Why should we install mozplugger on openSUSE 12.3, GNOME 3.6 ?

 MozPlugger is a generic Mozilla plug-in that allows the use of standard Linux programs as plug-ins for media types on the Internet. MozPlugger will help the Mozilla / Gecko based browsers to handle a variety of file formats like pdf, office formats (xls, xlsx, ppt, pptx, doc, docx), LibreOffice file formats etc. Without installing mozplugger we find that very few file types are present in "Helper Applications" window in both SeaMonkey and Firefox.

SeaMonkey with few content types in Helper Applications

Firefox also shows only a few content types in Application preferences

When i try to open a sample xls file hosted online SeaMonkey tries to download and open it outside the browser.

Download and Install Mozplugger

Step 1:- First step would be to Configure Community Repositories in YaST 

Step 2 :- Before we proceed to download the rpms we need to understand what type of rpms we need. 32 bit Vs 64 bit OS architecture in Linux

Step 3 :- Since i use a 64bit OS I downloaded the following rpms

• mozplugger-1.14.3-3.fc18.x86_64.rpm from link
• mozilla-filesystem-1.9-8.fc18.x86_64.rpm from link

Step 4 :- I dumped these rpms into a directory and Converted the directory into a repository using YaST

Step 5 :- I open terminal (Alt+F2 ==> gnome-terminal) and install mozplugger using command "sudo zypper in mozplugger"

Post installation lot of content types are present in Helper Applications window

Post installation, I can open same xls "inside" SeaMonkey . LibreOffice opens the file in embedded mode inside the browser.