Opening html from an Enhanced CD in OS X...

August 11, 2005 11:16 PM

Intuitively directing the user to an html page on an Enhanced CD in OS X...

I'm putting together the master (for replication) of an audio CD, 'enhanced' with content consisting of a quicktime video embedded in an html page. I've got autorun working nicely for Windows boxen, but since I can't use autorun in OSX, what's the best solution to direct the user to opening the appropriate html file in safari. If they have html files associated with any sort of editor (As I do) simply double clicking the appropriate file won't do.

posted by adamkempa to Computers & Internet (6 answers total)

Present an AppleScript in the top level of the disc.

Double-clicking the script will open the target document in Safari:

tell application "Safari"
   activate
   try
      open "Volumes:CD Title:file.html"
   end try
end tell

You'll find additional sample scripts over here.
posted by Rothko at 11:27 PM on August 11, 2005

Oh, and to make it clear the user needs to double-click the script, use an image background for your Enhanced CD volume that has icons positioned to instruct the user as to what to do.

Documentation on doing this is over here. You should be able to burn data disc partitions from .dmg files with your favorite disc authoring package.

If you want an example of how this works in the real world, download the StuffIt Expander installer.
posted by Rothko at 11:34 PM on August 11, 2005

Under OS X, you don't even need to script it. Open your HTML page in Safari and drag the favicon to the desktop. That will create a Finder "internet location" file, pointing to the content. Basically it's a Finder alias to a URL, and the Finder will pass it off to the user's default browser.
posted by nathan_teske at 12:15 AM on August 12, 2005

[T]he Finder will pass it off to the user's default browser.

Which may not always be Safari. If Safari is a requirement, you'll need a script of one sort or another.
posted by Rothko at 12:39 AM on August 12, 2005

If they have their html files associated to an editor, they're probably savvy enough to figure out how to open the file in a browser. I would also bet most users would prefer to have an html file open in their default browser. I know I hate it when some old documentation file launches Internet Explorer for me.
posted by teg at 8:48 AM on August 12, 2005

I've put together a bunch of ECDs -- I try to make it easy by having as little as possible to click on. The only file at the top level of the CD is index.html.

All the content is in a folder called "site." Videos in a top-level folder, too, in case the user wants to get at them directly.

I've typically trusted in the html extension to point the OS to the default browser. But I will check out the Applescript.

Semi-tangent: is there a freeware way to autorun an html file under Windows? I thought autorun would only work with exe files...
posted by omnidrew at 5:39 PM on August 12, 2005