Yes, I completely agree with you. Try to use EGA/VGA mode (without images) or try to edit this file ;)
Yes. It is because I use .TTF fonts converted to raster format .FNT. There's no other way, I'm sorry. Maybe I can implement "no italics" system variable in some future version.
Yes. Cursor keys are here to move mouse cursor. Arachne is redrawing the screen after each scroll - it means loading the GIF's from disk, mixing palettes, etc. Imagine doing this after each line!
However, I added <Shift&rt;<PgUP&rt; and <Shift&rt;<PgDn&rt; hotkeys, which scroll only half of the screen. I hope this can help to those who are mouse-sick ;-)
Me too.
It is unbelievable, but there are still many DOS boxes, which are offering only about 500 kB of low DOS memory (have you ever heard about QEMM, folks ?). It's ok when you are running Arachne offline or when there is resident packet driver already loaded (ie Novell client). But if you need PPP connection you have to use Klos PPP package instead of EtherPPP. Select "Use external dialer" in setup. (There'l soon be Klos PPP howto included here)
Arachne will run correctly only on SVGA with at least 512 kB of memory. It starts with resolution 640x480x256 colors. Almost for all non-standart SVGA cards there are VESA drivers - but first try, if your card is compatible with some of 7 non-VESA cards supported by Arachne. It's faster than using VESA driver.
If you have some historical VGA card with only 256 kB or even EGA card, you can try to run Arachne in 16 color mode, but I definitely not recomend it. Arachne currently will not load and display any images in 16 color mode, because of different memory structure in 16 color modes.
The CGA support will be useful for users of some older notebooks (like my Olivetti Quaderno). Author of X_LOPIF promised to think about it, so - don't trash your old notebooks !
Sorry, sorry, sorry. I never planned text mode. It requires completely different approach (ie. ignoring tables, etc.) Try to use Lynx 2.6 for DOS. WWW pages optimized for Arachne can be viewed perfectly with Lynx. Believe me, that we all know about your situation, and that we all use ALT parameters in all important IMG tags and also in USEMAP - MAP - AREA tags.
Arachne displays the message "This is multiple document" followed by list of icons with links instead of showing directly the frame windows like big browsers do. It is because I have to keep Arachne enough simple and small to fit the DOS 640 kB limit. With this, you will be able to surf the documents sometimes even faster than with frames. I think logical unit of WWW has always been the single HTML page. I never really used to the frame pages; I prefere navigating where I want to go, no where author of page want me to click.
This is Internet, my friend. There are many books, where you can learn how Internet works. I learned everything I needed to write this browser in RFC documents - "Requests for comments". Where these documents are available ? On Internet, of course ;-)
But don't give it up!
I was working half a year for an internet provider, working as webmaster and technical support (hotline). If you run Arachne setup, select Internal PPP dialer, you can phone your provider's hot line, and believe me, that they MUST be able to tell you correct values of variables which Arachne needs to run properely.
There's a list of methods how to speed it up !