IBM WEBEXPLORER V1.0 - README
____________________________________
1. Overview
2. What's New
3. Getting Started
4. Basic Functions
4.1 Loading Documents
4.2 Keeping a QuickList
4.3 Seeing Where You've Been
4.4 Stopping the WebExplorer
5. Technical Features
6. The WWW Frequently Asked Questions
1. OVERVIEW
___________
Welcome to the IBM WebExplorer, a world-wide web browser for OS/2. This
program supplies a graphically rich, interactive interface to the fascinating
world of the Internet. Users of the WebExplorer can jump from one Internet
location to another by simply selecting highlighted text or images in the
main window. The behavior is very similar to that of "Mosaic", a popular
program written by the folks at the National Center for Supercomputing Appli-
cations in Illinois (NCSA).
For your convenience, we've attached below a copy of the World Wide Web FAQ
(list of Frequently Asked Questions). The FAQ answers many questions for net
newbies (people who've never used the Internet), as well as net surfers
(people who interact with the Internet on a daily basis).
The development team is very proud to deliver the WebExplorer. Below are the
members of the development team:
David Greenwood, PhD. IBM Networking Systems, RTP
Scott Penberthy, PhD. IBM T. J. Watson Research Center
Barbara Walters IBM Networking Systems, RTP
Michael Ward IBM T.J. Watson Research Center
2. WHAT'S NEW
_____________
We have changed the following since the Beta version of WebExplorer:
o Increased support for viewers. Additional file types are now supported
and you can add support for other file types in your EXPLORE.INI file.
o Added support for customized animations.
o Added option of having the current URL displayed in a window below the
toolbar. Additionally, you can use this window to access another URL.
o Changed status area of the WebExplorer window. The status area now dis-
plays separate status information for the document being loaded and any
associated images.
o Enhanced the multi-threaded processes. WebExplorer now retrieves docu-
ment and associated images simultaneously from the network.
o Improved codepage support. WebExplorer now correctly handles documents
with ISOLatin characters.
o Enhanced drag-n-drop support. Dragging images from WebExplorer now
stores the original image in its original format (e.g. GIF, JPEG).
o Improved performance, cacheing, and document formatting.
3. GETTING STARTED
__________________
The WebExplorer must be told a few things about your network before it can
help you surf the Internet. On the main menu, select SERVERS from the Con-
figure pull-down menu. Fill out your Home document (your favorite World Wide
Web server, such as http://www.ibm.com), your email address and news server.
The last two fields are for advanced users, and tell WebExplorer how your
network is connected to the Internet. If you are using a dial-in access (via
SLIP) you most likely won't need to specify a proxy or socks server.
There are three main ways for you to access the Internet; see which one below
matches your configuration, then follow the instructions. After you're done,
select the OK push button.
1. A direct (SLIP, T1, network) connection
If you're using Advantis and a modem, then you have a direct connection.
In this case, you only need to fill out your email address and the name
of your NEWS server. The Home document will default to the Advantis Home
document, but you may change it.
2. Connection through a CERN proxy
A CERN proxy is one type of "firewall" that protects computers in a busi-
ness from being exposed directly to the hackers of the Internet. The
proxy performs the following functions. First, it verifies that your
machine and userid are allowed to have external (public) access. Second,
it redirects all of WebExplorer requests for documents so that they go
outside the company. Third, it captures data coming back from external
computers and forwards it to the WebExplorer.
Currently, the CERN proxy code only supports a few, limited protocols.
If this is what you have, then enter the name of the proxy in the proxy
slot. Contact your system administrator to ensure that you are author-
ized to use the proxy services.
3. Connection through a SOCKS server
A SOCKS (SOCKet Secure) server is a more robust firewall than a CERN
proxy. The SOCKS server first verifies that your machine and user id are
allowed to access the external Internet. Whenever the WebExplorer
requests a document, the SOCKS server establishes a direct connection
between the WebExplorer and an external computer. This avoids a level of
redirection required by the CERN proxy server.
If you have a SOCKS server, enter its host name in the appropriate slot.
Contact your system administrator to ensure that you are authorized to
use the SOCKS services.
4. BASIC FUNCTIONS
__________________
Listed below are instructions for some of the more basic functions of the
WebExplorer.
1. Loading Documents
2. Keeping a QuickList
3. Seeing Where You've Been
4. Stopping the WebExplorer
If, at any time while using the WebExplorer, you are unsure what to do,
select Help or press the F1 key. WebExplorer provides comprehensive help
information to aide you in your exploration of the Web. For example, Getting
Started provides how-to tips on accessing the Information Highway.
4.1 LOADING DOCUMENTS (NETSURFING)
Select OPEN DOCUMENT (URL) from the File pull-down menu. In the blank box,
enter a Uniform Resource Locator (URL) and select the LOAD pushbutton. Note
that these document locations are case-sensitive.
Alternatively, you can select the Open Document button on the toolbar for
quick access.
You can also select an item from the QuickList pull-down menu to jump
directly to one of several documents.
If you see a document in the window, move your mouse over the text and
graphics. If the mouse changes to a paper icon at a particular location, you
can select the item using mouse button 1 to load the referenced document.
These highlighted areas are called "anchors" or "hyperlinks".
4.2 KEEPING A QUICKLIST
You can store references to documents on a "quick list" for future uses of
the WebExplorer. If you're currently viewing a page, select the Add to
QuickList button on the toolbar. This will add the currently viewed document
to the QuickList.
If you want to add or remove items from the QuickList directly, select the
QuickList button (currently shown as a page with red bullet items, where red
is supposed to mean "hot" or "interesting"). You can use EDIT to change the
title of a selected document, ADD to include the current document in the
QuickList, and DELETE to remove one from the QuickList.
4.3 SEEING WHERE YOU'VE BEEN
The WebExplorer builds a Web "Map" of your exploits as you surf the Internet.
The WebMap can be accessed by selecting the WebMap. button, currently shown
as a map of the world representing the scope of the Information Highway!
The WebMap currently uses an outline format to display where you've been.
When you access a new document by selecting a hypertext link, the document is
added to the WebMap below the current document. The new document then
becomes a "child" of the previous "parent" document. When you access a new
document by typing it in directly, it is added to the bottom of the WebMap as
a new outline item. All directly accessed pages are called "parents". You
can think of this as a simple hierarchical outline format.
To see where you've been, or where you are, the WebMap will highlight the
current document with a marker, a green arrow. Also, any item from your
QuickList will be shown on the WebMap with a special red bullet. This should
help you as you navigate the World Wide Web.
The BACK and FORWARD buttons are defined in terms of the WebMap outline.
BACK moves from a child to its parent. FORWARD moves from a parent to its
first child. When no parent exists, then BACK button is turned off. When no
children exist, the FORWARD button is turned off. If you are not sure where
you are, just select the WebMap button.
4.4 STOPPING THE WEBEXPLORER
To stop loading a document, do one of the following:
o Select the animated icon in the upper right corner
o Select HALT LOADING DOCUMENT from the File pull-down menu
o Press the Escape (ESC) key
5. TECHNICAL FEATURES
_____________________
The WebExplorer has many unique features that make surfing a fun, enter-
taining experience.
o DOCUMENT STREAMING
The WebExplorer displays the document as it arrives from the network.
Since images usually take much longer than text, the WebExplorer senses
the size of the image and displays a blank, raised box until all data has
arrived. If you want to interact with a document before it is completely
loaded, you can stop the loading process by pressing the escape (ESC) key
or by selecting the animated icon. Within milliseconds you will be able
to continue clicking your way through the World Wide Web.
o MULTI-THREADED DESIGN
A "thread" is a tiny, independent computer program within a larger, more
complex program. Think of threads as tiny workers that coordinate to
achieve an overall task. The WebExplorer uses separate threads to
load documents and images simultaneously, display graphics, and format
the screen. This capability enables users to view and interact with one
document while loading others in the background.
o INTERNAL VIEWER
By default, the WebExplorer will show images by using its own internal
mechanisms for handling GIF, JPEG, XBM, TIFF, and OS/2 BMP graphics. If
you want to use your own program to view images, select INTERNAL VIEWER
from the Options pull-down menu to toggle this feature on or off. The
WebExplorer supports true-color displays - those with 65,000 or 1.67
million colors.
o IMAGE DRAG 'N DROP
Placing the mouse over an image, pressing the right mouse button, and
then moving the mouse while the right mouse button is down will "drag" an
image from the document to another location. Drop it on a file folder or
the desktop to keep it around for future use. If you can't find a place
to drop it, WebExplorer will place the image on the clipboard so that
other applications may then "Paste" it. Similarly, you can drag image
files from other applications or file folders and drop them on the
WebExplorer to view them.
o PRESENTATION MODE
Using local files, the WebExplorer can help you make outstanding sales
pitches, scientific presentations, and public talks. Simply create and
link your documents in local files using the HTML language. Next, use
the WebExplorer to retrieve all of the documents into memory. Finally,
go back to the start of the document and press Alt-P, which will cause
the WebExplorer to take over the entire OS/2 desktop. Use Ctrl-P to
return the WebExplorer to its normal size. We suggest a black back-
ground, white text, green links, no underlining, and the Very Large font
for presentations.
o CONFIGURABLE DOCUMENT AND IMAGE CACHING
Depending on how much memory and disk space you have, you may want to
increase or decrease the memory used by the WebExplorer. Select CACHING
from the Configure pull-down menu to tell the WebExplorer how many docu-
ments and images to keep in memory. If you want to disable all caching,
select the "Disable all caching" checkbox. If the WebExplorer runs out
of image space while loading a single document, tiny stub images will be
used in their place. The final release will allow you to specify the
number of kilobytes dedicated to images and documents.
o HTML/2 and HTTP/1 COMPLIANCE
The WebExplorer supports all markup in the HTML/2.0 standard, including
forms, ISO-Latin-1 fonts, inline graphics, glossaries, and more. Since
some documents on the Internet are not compliant with the proposed
standard, the WebExplorer attempts to clean up the document by intro-
ducing markup where appropriate. While we claim to handle all correct
markup, we may not handle incorrect markup in the same way that Mosaic
does. We also support HTTP/1.0 which includes GET and POST access
methods, image maps, and MIME headers. IBM is committed to supporting
these public standards as they evolve.
o COLOR WYSIWYG PRINTING
Advanced image processing techniques are used to accurately display
images and text on both color and monochrome printers. The entire docu-
ment is also reformatted on the fly to exactly fit the margins of the
printer, producing high-quality output for archival or hardcopy distrib-
ution of Web documents.
o TOTAL CONFIGURABILITY
The size, position, colors, fonts, quick list selections, network
servers, and home page are all remembered between uses of the WebExplorer
in the EXPLORE.INI file. By using the -i flag when starting the
WebExplorer, users can specify a particular .INI file to use. This
allows a network administrator to make one copy of the executable file
accessible by users, while each user can maintain individual .INI files
on their local disk.
o QUICKLIST ARCHIVAL IN HTML
The QuickLists are written to both the initialization file EXPLORE.INI as
well as a separate WEBMAP.HTM file in HTML format. These web maps may
then be exchanged among user groups, renamed and organized into directo-
ries, or stored in databases to maintain an entire library of topical
QuickLists. Future releases of WebExplorer will learn and categorize
topical QuickLists on the fly using proven AI technologies. We are also
planning to allow loading and saving of QuickLists into separate HTML
files.
o ADVANCED VIEWER CONFIGURATION
In this version, we have increased the list of viewers that can be
configured. If, however, you find that you need to configure a viewing
program for file types that are not listed, you can modify the [advanced]
stanza of the EXPLORE.INI file to associate a file type with a mime type
and to assign a viewing program for the mime type.
6. THE WWW FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS (FAQ)
___________________________________________
WORLD WIDE WEB FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
This is part 1 of a 2-part posting.
Part 2 begins with section 5 (providing
information to the web). It should be the next
posting in this thread.
_This document resides on the World Wide Web on Sunsite (URL is
http://sunsite.unc.edu/boutell/faq/www_faq.html).
If you are unfamiliar with the term "URL", read on and learn!_
Contents
* 1: Recent changes to the FAQ
* 2: Information about this document
* 3: Elementary Questions
+ 3.1: What are WWW, hypertext and hypermedia?
+ 3.2: What is a URL?
+ 3.3: How does WWW compare to gopher and WAIS?
* 4: Accessing the Web (User Questions)
+ 4.1: Introduction: How can I access the web? (Even by email!)
+ 4.2: Browsers Accessible by Telnet
+ 4.3: Obtaining browsers
o 4.3.1: Microsoft Windows browsers
o 4.3.2: MSDOS browsers
o 4.3.3: Macintosh browsers
o 4.3.4: Amiga browsers
o 4.3.5: NeXTStep browsers
o 4.3.6: X/DecWindows (graphical UNIX, VMS) browsers
o 4.3.7: Text-based Unix and VMS browsers
o 4.3.8: Batch-mode "browsers"
+ 4.4: How can I access the web through a firewall?
+ 4.5: What is on the web?
o 4.5.1: How do I find out what's new on the web?
o 4.5.2: Where is the subject catalog of the web?
o 4.5.3: How can I search through ALL web sites?
+ 4.6: How can I save an inline image to disk?
+ 4.7: How can I get sound from the PC speaker with WinMosaic?
+ 4.8: I have a Windows PC (or a Macintosh). Why can't I open
WAIS URLs?
+ 4.9: I'm running XMosaic. Why can't I get external viewers
working?
+ 4.10: Hey, I know, I'll write a WWW-exploring robot! Why not?
+ 4.11: How do I send newsgroup posts in HTML to my web client?
* 5: Providing Information to the Web (Provider Questions)
5.1: Introduction: How can I provide information to the web?
+ 5.2: Obtaining Servers
o 5.2.1: Unix Servers
o 5.2.2: Macintosh Servers
o 5.2.3: Windows and Windows NT Servers
o 5.2.4: MSDOS Servers
o 5.2.5: VMS Servers
o 5.2.6: Amiga Servers
+ 5.3: Producing HTML documents
o 5.3.1: Writing HTML directly
o 5.3.2: HTML editors
o 5.3.3: Converting other formats to HTML
+ 5.4: How do I publicize my work?
+ 5.5: Can I buy space on an existing server?
+ 5.6: Advanced Provider Questions
o 5.6.1: How do I set up a clickable image map?
o 5.6.2: How do I make a "link" that doesn't load a new
page?
o 5.6.3: Where can I learn how to create fill-out forms?
# 5.6.3.1: How can I create hidden fields in forms
(keeping state)?
# 5.6.3.2: How can users email me through their
browsers?
o 5.6.4: How do I comment an HTML document?
o 5.6.5: How can I create decent-looking tables and stop
using ... ?
o 5.6.6: What is HTML Level 3 and where can I learn more
about it?
o 5.6.7: How can I make transparent GIFs?
o 5.6.8: Which format is better for WWW images, JPEG or
GIF?
o 5.6.9: How can I mirror part of another server?
o 5.6.10: How come mailto: URLs don't work?
o 5.6.11: How can I restrict and control access to my
server?
o 5.6.12: How can I keep robots off my server?
* 6: What newsgroups discuss the web?
* 7: I want to know more.
* 8: Credits
1: RECENT ADDITIONS AND CHANGES TO THE FAQ
* 9/2/94: Email forms
* 9/2/94: Keeping robots off your server
* 9/2/94: Quadralay commercial-grade Mosaic
* 9/2/94: New location of alternate BBEdit tools
* 9/2/94: Emacs-W3 browser works on the Amiga
* 9/2/94: Enhanced imagemaps section (URLs for other editors
wanted!)
* 9/2/94: Big Dummy's Guide is now EFF's Guide
* 9/2/94: Fixed location of Postscript HTML tutorial
* 9/2/94: Added Mac program to transparent section
* 9/2/94: Enhanced section on problems with XMosaic external viewers
* 9/2/94: Removed references to obsolete HTML+ draft
* Closed all tags. Should make browsers happier.
* 9/2/94: Updated location of WinMosaic
* 9/2/94: Updated URL of web space leasing document
* 9/2/94: Email access to the web
2: INFORMATION ABOUT THIS DOCUMENT
This is an introduction to the World Wide Web project, describing the
concepts, software and access methods. It is aimed at people who know
a little about navigating the Internet, but want to know more about
WWW specifically. If you don't think you are up to this level, try an
introductory Internet book such as Ed Krol's "The Whole Internet" or
"EFF's Guide to the Internet". The latter is available electronically
by anonymous FTP from ftp.eff.org in the directory
pub/Net_info/EFF_Net_Guide.
This informational document is posted to news.answers,
comp.infosystems.www.users, comp.infosystems.www.providers,
comp.infosystems.www.misc, comp.infosystems.gopher,
comp.infosystems.wais and alt.hypertext every four days (please allow
a day or two for it to propagate to your site). The latest version is
always available on the web as
http://sunsite.unc.edu/boutell/faq/www_faq.html. (see the section
titled "What is a URL?" to understand what this means.)
The most recently posted version of this document is kept on the
news.answers archive on rtfm.mit.edu in
/pub/usenet/news.answers/www/faq. For information on FTP, send e-mail
to _mail-server@rtfm.mit.edu_ with:
send usenet/news.answers/finding-sources
in the body (not subject line) of your message, instead of asking me.
Thomas Boutell maintains this document. Feedback about it is to be
sent via e-mail to boutell@netcom.com.
In all cases, regard this document as out of date. Definitive
information should be on the web, and static versions such as this
should be considered unreliable at best. The most up-to-date version
of the FAQ is the version maintained on the web. Please excuse any
formatting inconsistencies in the posted version of this document, as
it is automatically generated from the on-line version.
3: ELEMENTARY QUESTIONS
3.1: What are WWW, hypertext and hypermedia?
WWW stands for "World Wide Web". The WWW project, started by CERN (the
European Laboratory for Particle Physics), seeks to build a
distributed hypermedia system.
The advantage of hypertext is that in a hypertext document, if you
want more information about a particular subject mentioned, you can
usually "just click on it" to read further detail. In fact, documents
can be and often are linked to other documents by completely different
authors -- much like footnoting, but you can get the referenced
document instantly!
To access the web, you run a browser program. The browser reads
documents, and can fetch documents from other sources. Information
providers set up hypermedia servers which browsers can get documents
from.
The browsers can, in addition, access files by FTP, NNTP (the Internet
news protocol), gopher and an ever-increasing range of other methods.
On top of these, if the server has search capabilities, the browsers
will permit searches of documents and databases.
The documents that the browsers display are hypertext documents.
Hypertext is text with pointers to other text. The browsers let you
deal with the pointers in a transparent way -- select the pointer, and
you are presented with the text that is pointed to.
Hypermedia is a superset of hypertext -- it is any medium with
pointers to other media. This means that browsers might not display a
text file, but might display images or sound or animations.
3.2: What is a URL?
URL stands for "Uniform Resource Locator". It is a draft standard for
specifying an object on the Internet, such as a file or newsgroup.
URLs look like this: (file: and ftp: URLs are synonymous.)
* file://wuarchive.wustl.edu/mirrors/msdos/graphics/gifkit.zip
* ftp://wuarchive.wustl.edu/mirrors
* http://info.cern.ch:80/default.html
* news:alt.hypertext
* telnet://dra.com
The first part of the URL, before the colon, specifies the access
method. The part of the URL after the colon is interpreted specific to
the access method. In general, two slashes after the colon indicate a
machine name (machine:port is also valid).
When you are told to "check out this URL", what to do next depends on
your browser; please check the help for your particular browser. For
the line-mode browser at CERN, which you will quite possibly use first
via telnet, the command to try a URL is "GO URL" (substitute the
actual URL of course). In Lynx you just select the "GO" link on the
first page you see; in graphical browsers, there's usually an "Open
URL" option in the menus.
3.3: How does WWW compare to gopher and WAIS?
While all three of these information presentation systems are
client-server based, they differ in terms of their model of data. In
gopher, data is either a menu, a document, an index or a telnet
connection. In WAIS, everything is an index and everything that is
returned from the index is a document. In WWW, everything is a
(possibly) hypertext document which may be searchable.
In practice, this means that WWW can represent the gopher (a menu is a
list of links, a gopher document is a hypertext document without
links, searches are the same, telnet sessions are the same) and WAIS
(a WAIS index is a searchable page, returning a document with no
links) data models as well as providing extra functionality.
Gopher and World Wide Web usage are now running neck and neck,
according to the statistics-keepers of the Internet backbone. (Of
course, World Wide Web browsers can also access Gopher servers, which
inflates the numbers for the latter.) This is changing as WWW reaches
critical mass (usage of the server at CERN doubles every 4 months --
twice the rate of Internet expansion).
4.1: Introduction: how can I access the web?
You have three options: use a browser on your own machine (the best
option), use a browser that can be telnetted to (not as good), or
access the web by email (the least attractive, but for some it's the
only way). It is always best to run a browser on your own machine,
unless you absolutely cannot do so; but feel free to telnet to a
browser for your first look at the web, or use email if the telnet
command does not work on your system (_try it first!_ The following
sections cover telnetting to a browser and obtaining your own browser;
if neither of these are possible for you (because you have only an
email-and-news connection to the Internet), here is how to access a
web page by email:
Send email to listserv@info.cern.ch containing the following single
line. (What you put on the subject line doesn't matter; blank is OK.
This line should go in the text of the message.) You will receive as a
reply a simple page intended to help you learn more about the Web.
send http://www.earn.net/gnrt/www.html
4.2: Browsers accessible by telnet
An up-to-date list of these is available on the Web as
http://info.cern.ch/hypertext/WWW/FAQ/Bootstrap.html and should be
regarded as an authoritative list.
info.cern.ch
No password is required. This is in Switzerland, so continental
US users might be better off using a closer browser.
www.cc.ukans.edu
A full screen browser "Lynx" which requires a vt100 terminal.
Log in as www. Does not allow users to "go" to arbitrary URLs,
so GET YOUR OWN COPY of Lynx and install it on your system if
your administrator has not done so already. The best plain-text
browser, so move mountains if necessary to get your own copy of
Lynx!
www.njit.edu
(or telnet 128.235.163.2) Log in as www. A full-screen browser
in New Jersey Institute of Technology. USA.
www.huji.ac.il
A dual-language Hebrew/English database, with links to the rest
of the world. The line mode browser, plus extra features. Log
in as www. Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel.
sun.uakom.cs
Slovakia. Has a slow link, only use from nearby.
info.funet.fi
(or telnet 128.214.6.102). Log in as www. Offers several
browsers, including Lynx (goto option is disabled there also).
fserv.kfki.hu
Hungary. Has slow link, use from nearby. Login is as www.
4.3: Obtaining browsers
The preferred method of access of the Web is to run a browser
yourself. Browsers are available for many platforms, both in source
and executable forms. Here is a list generated from the authoritative
list, http://info.cern.ch/hypertext/WWW/Clients.html.
4.3.1: MICROSOFT WINDOWS BROWSERS
NOTE: These browsers require that you have SLIP, PPP or other TCP/IP
networking on your PC. SLIP or PPP can be accomplished over phone
lines, but only with the active cooperation of your network provider
or educational institution. If you only have normal dialup shell
access, your best option at this time is to run Lynx on the Unix (or
VMS, or...) system you call, or telnet to a browser if you cannot do
so.
Cello Browser from Cornell LII. Available by anonymous FTP from
ftp.law.cornell.edu in the directory /pub/LII/cello.
Mosaic for Windows From NCSA. Available by anonymous FTP from
ftp.ncsa.uiuc.edu in the directory PC/Windows/Mosaic.
4.3.2: MSDOS BROWSERS
NOTE: These browsers require that you have SLIP, PPP or other TCP/IP
networking on your PC. SLIP or PPP can be accomplished over phone
lines, but only with the active cooperation of your network provider
or educational institution. If you only have normal dialup shell
access, your best option at this time is to run Lynx on the Unix (or
VMS, or...) system you call, or telnet to a browser if you cannot do
so.
DosLynx
DosLynx is an excellent text-based browser for use on DOS
systems. You must have a level 1 packet driver, or an emulation
thereof, or you will only be able to browse local files;
essentially, if your PC has an Ethernet connection, or you have
SLIP, you should be able to use it. DosLynx can view GIF
images, but not when they are inline images (as of this
writing). See the README.HTM file at the DosLynx site for
details. You can obtain DosLynx by anonymous FTP from
ftp2.cc.ukans.edu in the directory pub/WWW/DosLynx; the URL is
ftp://ftp2.cc.ukans.edu/pub/WWW/DosLynx/.
4.3.3: MACINTOSH BROWSERS
NOTE: These browsers require that you have SLIP, PPP or other TCP/IP
networking on your PC. SLIP or PPP can be accomplished over phone
lines, but only with the active cooperation of your network provider
or educational institution. If you only have normal dialup shell
access, your best option at this time is to run Lynx on the Unix (or
VMS, or...) system you call, or telnet to a browser if you cannot do
so.
Mosaic for Macintosh
From NCSA. Full featured. Available by anonymous FTP from
ftp.ncsa.uiuc.edu in the directory Mac/Mosaic.
Samba From CERN. Basic. Available by anonymous FTP from info.cern.ch
in the directory /ftp/pub/www/bin as the file mac.
MacWeb
From EINet. Has features that Mosaic lacks; lacks some features
that Mosaic has. Available by anonymous FTP from ftp.einet.net
in the directory einet/mac/macweb.
4.3.4: AMIGA BROWSERS
AMosaic
Browser for AmigaOS, based on NCSA's Mosaic. Supports older
Amigas as well as the newer machines in the latest versions, I
am told; available for anonymous ftp from
max.physics.sunysb.edu in the directory /pub/amosaic, or from
aminet sites in /pub/aminet/comm/net. see the site for details.
See the URL http://insti.physics.sunysb.edu/AMosaic/home.html.
Emacs-W3
The Emacs-W3 browser works under Gnu Emacs on the Amiga (see
section 4.3.7).
4.3.5: NEXTSTEP BROWSERS
Note: NeXT systems can also run X-based browsers using one of the
widely used X server products for the NeXT. The browsers listed here,
by contrast, are native NeXTStep applications.
OmniWeb
A World Wide Web browser for NeXTStep. The URL for more
information is http://www.omnigroup.com/; you can ftp the
package from ftp.omnigroup.com in the /pub/software/ directory.
WorldWideWeb, CERN's NeXT Browser-Editor
A browser/editor for NeXTStep. _Currently out of date; editor
not operational._ Allows wysiwyg hypertext editing. Requires
NeXTStep 3.0. Available for anonymous FTP from info.cern.ch in
the directory /pub/www/src.
4.3.6: X/DECWINDOWS (GRAPHICAL UNIX, VMS) BROWSERS
NCSA Mosaic for X
Unix browser using X11/Motif. Multimedia magic. Full http 1.0
support including PUT-method forms, image maps, etc.
Recommended if you can run it. Available by anonymous FTP from
ftp.ncsa.uiuc.edu in the directory Mosaic.
NCSA Mosaic for VMS
Browser using X11/DecWindows/Motif. For the VMS operating
system. Multimedia magic. Full http 1.0 support including
PUT-method forms, image maps, etc. Recommended if you can run
it. Available by anonymous FTP from ftp.ncsa.uiuc.edu in the
directory Mosaic.
Quadralay GWHIS Viewer (Commercial Mosaic)
Quadralay offers a commercial-grade (not free!) version of
Mosaic for Unix systems, with Windows and Macintosh versions
expected in the future. (URL is:
http://www.quadralay.com/products/products.html#gwhis)
tkWWW Browser/Editor for X11
Unix Browser/Editor for X11. (Beta test version.) Available for
anonymous ftp from harbor.ecn.purdue.edu in the directory
tkwww[extension] (followed by an extension possibly dependent
on the current version). Please ftp to the site and look for
the latest version (or use the link above). Supports WSYIWYG
HTML editing.
MidasWWW Browser
A Unix/X browser from Tony Johnson. (Beta, works well.)
Viola for X (Beta)
Viola has two versions for Unix/X: one using Motif, one using
Xlib (no Motif). Handles HTML Level 3 forms and tables. Has
extensions for multiple columning, collapsible/expandable list,
client-side document include. Available by anonymous FTP from
ora.com in /pub/www/viola. More information available at the
URL http://xcf.berkeley.edu/ht/projects/viola/README.
Chimera
Unix/X Browser using Athena (doesn't require Motif). Supports
forms, inline images, etc.; closest to Mosaic in feel of the
non-Motif X11 browsers. Available for anonymous FTP from
ftp.cs.unlv.edu in the directory /pub/chimera.
4.3.7: Text-mode Unix and VMS browsers
These are text-based browsers for Unix (and in some cases also VMS)
systems. In many cases your system administrator will have already
installed one or more of these packages; check before compiling your
own copy.
Line Mode Browser
This program gives W3 readership to anyone with a dumb
terminal. A general purpose information retrieval tool.
Available by anonymous ftp from info.cern.ch in the directory
/pub/www/src.
The "Lynx" full screen browser
This is a hypertext browser for vt100s using full screen, arrow
keys, highlighting, etc. Available by anonymous FTP from
ftp2.cc.ukans.edu.
Tom Fine's perlWWW
A tty-based browser written in perl. Available by anonymous FTP
from archive.cis.ohio-state.edu in the directory pub/w3browser
as the file w3browser-0.1.shar.
For VMS
Dudu Rashty's full screen client based on VMS's SMG screen
management routines. Available by anonymous FTP from
vms.huji.ac.il in the directory www/www_client.
Emacs w3-mode
W3 browse mode for emacs. Uses multiple fonts when used with
Lemacs or Epoch. See the documentation. Available by anonymous
FTP from moose.cs.indiana.edu in the directory pub/elisp/w3 as
the files w3.tar.Z and extras.tar.Z.
4.3.8: BATCH-MODE "BROWSERS"
Batch mode browser
A batch-mode "browser", url_get, which is available through the
URL http://wwwhost.cc.utexas.edu/test/zippy/url_get.html. It
can be retrieved via anonymous FTP to ftp.cc.utexas.edu, as the
file /pub/zippy/url_get.tar.Z. This package is intended for use
in cron jobs and other settings in which fetching a page in a
command-line fashion is useful.
4.4: How can I access the web through a firewall?
For information on using NCSA Mosaic from behind a firewall, please
read the following. In general, browsers can be made useful behind
firewalls through the use of a package called "SOCKS"; the source must
be modified slightly and rebuilt to accommodate this. Whenever
possible, work _with_ your network administrators to solve the
problem, not against them.
An excerpt from the NCSA Mosaic FAQ:
NCSA Mosaic requires a direct Internet connection to work, but some
folks have put together a package that works behind firewalls. This is
_completely unsupported_ by NCSA, but here is the latest announcement:
_November 15, 1993:_ C&C Software Technology Center (CSTC) of NEC
Systems Lab has made available a version of SOCKS, a package for
running Internet clients from behind firewalls without breaching
security requirements, that includes a suitably modified version of
Mosaic for X 2.0. _Beware: such a version is not supported by NCSA;
we can't help with questions or problems arising from the
modifications made by others._ But, we encourage you to check it out
if it's interesting to you. Questions and problem notifications can
be sent to Ying-Da Lee (_ylee@syl.dl.nec.com_).
4.5: What is on the web?
Currently accessible through the web:
* anything served through gopher
* anything served through WAIS
* anything on an FTP site
* anything on Usenet
* anything accessible through telnet
* anything in hytelnet
* anything in hyper-g
* anything in techinfo
* anything in texinfo
* anything in the form of man pages
* sundry hypertext documents
4.5.1: HOW DO I FIND OUT WHAT'S NEW ON THE WEB?
The unofficial newspaper of the World Wide Web is What's New With NCSA
Mosaic (URL is
http://www.ncsa.uiuc.edu/SDG/Software/Mosaic/Docs/whats-new.html),
which carries announcements of new servers on the web and also of new
web-related tools. This should be in your hot list if you're not using
Mosaic (which can access it directly through the help menu).
4.5.2: WHERE IS THE SUBJECT CATALOG OF THE WEB?
There are several. There is no mechanism inherent in the web which
forces the creation of a single catalog (although there is work
underway on automatic mechanisms to catalog web sites). The best-known
catalog, and the first, is The WWW Virtual Library (URL is
http://info.cern.ch/hypertext/DataSources/bySubject/Overview.html),
maintained by CERN. The Virtual Library is a good place to find
resources on a particular subject, and has separate maintainers for
many subject areas.
There is also a newer cataloging system called ALIWEB that requires
very little effort to maintain and is growing rapidly (URL is
http://web.nexor.co.uk/aliweb/doc/aliweb.html).
4.5.3: HOW CAN I SEARCH THROUGH ALL WEB SITES?
Several people have written robots which create indexes of web sites
-- including sites which have not arranged to be mentioned in the
newspapers and catalogs above. (Before writing your own robot, please
read the section on robots.)
Here are a few such automatic indexes you can search:
* WebCrawler (URL is
http://www.biotech.washington.edu/WebQuery.html) builds an
impressively complete index; on the other hand, since it indexes
the content of documents, it may find many links that aren't
exactly what you had in mind.
* World Wide Web Worm (URL is
http://www.cs.colorado.edu/home/mcbryan/WWWW.html) builds its
index based on page titles and URL contents only. This is somewhat
less inclusive, but pages it finds are more likely to be an exact
match with your needs.
You can read about other robots in the robots section.
4.6: How can I save an inline image to disk?
Here are two ways:
1. Turn on "load to local disk" in your browser, if it has such an
option; then reload images. You'll be prompted for filenames instead
of seeing them on the screen. Be sure to shut it off when you're done
with it.
2. Choose "view source" and browse through the HTML source; find the
URL for the inline image of interest to you; copy and paste it into
the "Open URL" window. This should load it into your image viewer
instead, where you can save it and otherwise muck about with it.
4.7: How can I get sound from the PC speaker with WinMosaic?
This piece of wisdom donated by Hunter Monroe:
This section explains how to install sound on a PC which already has a
working version of Mosaic for Microsoft Windows. Be warned in advance
that the results may be poor.
To get Mosaic to produce sound out of the PC speaker, first, you need
a driver for the speaker. You can get the Microsoft speaker driver
from the URL ftp://ftp.microsoft.com/Softlib/MSLFILES/SPEAK.EXE or by
doing an Archie search to find it somewhere else. SPEAK.EXE is a
self-extracting file. Copy the speak.exe file to a new directory, and
then type "SPEAK" at the DOS prompt. Do not put the file SPEAKER.DRV
in a separate directory from OEMSETUP.INF.
Now, you need to install the driver. In Windows, from the Program
Manager choose successively Main/Control Panel/Drivers/Add/Unlisted or
updated drivers/(enter path of SPEAK.EXE)/PC Speaker. At this point
some strange sounds come out as the driver is initialized. Change the
settings to improve the sound quality on the various sounds: tada,
chimes, etc. Click OK when you are finished and choose the Restart
windows option.
Having installed the speaker driver, you will now get sounds whenever
you start Windows, make a mistake, or exit Windows. If you do not want
this, from the Main/Control Panel/Sounds menu, make sure there is no X
next to "Enable System Sounds."
Now, you need a sound viewer program that Mosaic can call to display
sounds. NCSA unfortunately recommend WHAM, which does not work well
with a PC speaker. Get the program WPLANY instead. You can find a copy
nearby with an Archie search on the string "wplny"; the current
version is WPLNY09B.ZIP. For details on archie and other basic issues
related to FTP, please read the Usenet newsgroup
news.announce.newusers.
Move the zip file to a new directory, and use an unzip program like
pkunzip to unzip it, producing the files WPLANY.EXE and WPLANY.DOC.
Then edit the MOSAIC.INI file to remove the "REM" before the line
"TYPE9=audio/basic". Then, you need lines in the section below that
read something like: audio/basic="c:\wplany\wplany.exe %ls"
audio/wav="c:\wplany\wplany.exe %ls" where you have filled in the
correct path for wplany.exe. The MOSAIC.INI file delivered with Mosaic
may have NOTEPAD.EXE on the audio/basic line, but this will not work.
Now, restart Mosaic, and you should now be able to produce sounds. To
check this, with Mosaic choose File/Local File/\WINDOWS\*.WAV and then
try to play TADA.WAV. Then, you might try the Mosaic Demo document for
some .AU sounds, but you are lucky if your speaker produces something
you can understand.
4.8: I have a Windows PC or Macintosh. Why can't I access WAIS URLs?
This answer provided by Michael Grady (m-grady@uiuc.edu):
The version of Mosaic for X has "wais client" code built-in to it.
This was relatively easy for the developers to do, because there was
already a set of library routines for talking to WAIS available for
Unix as "public domain" (freeWAIS). I don't think there is such a
library of routines for PC/Windows or Mac, which would make it much
more difficult for the Mosaic versions for Windows and the Mac to add
"wais client" capability. Therefore, at least for now, neither the
Windows or Mac versions of Mosaic support direct query of a WAIS
server (i.e. can act as wais clients themselves).
4.9: I'm running XMosaic. Why can't I get external viewers working...
... No matter what no matter what I do to my .mailcap and .mime.types
files?
Answer provided by Ronald E. Daniel (rdaniel@acl.lanl.gov):
Mosaic only looks at the .mime.types file if it has no idea what the
document's type is. This is actually a very rare situation.
Essentially all servers now use the HTTP/1.0 protocol, which means
that they tell Mosaic (or other browsers) what the document's MIME
Content-type is. The servers use a file very much like Mosaic's
.mime.types file to infer the Content-type from the filename's
extension.
It is pretty simple to find out if this really is the problem. Use
telnet to talk to the server and find out if it is assigning a MIME
type to the document in question. Here's an example, looking at the
home page for my server. (idaknow: is my shell prompt)
idaknow: telnet www.acl.lanl.gov 80 // Connect to the httpd server
Trying 128.165.148.3 ...
Connected to www.acl.lanl.gov.
Escape character is '^]'.
HEAD /Home.html HTTP/1.0 // replace Home.html with your document
// you supply the blank line
HTTP/1.0 200 OK // the rest of this comes from the server
Date: Wednesday, 25-May-94 19:18:11 GMT
Server: NCSA/1.1
MIME-version: 1.0
Content-type: text/html // Here's the MIME Content-type
Last-modified: Monday, 16-May-94 16:21:58 GMT
Content-length: 1727
Connection closed by foreign host.
idaknow:
In the example above, /Home.html will get
http://www.acl.lanl.gov/Home.html.
Normally servers will be configured to supply a Content-type of
text/plain if they don't know what else to do. If this is the
problem you are having, take a look at the TypesConfig documentation
for NCSA's httpd. You can have the server look at the filename
extension, supply the correct Content-type, then use your local
.mailcap file to tell Mosaic what viewer to use to look at the
document.
Russ Segal adds:
The answer from Ronald Daniel is essentially correct, but it needs a
small addendum.
When starting Moasic, you can specify a "fileProxy" which will fetch
files for you:
"*fileProxy: http://socks/"
If you do this, file: URLs are no longer strictly local accesses. So
even if the URL is not fttp:, the proxy server must be upgraded as
Mr. Daniel suggests.
4.10: Hey, I know, I'll write a WWW-exploring robot! Why not?
Programs that automatically traverse the web can be quite useful, but
have the potential to make a serious mess of things. Robots have been
written which do a "breadth-first" search of the web, exploring many
sites in a gradual fashion instead of aggressively "rooting out" the
pages of one site at a time. Some of these robots now produce
excellent indexes of information available on the web.
But others have written simple depth-first searches which, at the
worst, can bring servers to their knees in minutes by recursively
downloading information from CGI script-based pages that contain an
infinite number of possible links. (Often robots can't realize this!)
Imagine what happens when a robot decides to "index" the CONTENTS of
several hundred mpeg movies. Shudder.
The moral: a robot that does what you want may already exist; if it
doesn't, please study the document World Wide Web Robots, Wanderers
and Spiders (URL is:
http://web.nexor.co.uk/mak/doc/robots/robots.html) and learn about the
emerging standards for exclusion of robots from areas in which they
are not wanted. You can also read about existing robots there.
4.11: How do I send newsgroup posts in HTML to my web client?
How to do this depends greatly on your system; if you have a Mac or
Windows system, the answer is completely different. But, as food for
thought, here is a simple shell script I use on my Unix account to
send posts from rn and related newsreaders to Lynx. Put this text in
the file "readwebpost" and use the "chmod" command to make it
executable, then put it somewhere in your path (such as your personal
bin directory):
Additional information is contained in Part 2.
THE WWW FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS (FAQ) - PART 2
_________________________________________________
5.1: INTRODUCTION (TO PART 2): HOW CAN I PROVIDE INFORMATION TO THE WEB?
Information providers run programs that the browsers can obtain
hypertext from. These programs can either be WWW servers that
understand the HyperText Transfer Protocol HTTP (best if you are
creating your information database from scratch), "gateway" programs
that convert an existing information format to hypertext, or a
non-HTTP server that WWW browsers can access -- anonymous FTP or
gopher, for example.
To learn more about World Wide Web servers, you can consult a www
server primer by Nathan Torkington, available at the URL
http://www.vuw.ac.nz/who/Nathan.Torkington/ideas/www-servers.html.
If you only want to provide information to local users, placing your
information in local files is also an option. This means, however,
that there can be no off-machine access.
5.2: Obtaining Servers
Servers are available for Unix, Macintosh, MS Windows, and VMS
systems. If you know of a server for another operating system, please
contact me.
See http://info.cern.ch/hypertext/WWW/Daemon/Overview.html for more
information on writing servers and gateways in general.
5.2.1: UNIX SERVERS
NCSA httpd
NCSA has released a server, known as the NCSA httpd; it is
available at the URL ftp://ftp.ncsa.uiuc.edu/Web/ncsa_httpd.
CERN httpd
CERN's server is available for anonymous FTP from info.cern.ch
(URL is http://info.cern.ch/hypertext/WWW/Daemon/Status.html)
and many other places. Use your local copy of archie to search
for "www" in order to find a nearby site.
GN Gopher/HTTP server
The GN server is unique in that it can serve both WWW and
Gopher clients (in their native modes). This is a good server
for those migrating from Gopher to WWW, although it does not
have the server-side-script capabilities of the NCSA and CERN
servers. See the URL http://hopf.math.nwu.edu/.
Perl server
There is also a server written in the Perl scripting language,
called Plexus, for which documentation is available at the URL
http://bsdi.com/server/doc/plexus.html.
5.2.2: MACINTOSH SERVERS
There is a server for the Macintosh, MacHTTP, available at the URL
http://www.uth.tmc.edu/mac_info/machttp_info.html.
5.2.3: MS WINDOWS AND WINDOWS NT SERVERS
HTTPS (Windows NT)
HTTPS is a server for Windows NT systems, both Intel and Alpha
-- based. It is available via anonymous FTP from emwac.ed.ac.uk
in the directory pub/https (URL is
ftp://emwac.ed.ac.uk/pub/https). (Be sure to download the
version appropriate to your processor.) You can read a detailed
announcement at the FTP site, or by using the URL
ftp://emwac.ed.ac.uk/pub/https/https.txt.
NCSA httpd for Windows
The NCSA httpd for Windows has most of the features of the Unix
version, including scripts (which generate pages on the fly
based on user input). It is available by anonymous FTP from
ftp.ncsa.uiuc.edu in the Web/ncsa_httpd/contrib directory as
the file whtp11a6.zip, or at the URL
ftp://ftp.ncsa.uiuc.edu/Web/ncsa_httpd/contrib/whtp11a6.zip.
SerWeb
A simple, effective server for Windows writtten by Gustavo
Estrella. Available by anonymous ftp from
winftp.cica.indiana.edu (or one of its mirror sites, such as
nic.switch.ch), as the file serweb03.zip, in the directory
/pub/pc/win3/winsock.
There is also a Windows NT version of SerWeb, available by
anonymous FTP from emwac.ed.ac.uk as /pub/serweb/serweb_i.zip.
WEB4HAM
Another Windows-based server, available by anonymous FTP from
ftp.informatik.uni-hamburg.de as /pub/net/winsock/web4ham.zip.
5.2.4: MSDOS SERVERS
KA9Q NOS (nos11c.exe) is a Internet server package for DOS that
includes HTTP and Gopher servers. It can be obtained via anonymous FTP
from one of the following sites:
inorganic5.chem.ufl.edu
biochemistry.cwru.edu
5.2.5: VMS SERVERS
CERN HTTP for VMS
A port of the CERN server to VMS. Available at the URL
http://delonline.cern.ch/disk$user/duns/doc/vms/distribution.ht
ml.
Region 6 Threaded HTTP Server
A native VMS server which uses DECthreads(tm). This is a
potentially major performance advantage because VMS has a high
overhead for each process, which is a problem for the
frequently-forking NCSA and CERN servers that began life under
Unix. A multithreaded server avoids this overhead. Available at
the URL
http://kcgl1.eng.ohio-state.edu/www/doc/serverinfo.html.
5.2.6: AMIGA SERVERS
NCSA's Unix server has been ported to the Amiga, and is bundled with
the AMosaic browser. See the URL
http://insti.physics.sunysb.edu/AMosaic/home.html for details.
5.3: Producing HTML documents
HTML is the simple markup system used to create hypertext documents.
There are three ways to produce HTML documents: writing them yourself,
which is not a very difficult skill to acquire, using an HTML editor,
which assists in doing the above, and converting documents in other
formats to HTML. The following three sections cover these
possibilities in sequence.
5.3.1: WRITING HTML DOCUMENTS YOURSELF
You can write an HTML document with any text editor. Try the "source"
button of your browser (or "save as" HTML) to look at the HTML for a
page you find particularly interesting. The odds are that it will be a
great deal simpler than you would expect. If you're used to marking up
text in any way (even red-pencilling it), HTML should be rather
intuitive.
A beginner's guide to HTML is available at the URL
http://www.ncsa.uiuc.edu/General/Internet/WWW/HTMLPrimer.html. You can
also find a plain text version (at the URL
ftp://ftp.ncsa.uiuc.edu/ncsapubs/WWW/HTMLPrimer.txt) and a compressed
Postscript version (at the URL
ftp://ftp.ncsa.uiuc.edu/ncsapubs/WWW/HTMLPrimer.ps.Z). (Since the
latter two are FTP URLs, you can fetch them by hand using FTP if you
do not yet have a web browser.)
There is also a good set of HTML documentation available at the URL
http://www.ucc.ie/info/net/htmldoc.html.
There is also an HTML primer by Nathan Torkington at the URL
http://www.vuw.ac.nz/who/Nathan.Torkington/ideas/www-html.html.
5.3.2: HTML EDITORS
Of course, most folks would still prefer to use a friendlier,
graphical editor. Some editors are WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You
Get), or close to it; others simply assist you in writing HTML by
plugging in the desired markup tags for you from a menu.
Fans of the EMACS editor can use EMACS and html-helper-mode , an EMACS
"mode" for HTML editing (URL is http://www.reed.edu/~nelson/tools/).
There is also another Emacs HTML mode, html-mode.el (URL is
ftp://ftp.ncsa.uiuc.edu/Web/elisp/html-mode.el).
For Microsoft Windows users, there is an editor called HTML Assistant
with features to assist in the creation of HTML documents. It can be
had by anonymous FTP from ftp.cs.dal.ca in the directory /htmlasst/.
Read the README.1ST file in this directory for information on which
files to download.
A WYSIWYG editor for the Web, *SoftQuad HoTMetaL*, is available for
downloading at NCSA and other Mosaic server sites. Many mirror sites
exist; if you can't get through to one, try another, don't give up!
That's what mirror sites are for. (Also be sure to use the copy
closest to you geographically if possible.)
Known mirrors:
*
ftp://ftp.ncsa.uiuc.edu/Mosaic/contrib/SoftQuad/sqhotmetal-1.0.tar.
gz
* ftp://ftp.ifi.uio.no/pub/SGML/HoTMetaL
* ftp://sgml1.ex.ac.uk/SoftQuad
* ftp://doc.ic.ac.uk/pub/packages/WWW/ncsa/contrib/SoftQuad
*
ftp://askhp.ask.uni-karlsruhe.de/pub/infosystems/mosaic/contrib/Sof
tQuad
* ftp://ftp.cs.concordia.ca/pub/www
You need a Sun SPARC or Microsoft Windows system and 6MB of disk (6MB
of RAM minimum for MS Windows). Because it is context-sensitive,
HoTMetaL guides users in creating new HTML documents and in cleaning
up old ones. A Publish command changes appropriate SRC and HREF
attributes from local paths to http locations. For more information,
FTP the README file from the same directory, or send email to
hotmetal@sq.com. A HoTMetaL Pro commercially supported version is
available for purchase from SoftQuad and its resellers.
An editor for all X users: TkWWW (listed above under X browsers)
supports WYSIWYG HTML editing; and since it's a browser, you can try
out links immediately after creating them.
Also for X users, there is a package called htmltext which supports
WYSIWYG HTML editing. More information is available at the URL
http://web.cs.city.ac.uk/homes/njw/htmltext/htmltext.html.
For Macintosh users, there is evidently a near-WYSIWYG package called
HTML Editor (URL is
http://dragon.acadiau.ca:1667/~giles/HTML_Editor).
Also for Macintosh users, the BBEdit HTML extensions allow the BBEdit
and BBEdit Lite text editors for the Macintosh to conveniently edit
HTML documents. (URL is
http://www.uji.es/bbedit-html-extensions.html.) You can also obtain
the extensions package by anonymous ftp from sumex-aim.stanford.edu as
info-mac/bbedit-html-ext-b3.hqx.
There is an alternative BBEdit extension package available as well
(URL is http://www.york.ac.uk/~ld11/BBEditTools.html). it is available
by FTP from ftp.york.ac.uk in the directory
/pub/users/ld11/BBEdit_HTML_Tools.sea.hqx.
NCSA's List of Filters and Editors, for which the URL is
http://www.ncsa.uiuc.edu/SDG/Software/Mosaic/Docs/faq-software.html#ed
itors, mentions several editors, including two for MS Windows. In some
cases, the "editor" amounts to a set of macros for an existing word
processor, which can provide a near-WYSIWYG environment.
Note that this URL contains uppercase and lowercase letters; certain
operating systems won't allow mixed case on the command line, or will
only allow it if it is quoted (VMS), so if you are launching Lynx or
another client and specifying a URL at the command line, try quoting
the URL in double-quotes ("URL").
Another option, if you have an SGML editor, is to use it with the HTML
DTD .
5.3.3: CONVERTING OTHER FORMATS TO HTML
There is a collection of filters for converting your existing
documents (in TeX and other non-HTML formats) into HTML automatically,
including filters that can allow more or less WYSIWYG editing using
various word processors:
Rich Brandwein and Mike Sendall's List at CERN. The URL is
http://info.cern.ch/hypertext/WWW/Tools/Filters.html.
(Note that this URL contains uppercase and lowercase letters; certain
operating systems such as VMS require you to quote mixed-case URLs
when launching a borwser from the command line. This is NOT a bug in
the browser.)
There is also a Word for Windows template for writing HTML documents,
available at the URL http://www.gatech.edu/word_html/release.htm.
5.4: How do I publicize my work?
There are several things you can do to publicize your new HTML server
or other offering:
* Submit it to the NCSA What's New Page at the URL
http://www.ncsa.uiuc.edu/SDG/Software/Mosaic/Docs/whats-new.html
(see the page for details on how to submit your listing!).
* Post it to the newsgroup comp.infosystems.announce. Please read
the group first to get a feel for the contents. You should not
post to comp.infosystems.www.users,.misc,.providers, etc., but if
you feel compelled to do so, please choose .misc as announcements
are of interest to both providers and users (and those who wear
both hats).
* Submit it to the maintainers of various catalogs, such as the WWW
Virtual Library (at the URL
http://info.cern.ch/hypertext/DataSources/bySubject/Overview.html)
and the ALIWEB index (at the URL
http://web.nexor.co.uk/aliweb/doc/aliweb.html).
5.5: Can I buy space on an existing server?
Yes, you can. A list of sites offering WWW space for lease is
available (at the URL http://union.ncsa.uiuc.edu/www/leasing.html ).
5.6.1: HOW DO I SET UP A CLICKABLE IMAGE MAP?
There are really two issues here: how to indicate in HTML that you
want an image to be clickable, and how to configure your server to do
something with the clicks returned by Mosaic, Chimera, and other
clients capable of delivering them.
You can read about image maps and the NCSA server at the URL
http://hoohoo.ncsa.uiuc.edu/docs/setup/admin/Imagemap.html.
Using imagemaps requires that you create a map file; you can do this
by hand or with a WYSIWYG tool. I wrote Mapedit (URL is:
http://sunsite.unc.edu/boutell/mapedit/mapedit.html ), which is such a
tool for Microsoft Windows and the X Window System. Other tools are
available. (URLs, anyone?)
_Important Note:_ Creating imagemaps requires a cooperative server
administrator and a real web server. Don't waste time making maps
before making sure you have the necessary tools to deliver them.
5.6.2: HOW DO I MAKE A "LINK" THAT DOESN'T LOAD A NEW PAGE?
Such links are useful when a form is intended to perform some action
on the server machine without sending new information to the client,
or when a user has clicked in an undefined area in an image map; these
are just two possibilities.
Rob McCool of NCSA provided the following wisdom on the subject:
Yechezkal-Shimon Gutfreund (sg04@gte.com) wrote:
: Ok, here is another bizzare request from me:
: I am currently running scripts which I "DO NOT" want to return
: any visible result. That is, not text/plain, not text/HTML, not
: image/gif. The entire results are the side effects of the
: script and nothing should be returned to the viewer.
: It would be nice to have an internally supported null viewer
: so that I could do this, more "cleanly" (ok, ok, I hear your groans).
HTTP now supports a response code of 204, which is no operation. Some
browsers such as Mosaic/X 2.* support it. To use it, make your script
a nph script and output an HTTP/1.0 204 header. Something like:
HTTP/1.0 204 No response Server: Myscript/NCSA httpd 1.1
(You can learn more about nph scripts from the NCSA server
documentation at the URL http://hoohoo.ncsa.uiuc.edu/docs.)
Essentially they are scripts that handle their own HTTP response
codes.
5.6.3: WHERE CAN I LEARN HOW TO CREATE FILL-OUT FORMS?
You can read about the Common Gateway Interface (at the URL
http://hoohoo.ncsa.uiuc.edu:80/cgi/). In addition to documenting
the standard interface for which scripts can now be written for both NCSA
and CERN-derived servers, these pages also cover HTML forms and how to
handle the results on the server side. See the section on email forms
for a simple solution to the most commonly desired form.
5.6.3.1: How can I create hidden fields in forms (keeping state)?
Use INPUT TYPE=hidden. An example:
...
?
Tables are a standard feature in HTML Level 3, a new version of HTML.
Unfortunately, they are at present implemented only by the Viola and
Emacs-W3 browsers, to my knowledge.
_However_, there is a way to use HTML Level 3 tables now and convert
them automatically to HTML, allowing you to design proper tables and
install those pages directly when table support arrives in the
majority of clients. You can do this using the html+tables package, by
Brooks Cutter (bcutter@paradyne.com), which is available for anonymous
ftp from sunsite.unc.edu in the directory
pub/packages/infosystems/WWW/tools/html+tables.shar. This package
requires the shell language Perl, which is primarily used on Unix
systems but is also available for other systems (such as MSDOS
machines). html+tables accepts HTML Level 3 and outputs html using the
... construct to represent tables, allowing you to write
HTML Level 3 now, knowing that it will look better when clients are
ready for it.
5.6.6: WHAT IS HTML LEVEL 3 AND WHERE CAN I LEARN MORE ABOUT IT?
HTML Level 3, also known as HTML+, is an enhanced version of HTML
designed to address some of the limitations of HTML. HTML Level 3
supports true tables, right-justified text, centered text, line breaks
that do not double space, and many other desired features.
However, most clients support only a handful of HTML Level 3 features
(such as forms in Mosaic) at this time.
You can access information about new developments in HTML at the CERN
server (at the URL
http://info.cern.ch/hypertext/WWW/Markup/Markup.html ).
(HTML Level 1 is the original version. HTML Level 2 is essentially the
same, but with the addition of forms.)
5.6.7: HOW CAN I MAKE TRANSPARENT GIFS?
Transparent GIFs are useful because they appear to blend in smoothly
with the user's display, even if the user has set a background color
that differs from that the developer expected.
There is a document explaining transparent GIFs available at the URL
http://melmac.corp.harris.com/transparent_images.html. You can fetch
the program giftrans by anonymous ftp from ftp.rz.uni-karlsruhe.de at
the path /pub/net/www/tools/giftrans.c.
There is also a utility for the Macintosh, Transparency (URL is:
http://www.med.cornell.edu/~giles/projects.html#transparency).
5.6.8: HOW COME MAILTO: URLS DON'T WORK?
The mailto: URL is an innovation found in Lynx and a few other
browsers. It is not yet found in Mosaic, the most popular browser.
Hopefully it will be present in future versions. In the meantime, you
can set up forms which send mail to you; there is documentation on
this at the URL http://siva.cshl.org/email/index.html.
5.6.9: HOW CAN I RESTRICT AND CONTROL ACCESS TO MY SERVER?
All major servers have features that allow you to limit access to
particular sites, and many clients have authentication features that
allow you to identify specific users. There is a tutorial on security
and user authentication with the NCSA server and Mosaic available,
written by Marc Andreessen (URL is
http://wintermute.ncsa.uiuc.edu:8080/auth-tutorial/tutorial.html). See
your server documentation for further information.
5.6.10: WHICH FORMAT IS BETTER FOR WWW IMAGE PURPOSES, JPEG OR GIF?
JPEG does a better job with realistic images such as scanned
photographs. Most browsers cannot handle inline JPEGs, however, so you
must link to them as external images (using a regular <A HREF...>
instead of