
How to set up Real Player7 as a Helper Application.

Copyright (c) 2000 Steven Levine and Associates, Inc.
All rights reserved.

Use at your own risk.
You may do anything with this file except sell it to others.

Revisions:     28 Jul 00 SHL - Release

Introduction.

This note describes how to set up Real Player7 as a Netscape for OS/2 
Helper Application.  This note assumes you have Real Player installed and 
working under Odin and that you have a copy of realplay.exe.cmd.  I was 
included in the zip file that contained the document.  This method should 
also work for Real Player8, but I have not tested it.


Step 1. Copy realplay.exe.cmd to a convient install directory.

Decide where you want to keep your working copy of realplay.exe.cmd.  I keep 
mine in c:\cmdx, which is a directory I use to hold REXX scripts that do not 
need to run from the command line.  c:\cmdx is not defined in the PATH 
environment variable.  I can be anywhere you would like.  A good place will 
be one where it will not get lost if you need to install Odin, RealPlayer or 
some other application.

Step 2. Edit realplay.exe.cmd for your setup.

The script contains several hard-coded paths and parameters.  This is partly 
for efficiency and partly because Netscape helpers can take only a single 
command line argument.

Scan realplay.exe.cmd for the USERDEF comment which will be near line 34.  
There are 5 variables you may need to edit:

        RADir           Real Play install directory.
                        Point this at the directory where Real Player
                        is installed
        RAHist          URL history logging control flag.
                        Set to 1 to enable logging (the default).
                        Set to 0 to disable URL history logging.

        OdinDir         Odin install directory.
                        Point this at the directory where Odin is installed.
        OdinInit        Odin initialization control.
                        Set to 1 if realplay.exe.cmd should set up the Odin
                        runtime environment (the default).
                        Set to 0 if the Odin environment already set up.
        OdinLog         Odin logging control flag.
			This flag only has an effect if OdinInit is set to 1.
                        Set to 1 to enable Odin logging (the default).
                        Set to 0 to disable Odin logging.

Note: do not rename the script.  Netscape depends on seeing "realplay.exe" in 
the helper's name.  If you rename the script, Netscape will insist on 
prompting you to download RealPlayer ever time you try to use it.

Step 3.  Test your edits.

Open up a command line session.  Type:

  d:\cmdx\realplay.exe.cmd d:\Real\RealPlayer\firstrun.rm

replaceing d:\cmdx and d:\Real\RealPlayer with the correct paths for your 
system.  If all is well, realplay.exe.cmd will start pe which will start 
RealPlay which will play firstrun.rm.

Step 4. Define realplay.exe.cmd as the Application helper for Real media.

From the Netscape menus, select Edit->Preferences->Applications.

Define the helper as follows:

  MIME type:                audio/x-pn-realaudio

  Extensions:               RA RAM

  Application:              D:\Real\RealPlayer\realplay.exe.cmd

Set to Application path to match where you have installed realplay.exe.cmd.


Step 5. Use it.

To use the helper, just click on an Real Play audio or video link.  The 
first time you click on a link containing RealPlayer content, Netscape may 
pop up a security dialog.  If so, click OK and the helper will start.

Caveats.

Odin is a work in progress.  RealPlayer7 under Odin can not yet play all 
Real media formats.  This will change as Odin development continues.  If you 
can not play the media content directly from from the RealPlayer Open menu, 
you will not be able to play it from Netscape.

Some content types require RealPlayer to run as a Netscape plug-in.  At this 
time, it is not possible to run RealPlayer7 as a Netscape for OS/2 plug-in.  
If the content is compatible with RealPlayer 5, you might be able to use the 
16-bit Windows plug-in.  However, most newer content will not compatible 
with RealPlayer 5.


Enjoy,

Steven
