big-big. A 30-second clip is between 0.8 and 3 megs, and will take several minutes to download via modem.