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In Tools>Options>Applications: Content type "Tif" - can't specify action "Use Alternatiff (in Firefox)" which is a plug-in I CAN specify for "Tiff". Firefox 31.

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  • Last reply by rctkmt

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Running up-to-date Firefox 31.0 on Win 8.1. Alternatiff is a plug-in that says it will read Tif or Tiff files such as found on County recorder sites. Works fine on 1 website http://www.franklincountyohio.gov/recorder/ but not on another https://www.uslandrecords.com/ohlr/. I Suspect the reason is the working site has 'tif?" in url whereas the other site goes after a specific document that happens to be ".tif", since I can't specify using "alternatiff" for "tif" files in firefox.

Running up-to-date Firefox 31.0 on Win 8.1. Alternatiff is a plug-in that says it will read Tif or Tiff files such as found on County recorder sites. Works fine on 1 website [http://www.franklincountyohio.gov/recorder/] but not on another [https://www.uslandrecords.com/ohlr/]. I Suspect the reason is the working site has 'tif?" in url whereas the other site goes after a specific document that happens to be ".tif", since I can't specify using "alternatiff" for "tif" files in firefox.

Chosen solution

The second website seems to be able to use other ways like a "Quick Document Viewer" (PNG) and "PDF Viewer" to show the document. You can also download the document as a TIFF file (Content-Disposition: attachment;filename="xxxxx.tif" ). There is some script running that checks the navigator.plugins array for the AlternaTiff plugin (pluginFound = detectPlugin('AlternaTIFF');).

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Does Firefox show the Open/Save/Cancel dialog, or try to use some other plugin to handle the file?

Sometimes this problem is caused by the web server indicating to Firefox that it is a content type for which the plugin is not registered. However, checking that is a little tricky... If you open the web console (Ctrl+Shift+k) in the lower part of the tab and then click the link to open the TIFF file, usually a line will appear in the console. When you click it, you can view the headers exchanged by Firefox and the server, and the Response Headers should containing a Content-type. If the TIFF opens in a new tab, this trick doesn't work.

To see what content types AlternaTIFF is registered for, you can type or paste about:plugins in the address bar and press Enter. You can use find in the page (Ctrl+f) to locate AlternaTIFF. If the site is sending a content type that isn't on the list, there's your trouble. And we'd need to think about a possible workaround.

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Chosen Solution

The second website seems to be able to use other ways like a "Quick Document Viewer" (PNG) and "PDF Viewer" to show the document. You can also download the document as a TIFF file (Content-Disposition: attachment;filename="xxxxx.tif" ). There is some script running that checks the navigator.plugins array for the AlternaTiff plugin (pluginFound = detectPlugin('AlternaTIFF');).

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In response to both answers - When I open the box under Action it offers 1 application and then others. Choosing others makes several other applications available, but no plug-ins, so I couldn't choose what I wanted. Yes, the 2nd site does let me use other apps, and somehow earlier today I managed to open the tif files in windows photo viewer and see what I wanted, so I've got a good workaround. Thank you both for your prompt response.