Multimedia Resources: Simple Solution

The simplest way to configure the external viewers and players that NCSA Mosaic uses is to create a file named .mailcap in your home directory whose contents are as follows, replacing any external programs with the appropriate names. (This example simply replicates the defaults built into NCSA Mosaic, so you may remove any lines which you do not alter.)

audio/*; showaudio %s
image/*; xv %s
video/mpeg; mpeg_play %s
video/mpeg; mpeg_play %s;
application/postscript; ghostview %s
application/x-dvi; xdvi %s
message/rfc822; xterm -e metamail %s

For example, if I simply want to change my sound player from the default, showaudio, to a program called play, I simply create a .mailcap file with one line:

audio/*; play %s