[kde-linux] Re: mp3 playback within Firefox?

[Duncan]

Mark Knecht posted on Sat, 11 Dec 2010 13:21:02 -0800 as excerpted:

> Hi all. First post here.
> 
> I've been running KDE for a while now but haven't done much personal
> configuration. One small problem I'm having is that mp3 files don't play
> back within Firefox like OGG files do. What's the KDE specific way of
> getting this to work?
> 
> I understand that Firefox isn't the KDE browser but I use it on other
> platforms and would like to use it successfully within KDE. My system is
> Gentoo 64-bit, mostly stable except for a few apps. KDE Ver.-4.4.5. I've
> attached a list of packages currently installed.

Hi.  Nice to see you on a kde list, too. =:^)

As you no doubt know I'm a gentoo/~amd64 user, running kde, tho you may 
not know I run the latest upstream/kde stable from the gentoo/kde overlay, 
so am running 4.5.4, now.

FWIW, I do /not/ use firefox for mp3s, but rather, have several other 
programs associated with them (and with playlists), with smplayer being 
the highest priority association for mp3s and m3u playlists, while pls 
playlists are associated with mpd (music-player-daemon), tho I use 
qmpdclient's (a qt4 mpd frontend) shoutcast "internet radio tuner" feature 
most of the time these days.

Surely, firefox doesn't play them on its own, but rather, plays them using 
whatever media plugin is configured for firefox?

Anyway, firefox has its own config, separate from kde.

To change kde's associations (what happens when you click on an mp3 in 
dolphin or konqueror), go to kcontrol[1], the file associations kcm.  The 
kcm layout changed with kde 4.5, where the file associations kcm is under 
common appearance and behavior.  IDR what it's under in 4.4.  Anyway, once 
there, you'd put the file pattern you're interested in, in the search box 
at the top, and it'll filter to only the appropriate entry.  For mp3, it's 
audio/mpeg.  Click on that in the left panel and it should let you change 
the associations and their priority in the right panel, general tab.  (The 
embedding tab lets you set whether the default is to open in a separate 
viewer or embedded in dolphin/konqueror/gwenview, as appropriate.  You can 
also set the embedded services preference order much as you can the 
associations order on the general tab.)

Firefox's associations are set in firefox.  Edit menu, preferences entry, 
will open a dialog.  Applications tab.  I'll let you go at it from there 
as I don't claim any particular familiarity with those settings, tho I've 
not had any problem changing them the time or two I've needed to.  You 
might wish to see what it does with ogg, tho, and setup mp3 similarly.  
That's the way I'd approach it.

---
[1] kcontrol, wrongly aka system settings.  kcontrol was the more accurate 
kde3 name.  The kde4 name makes little sense at all, because at least as 
shipped by kde, nearly all the settings there are user- and kde-specific 
settings, not system-wide settings applying outside kde and to all users, 
as one might expect from what it says on the kde4 label, system settings.  
Additionally, kcontrol was reasonably googlable; just /try/ googling 
something as generic as "system settings"!  At least the kcontrol modules 
are still called kcm-s!  So I continue to use the accurate name and always 
end up attaching an explanation like this so folks who never used kde3 
have a clue what I'm talking about.

-- 
Duncan - List replies preferred.   No HTML msgs.
"Every nonfree program has a lord, a master --
and if you use the program, he is your master."  Richard Stallman