When trying to put web content on my Desktop -- Web Slice fails to display the video. In its place, there's an error message: "Install Flash Player".

What's the fix for this?

I suspect a flash plugin/addon has to be installed for whichever html engine is running the video for this Plasmoid. What is it, where do I get it, and where do I install it?

I tried this on two news sites -- one gave the error message, the other just displayed a black screen, that never went away.

Ubuntu package is "flashplugin-nonfree", this however seems to only install an installer, so you'll likely have to perform a second step.
If it's not installed into some exotic place (and ubuntu/mint didn't patch QWebView accordingly) that should be sufficient.

If however the plasmoid has not

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QWebSettings::globalSettings()->setAttribute (QWebSettings::PluginsEnabled, true);

flash will simply not work (no plugin will)

You may then file a bug, but not allowing plugin execution in this context might be a security consideration.

Hi Luebking, thanks for looking into this so quickly! I've read you instructions several times, but I need help to understand what you mean. With my edits in square brackets, does this retain the correct meaning?

luebking wrote:Ubuntu package [you'll have to install] is "flashplugin-nonfree"; this, however seems to only install an installer, so you'll likely have to perform a second step.

I'm looking at Synaptic for my distro, with Quick Filter set to flashplugin, and this is what's still uninstalled:

flashplugin-downloader
flashplugin-nonfree-extrasound
mint-flashplugin-10.2
flashplugin-installer

Please tell me which in this list would be the closest match, that I should install -- instead?

If it's not installed into some exotic place (and ubuntu/mint didn't patch QWebView accordingly) that should be sufficient.

Sorry, don't understand. You're saying if something (what, please) isn't installed in some exotic place ... that should be sufficient. Are you saying that after you tell me which of the choices shown in Synapic should be installed, it could be a problem if it installs in a non-standard location. I wasn't aware I had control over the install location. And, 'that should be sufficient' -- to do what. Do you mean, to solve the problem, and allow flash content to display?

If however the plasmoid has not

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QWebSettings::globalSettings()->setAttribute (QWebSettings::PluginsEnabled, true);

flash will simply not work (no plugin will)

If the Plasmoid has not ... done what?
Can you please tell me where the user is to enter the code line. Sorry, it likely obvious -- but I'm still in the 'noob' stage and hope you could clarify that.
Thanks,
Ron C.

I'd go for "mint-flashplugin-10.2" (though this might just alias flashplugin-installer) - the latter may require an secondary installation step, but i don't know that (distro specific and i don't use ubuntu/derivates)

You might have to restart plasmashell

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pkill plasma-desktop; sleep 1; plasma-desktop &


or simply log out and in again.

QWebView will look for for netscape plugins (libflashplayer.so in this case) in the "usual" locations, you can force paths by setting the QTWEBKIT_PLUGIN_PATH environment variable, but that should not be necessary.

The "user" is not supposed to enter that anywhere - it's a c++ snippet for the QWebSettings API.
Plugin support is disabled by default and must explicitly be enabled (by the developer of the plasmoid and/or plasmashell in this case)
As mentioned, I could imagine that it is intentionally kept off; esp. flash is not really known to be very secure or crash-avers.

Thanks for expanding your reply, with more detail -- I understand it better, now.

Your advice to install this package seems sound, but at the same time it sounds illogical that Mint should ship, with a package intended to enable flash video -- uninstalled, by default. I'd like to get flash working in Video Slice, but I don't want to (possibly) break it in my main browser, or in other applications.

I have therefore posted on the Mint forum to ask why this was left out in the first place (to me, this sounds suspicious) and whether or not installing it might have unexpected consequences in the rest of the OS.

The thread I started is "Why should 'mint-flashplugin-10.2' be missing, by default?" and responses may be followed by clicking the link.

I'm being cautious because Mint already had a problem with YouTube's flash 'breaking' and (some, or all?) users had to re-enable it with a (very) difficult-to-locate 'hack' that involved manually extracting and copying missing files to certain directories. So, I'd prefer not to break it, again ...

Who knows? Maybe I'm doing the Mint community a favor -- if it was left out by mistake, maybe they'd like to know about it?

I'm getting advice on the Mint forum not to install the package, because v10.2 is too old. Possibly it's been left in the repo by mistake, they say.
Does it follow that the QWebSettings API should be OK, since Web Browser is displaying flash content -- assuming they both depend upon the same API?

Any other ideas to get Web Slice working?

Question: Even though you are running some other distro -- am I correct, you are running KDE? If yes, would you mind loading Web Slice, and see if this Plasmoid will show video content, on your system?

Are we talking about this:
http://kde-look.org/content/show.php/We ... ent=169878

It needs

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experimental.preferences.pluginsEnabled: true;


in contents/ui/mainl.qml around line 57.

Thanks very much for researching this and trying to help me get this Plasmoid working.

luebking wrote:Are we talking about this:
http://kde-look.org/content/show.php/We ... ent=169878 ...

If you scroll down to the Comments dated 'May 17 2015' you will see an exchange between me (username here is edenmar) and the author. I was trying to use both the Plasmoid from 'Add Widgets' from the Panel on my KDE version, and then trying to use the download from the link you found, thinking the second was simply a higher version of the first.

I thought they were different versions of the same Plasmoid, but they are not. The versions, all of them, shown on this site with your link, work only on KDE 5.x -- not my version. Then I realized the the two Plasmoids have slightly different names: the one for my KDE version (found through Add Widgets) is Web Slice for v4.x, and the other, Webslice for v5.x -- minus the space.

We'll all be glad to know I finally got Web Slice (note this one has the 'space' character) working with the help of Pjiotr, over on the Linux Mint forums. In summary, to be fully functional including displaying video, Web Slice has to be installed in a system running the pepperflashplugin-nonfree package.

Perhaps someone in a position to make suggestions for the text with the Plasmoid descriptions would like to add a line, saying video content will only work after this flash plugin package has been installed? I hope this is helpful to other users, who may wish to use the same Plasmoid ...