Join Webmonkey, it's free. Members log in.
[Luke's mug] [Luke Knowland]
[Plugin Pack] [Plugins]

Plug-ins that don't suck
[Imagemap]

Plug-ins that kinda suck

Plug-in junkyard


Animation

Shockwave
It's one of the most popular plug-ins around, but the Web's still far from chockablock with Shock. Nevertheless, these inline, interactive multimedia files are worth a look - if you can manage to steer clear of the schlock.

Audio

Talker
The name says it all. Talker reads text from enhanced Web pages, using a handful of robot-like voices. Frightening, yet funny.

RealAudio
Though you could joke that RealAudio is ReallyAMradio, the sorta scratchy quality of streamed audio is nonetheless state of the art. Most plug-ins are inconsequential; this one's essential.

Specialty

techexplorer
Used almost exclusively for academic publishing, TeX/LaTeX is the digital equivalent of chiseled stone. But higher education being what it is, the markup language is still in use. techexplorer caters to the bifocal crowd, converting TeX/LaTeX files to HTML.

Chemscape Chime
Like chemistry? You're in luck. Chime displays inline models of molecular structures. Bonus! They rotate!

VRML

Live3-D
Live3-D brings VRML to the Mac as well as Windows. This Netscape default won't even crash your browser (that often). Now, if only there were a reason to use it.

Cosmo Player
Another quality product from Silicon Graphics. Too bad the plug-in's Windows-only.

Video

QuickTime
Apple brings inline QuickTime movies to the Web. Be prepared, though: The movies stream, but they're still bandwidth hogs.




HOMESEARCH
HELP

Copyright © 1996 HotWired, Inc. All rights reserved.