[thelist] Need help with cross platform autorun

George Dillon evolt at georgedillon.com
Tue Jun 19 05:32:40 CDT 2001


> I've tried the evolt archives and can't find anything about a
> crossplatform autorun, just for windows and not sure how to
> get it to open specifically an html file.

There have been at least 2 threads on this this year... the magic word is
'hybrid', since your bigger problem is not so much getting autostart/run to
work x-platform as creating a true x-platform (or 'hybrid') CD on a PC in
the first place.

Ideally you want only one file in your CD's root - start.htm - and tell your
users (on the CD cover) to open it in their web browser.

However... if you must...

For windows you *could* simply create a text file autorun.inf with this:

[autorun]
open=winopen \start.htm
icon=favicon.ico

But it won't work in all flavours, and will be subject to the user having
their file associations correctly set.  So you need a launcher app (which
still won't be 100% reliable), of which there are many out there, but check
out Karen Kenworthy's site (and archived newsletters) for one plus MUCH more
info about this issue: http://www.karenware.com/

For Mac, if you're using a PC to author, your problems are MUCH bigger than
just getting autostart to work.  The short answer is get a Mac and use Toast
(and this from a PC guy!)   There are a number of PC apps claiming to author
hybrid CDs which don't actually work.  One which does is CDEverywhere (and
check the evolt archives for at least 2 recent threads mentioning this):
http://www.cdeverywhere.com/   Its help files are on-line so you could read
up about it before downloading a trial version.  The help docs are quite
comprehensive but not very intuitive.

Autostarting a file on Mac is even more tricky than on a PC.  Hidden away in
the CDEverywhere changes.txt file is this essential nugget: "Default HTML
creator set to MSIE. HTML files will be opened with IE if installed,
otherwise Netscape will be used. There is no way to autorun the default
browser without creating a special Mac application to do so. This
setup however will start a browser if either IE, Netscape or both are
installed."  IF you set type to HTML and creator to MOSS (Netscape) and a
user does not have NN installed, the Mac won't know what to do and will
display an alert which (in my experience) can annoy/confuse/scare some
users.  Depending on what they do next it may even crash their machine.

My approach now, after much experimentation and copied from a Digit cover
disk, is not to set the Mac autostart, but to use a Mac to create 2 files -
Start in Internet Explorer & Start in Netscape - with appropriate icons,
which I then save to a Mac formatted disk.  On your PC, Transmac (
http://www.asy.com ) will then allow you to read that disk and to set the
types to HTML and the creators to MSIE and MOSS respectively and to save
them to your PC as BinHex (.hqx).  CDEverywhere can then convert them back
to Mac files on the Mac volume of your hybrid CD image.  (If you don't have
access to a MAC you could get someone to create and send you the .hqx
files).  With those two files in the CD root, Mac users should know what to
do.

Finally, it has to be said that because of the security risk, most
experienced users (on any platform) will have disabled autorun, at least for
data CDs.  If they know how (and why) to do that, they'll know how to open
your CD.  So really, you're creating a lot of work for yourself finding a
not 100% reliable solution for (hopefully) a small minority of your target
audience, who would be far better off being advised to disable the feature
you're killing yourself trying to make work.

Good Luck

HTH

George Dillon






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