Watch video on the web in a brand new way: "You don't need a
glint, the magic lantern is ignited!"

What is Linterna Mágica?

Linterna Mágica is "tiny" (at least it started that way) script written
in JavaScript for the Greasemonkey extension. It searches web pages
for flash objects with links to video clips and replaces them
with <object> tag that is playable by browser video plugin. The
program is named after an early version of a projection apparatus.

Why it exists?

The short answer: I had spare time and was curious is it going to
work.

The long answer: Free_software flash plugins like Gnash and Swfdec do
not work well with video flash players on every site. On top of that:

    * Even with free plugin you run a lot of proprietary software as
      ActionScript
    * Even the free software plugins use too much resources
    * Flash is proprietary technology
    * Flash is not a web standard
    * Most of the flash objects in a page contain useless stuff

Playback of video clips in a browser is technically possible since the
existence of the <object> tag (around 1999; maybe even before
that?!). To watch a video inside a browser the user always needs a
plugin (HTML5 changes that a bit).  Why it should be flash plugin?

Most of the time I do not have Gnash or Swfdec installed. I do not
care about flash except, sometimes for video clips. I got tired of
using Bash/Perl/ Python... scripts to download video clips and watch
them. Linterna Mágica was born.

Who made Linterna Mágica?
  Original idea and programming: Ivaylo Valkov
  Design:Anton Katsarov

How to pronounce Linterna Mágica?

You can find the answer to that question by playing the Ogg Vorbis
file "linterna màgica - pronounce.ogg" located in the data directory.

Supported browsers

Linterna Mágica is tested with:
    * Epiphany

      Epiphany versions older than 2.30 might have problems with
      Greasemonkey.

    * Free software versions of Firefox

      Free software versions of Firefox that support the Greasemonkey
      extension should work. Only GNU IceCat, Web Browser/ABrowser and
      Iceweasel are tested.

    * Midori

      Only versions 0.2.2 and 0.2.4 are tested. There are reports from
      users that 0.3.2 works too.

Supported video plugins Plugins that can handle "video/flv" and
"video/mp4" should work right away.  Some plugins provide an API which
is used in Linterna Mágica to support web controls, but this will
require modifications to the code, if the plugin is not listed as
supported. There is a configuration option to switch between controls
provided by the plugin and Linterna Mágica.

These plugins are known to work:
    * Totem_plugin.

      Versions older and equal to 2.30 does not have full API support
      for web controls. Newer versions of Totem have been patched and
      should work.

    * VLC_plugin
    * gecko-mediaplayer_plugin

      Note: Have in mind that gecko-mediaplayer depends on mplayer for
      playback. Mplayer is free software by itself, but it can load
      and recommends binary only codecs. The completely free (as in
      freedom) distribution of GNU/Linux, Trisquel provides clean
      version of mplayer.

    * Xine_plugin

Supported websites

Linterna Mágica is programmed in such a way that it might work (and it
does) with web sites not specifically tested and supported. This is
achieved by regular expressions, patterns and similarities between
video sharing and posting sites. The main idea is that very little
should be needed to support a new site - few changes in a regular
expression, adding an address from where the clip should be extracted
and so on.

There are more than 30 web sites, found with random web searches that
are known to work. See the WEBSITES file for all known working sites
and more information.

Linterna Mágica is not working specific with browser or plugin or
operating system. Is it possible to support it?

Only free_software will be supported. Explicit support for non-free
software will not be provided. If Linterna Mágica is working with
non-free software you must be very "lucky". Yes, that is sarcasm!

License

Linterna Mágica is free software. You can distribute it and or modify
it under the terms of the GNU GPL version 3 or later. You can see the
license in the COPYING file or at GNU project web page:
http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html.

All the supported browsers and plugins are distributed under a free
software license.

Licenses for data files (images, audio files, style sheets etc.):

linterna mágica - pronounce.ogg

	Copyright (C) 2010, 2011 Ivaylo Valkov <ivaylo@e-valkov.org>

	Distributed under the terms of the GNU GPL either version 3 of
	the License, or (at your option) any later version.

button-about.png
button-fullscreen.png
button-muted.png
button-play.png
button-toggle-plugin.png
button-unmuted.png
slider-background.png
button-download.png
button-higher-quality-old.png
button-pause.png
button-stop.png
button-toggle-plugin-with-logo.png
header-background.png
slider-knob.png

	Copyright (C) 2010  Anton Katsarov <anton@katsarov.org>

	Distributed under the terms of the GNU GPL either version 3 of
	the License, or (at your option) any later version.

button-close.png
button-debug.png
button-update.png
button-minimize.png
button-higher-quality.png

	Copyright (C) 2011  Anton Katsarov <anton@katsarov.org>

	Distributed under the terms of the GNU GPL either version 3 of
	the License, or (at your option) any later version.

linterna mágica - interface.svg

	Copyright (C) 2010, 2011 Anton Katsarov <anton@katsarov.org>

	Distributed under the terms of the GNU GPL either version 3 of
	the License, or (at your option) any later version.

template.css

	Copyright (C) 2010, 2011  Anton Katsarov <anton@katsarov.org>
	Copyright (C) 2010, 2011 Ivaylo Valkov <ivaylo@e-valkov.org>

	Distributed under the terms of the GNU GPL either version 3 of
	the License, or (at your option) any later version.


This file is part of  Linterna Mágica

	Copyright (C) 2010, 2011  Ivaylo Valkov <ivaylo@e-valkov.org>
	Copyright (C) 2010  Anton Katsarov <anton@katsarov.org>

Linterna Mágica is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify
it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or
(at your option) any later version.

Linterna Mágica is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  See the
GNU General Public License for more details.

You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
along with Linterna Mágica.  If not, see <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/>.