OmniWeb 5.5 + Adobe Acrobat = problems
 

According to the release notes, PDF handling in the sneakypeeks keeps getting tweaked. For example, the Adobe Acrobat browser plug-in works with Safari but not OmniWeb, so in recent sneakypeeks the Adobe plug-in is supposedly disabled on startup. There is also something in the release notes about WebKitOmitPDFSupport (whatever that is) being disabled by default in SP10.

Unfortunately, none of these tweaks has changed anything for me. I'm still unable to download PDFs correctly in SP10. When I click on a PDF link, it downloads, but instead of opening Preview, I get a dialog box asking me for the location of Adobe Acrobat. (Adobe Acrobat Pro 7.0 is installed on my system.) If I choose the Acrobat app, nothing happens, and if I click cancel nothing happens. I just get a blank OmniWeb page.

Are there any other Adobe Acrobat users out there who are having this problem? Is there any way to fix it? I can work around the problem by right-clicking a PDF and downloading it, then double-clicking the file to view it, but that's rather inconvenient. I should be able to just click the link and have the PDF open in Preview like I could in OW5.1.

Weird... It doesn't ask me to find Acrobat anymore (it did in earlier SP), and it previews the PDF in OW itself...

Corentin

[QUOTE=vocaro]For example, the Adobe Acrobat browser plug-in works with Safari but not OmniWeb, so in recent sneakypeeks the Adobe plug-in is supposedly disabled on startup.[/QUOTE]
If you have customized your OmniWeb plugin settings you will not see the change we made to disable the Adobe plugin. Alternately, you may have a different plugin installed than the one we were able to find for testing or it may be installed in a different location.

In any event, you can open up OmniWeb's Preferences and select "Plug-Ins". Then, if the Reset button is enabled use it. Otherwise look for the PDF plugin and disable it.

Please report back if this works or not.

Hey, that worked! I went to Preferences and noticed that /Library/Internet Plug-Ins/AdobePDFViewer.plugin was enabled. I simply disabled it and restarted OmniWeb. Now when I click on a PDF link, it automatically opens in Preview, as expected.

Perhaps OmniWeb should be automatically disabling this plugin.

[QUOTE=Len Case]Otherwise look for the PDF plugin and disable it.[/QUOTE]

I think it's important to note that it's the AdobePDF plugin that needs to be disabled, not the PDF browser plugin (if someone has that.)

Will the acrobat plugin never be supported in OmniWeb? Printing on USPS.com will never work if the acrobat plugin cannot be used.

It works in newer builds of webkit, but still not in OW 5.5. Is this an acrobat issue, or an Omni issue?

Have you tried the Schubert pdf plugin?

[url]http://www.schubertit.com[/url]

It is much more lightweight than Adobe, and far more useful, IMHO, on the Mac. Adobe is slowly becoming another evil empire.

P

[QUOTE=udecker]Will the acrobat plugin never be supported in OmniWeb? Printing on USPS.com will never work if the acrobat plugin cannot be used.

It works in newer builds of webkit, but still not in OW 5.5. Is this an acrobat issue, or an Omni issue?[/QUOTE]
We at Omni would be happy to support the Adobe plugin--unfortunately, they do not support us.

This is an Adobe issue--they make assumptions in their library that unless they are running in Safari, they are actually running in Acrobat/Adobe Reader--this will cause problems for any other WebKit application. The only reason that WebKit.app works is because it actually runs Safari underneath.

[QUOTE=Len Case]We at Omni would be happy to support the Adobe plugin--unfortunately, they do not support us.

This is an Adobe issue--they make assumptions in their library that unless they are running in Safari, they are actually running in Acrobat/Adobe Reader--this will cause problems for any other WebKit application. The only reason that WebKit.app works is because it actually runs Safari underneath.[/QUOTE]

Adobe's plugin sucks, as far as I'm concerned; I had to disable plugins in an app I wrote that uses a WebView, because too many users were reporting crashes due to Adobe's misbegotten plugin that installs its frameworks directly in Safari's bundle.