Archive-name: www/faq/part1
Last-modified: 1994/11/4
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.
WORLD WIDE WEB FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
_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!_
_ Last update: 11/4/94 _
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: What are SGML and HTML?
+ 3.4: 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: VM/CMS browsers
o 4.3.9: 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?
+ 4.12: I can't get SLIP. I want Mosaic. Is there a way?
(YES!)
* 5: Providing Information to the Web (Provider Questions)
5.1: 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, Windows NT and OS/2 Servers
o 5.2.4: MSDOS Servers
o 5.2.5: VMS Servers
o 5.2.6: Amiga Servers
o 5.2.7: VM/CMS 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
o 5.3.4: Checking your HTML for errors
+ 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?
o 5.6.13: How can I keep statistics about my web site?
* 6: What newsgroups discuss the web?
* 7: I want to know more.
* 8: Credits
1: RECENT ADDITIONS AND CHANGES TO THE FAQ
* 10/26/94: Corrections to the TIA section
* 10/26/94: Client for VM/CMS
* 10/26/94: Server for VM/CMS
* 10/26/94: Updated mirrors of HoTMetaL
* 10/26/94: Fixed URL for web page leasing
* 11/3/94: Updates to web-by-mail section
* 11/3/94: How to get the HTML version of the FAQ via email
* 11/3/94: gwstat added to wwwstat description
* 11/3/94: Spaces follow all plaintext URLs to make Netscape,
etc.
happy
* 11/3/94: Gabriel White's HTML editor reviews linked
* 11/3/94: Webmaster's Starter Kit
* 11/3/94: WebLint
* 11/3/94: Added comp.internet.net-happenings
* 11/3/94: Added MosaicMail to section on piping to Mosaic
* 11/3/94: Added Netscape to clients section ( Mac, Windows, X
Window System)
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 and best
version is always available on the web as
http://sunsite.unc.edu/boutell/faq/www_faq.html , and is mirrored
in
Japan (URL is
http://www.glocom.ac.jp/mirror/sunsite.unc.edu/boutell/faq/www_faq.htm
l ). (see section 3.2, "What is a URL?" to understand what this
term
means.) If you run a mirror site which automatically mirrors this
document, please submit the URL for inclusion in the list of
mirrors.
Thanks to both Sunsite and Glocom.
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.
If you want the HTML version but are located behind a firewall, you
can acquire it from CERN's WWW email server. Send mail to
listproc0@www.cern.ch with the following single line in the body
(leave the subject blank):
source http://sunsite.unc.edu/boutell/faq/www_faq.html
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: What are SGML and HTML?
Documents on the World Wide Web are written in a simple "markup
language" called HTML, which stands for Hypertext Markup Language.
See
section 5.3 for more information about creating HTML documents for
use
on the web.
SGML is a much broader language which is used to define particular
markup languages for particular purposes. HTML is just a specific
application of SGML. You can learn more about SGML, and the
rationale
behind HTML, by reading A Gentle Introduction to SGML (URL is
http://etext.virginia.edu/bin/tei-tocs?div=DIV1&id=SG ), a document
provided by the Text Encoding Initiative. (_Note:_ Some browsers
apparently crash on this URL. There's nothing wrong with the
document;
try another browser if you have problems.)
3.4: 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.
World Wide Web usage grew far beyond Gopher usage in the last few
months, 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.) WWW has long since
reached
critical mass, with new commercial and noncommercial sites
appearing
daily.
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!_). Note that
"your machine" can be defined as a system you dial into from home,
such as netcom or another account provider. Running a text-based
browser on such a system is still preferable to telnetting to a
faraway site.
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 listproc0@www.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
úÿ
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. You can do this one of two ways: using a proper SLIP
account,
which requires the active cooperation of your network provider or
educational institution, or using The Internet Adapter (section
4.12),
a product which simulates SLIP through your dialup Unix shell
account.
If you only have non-Unix based dialup shell access, or have no PC
at
home, your best option at this time is to run Lynx on the VMS (or
Unix, 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.
WinWeb From EINet. Available by anonymous FTP from
ftp.einet.net
in the directory /einet/pc/winweb as the file winweb.zip.
Netscape From Mosaic Communications Corp (URL is:
http://home.mcom.com/info/index.html ). Downloads and displays
images
incrementally while you read pages, which also display
incrementally,
making it the best browser at the time of this writing for those
who
connect to the web via modems. Also supports many extensions to
HTML,
although not all conform to the proposed standard. Netscape is a
commercial product but is free for personal use by individuals.
Version 0.9 (available to the public as of this writing) does not
support printing, but this is promised in the forthcoming version
1.0.
_Contrary to popular myth, version 1.0 will be free for personal
use,
just like version 0.9._ The 16-bit version works under OS/2 as well
as
Windows 3.1. Available by anonymous FTP from the following sites
(use
the mirror closest to you; see the URL above for the latest list):
* ftp://ftp.mcom.com/netscape/
* ftp://ftp.uu.net/networking/info-service/www/mcc/
* ftp://ftp.digital.com/pub/net/infosys/Mosaic_Comm/Netscape/
* ftp://ftp.icsi.net/pub/packages/netscape/
* ftp://www.sandia.gov/Netscape/
* ftp://lark.cc.ukans.edu/Netscape/
* ftp://www.jsc.nasa.gov/pub/netscape/
* ftp://ftp.meer.net/pub/Netscape/
* ftp://src.doc.ic.ac.uk/packages/Netscape/
Spry Mosaic From Spry. Available by anonymous FTP from
ftp.spry.com
in the directory AirMosaicDemo as the file AMOSDEMO.EXE. Spry
Mosaic
is a commercial product but a demonstration version is available
and
can be registered inexpensively. Works under OS/2. Supports the
mailto: URL, transparent GIFs, ALT tags, etc.; also supports
hierarchical hotlists, a unique feature at the time of this
writing.
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. You can do this one of two ways: using a proper SLIP
account,
which requires the active cooperation of your network provider or
educational institution, or using The Internet Adapter (section
4.12),
a product which simulates SLIP through your dialup Unix shell
account.
If you only have non-Unix based dialup shell access, or have no PC
at
home, your best option at this time is to run Lynx on the VMS (or
Unix, 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. You can do this one of two ways: using a proper SLIP
account,
which requires the active cooperation of your network provider or
educational institution, or using The Internet Adapter (section
4.12),
a product which simulates SLIP through your dialup Unix shell
account.
If you only have non-Unix based dialup shell access, or have no PC
at
home, your best option at this time is to run Lynx on the VMS (or
Unix, 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.
Netscape
From Mosaic Communications Corp (URL is:
http://home.mcom.com/info/index.html ). Downloads and
displays
images incrementally while you read pages, which also
display
incrementally, making it the best browser at the time of
this
writing for those who connect to the web via modems. Also
supports many extensions to HTML, although not all conform
to
the proposed standard. Netscape is a commercial product but
is
free for personal use by individuals. Version 0.9 (available
to
the public as of this writing) does not support printing,
but
this is promised in the forthcoming version 1.0. _Contrary
to
popular myth, version 1.0 will be free for personal use,
just
like version 0.9._ Available by anonymous FTP from the
following sites (use the mirror closest to you; see the URL
above for the latest list):
+ ftp://ftp.mcom.com/netscape/
+ ftp://ftp.uu.net/networking/info-service/www/mcc/
+
ftp://ftp.digital.com/pub/net/infosys/Mosaic_Comm/Netscape/
+ ftp://ftp.icsi.net/pub/packages/netscape/
+ ftp://www.sandia.gov/Netscape/
+ ftp://lark.cc.ukans.edu/Netscape/
+ ftp://www.jsc.nasa.gov/pub/netscape/
+ ftp://ftp.meer.net/pub/Netscape/
+ ftp://src.doc.ic.ac.uk/packages/Netscape/
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;
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. The original multimedia
browser.
Full http 1.0 support including PUT-method forms, image
maps,
etc. Version 2.5 beta 2 has introductory support for tables.
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. Full http 1.0 support including PUT-method forms,
image
maps, etc. Probably the best browser available for VMS.
Available by anonymous FTP from ftp.ncsa.uiuc.edu in the
directory Mosaic.
Netscape
From Mosaic Communications Corp (URL is:
http://home.mcom.com/info/index.html ). Downloads and
displays
images incrementally while you read pages, which also
display
incrementally, making it the best browser at the time of
this
writing for those who connect to the web via modems. Also
supports many extensions to HTML, although not all conform
to
the proposed standard. Netscape is a commercial product but
is
free for personal use by individuals. Version 0.9 (available
to
the public as of this writing) does not support printing,
but
this is promised in the forthcoming version 1.0. _Contrary
to
popular myth, version 1.0 will be free for personal use,
just
like version 0.9._ Available by anonymous FTP from the
following sites (use the mirror closest to you; see the URL
above for the latest list):
+ ftp://ftp.mcom.com/netscape/
+ ftp://ftp.uu.net/networking/info-service/www/mcc/
+
ftp://ftp.digital.com/pub/net/infosys/Mosaic_Comm/Netscape/
+ ftp://ftp.icsi.net/pub/packages/netscape/
+ ftp://www.sandia.gov/Netscape/
+ ftp://lark.cc.ukans.edu/Netscape/
+ ftp://www.jsc.nasa.gov/pub/netscape/
+ ftp://ftp.meer.net/pub/Netscape/
+ ftp://src.doc.ic.ac.uk/packages/Netscape/
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
A WWW browser for emacs. Runs under Xwindows, NeXTstep, VMS,
OS/2, Windows NT, Windows 3.1, AmigaDOS, or just about any
Unix
system. Supports multiple fonts, color, and mouse support if
using Lemacs, Epoch, or Emacs 19. Also works in local mode
under DOS and on the Macintosh. Available by anonymous ftp
from
ftp.cs.indiana.edu in the directory pub/elisp/w3.
4.3.9: VM/CMS BROWSERS
Albert
A WWW browser for the VM/CMS operating system. Available by
anonymous FTP from gopher.ufl.edu in the directory
pub/vm/www/.
4.3.9: 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).
You can also check out the newsgroup comp.internet.net-happenings,
which carries WWW announcements and many other Internet-related
announcements. The ball is rolling to create
comp.infosystems.www.announce, but this group does not yet exist.
You
can follow the discussion in news.groups.
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
úÿ
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. However, it does a good
job
of sorting the documents it finds according to how closely they
match your search.
* 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.
* Lycos (URL is http://fuzine.mt.cs.cmu.edu/mlm/lycos-home.html )
is
another web-indexing robot, which includes the ability to
submit
the URLs of your own documents by hand, ensuring that they are
available for searching.
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
documen
t
// you supply the blank line
HTTP/1.0 200 OK // the rest of this comes from
the
serve
r 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):
#!/bin/sh
echo \ > .article.html
cat >> .article.html
echo \ >> .article.html
lynx .article.html < /dev/tty
rm .article.html
Then add the following line to your .rnmac file (create it if you
don't already have one):
W |readwebpost %C
Now, when you press "W" while reading a post in rn, a message will
be
sent to Lynx, and the links enclosed in it will be live.
Larry W. Virden provides the following version which invokes Mosaic
instead, and is also capable of communicating with an already-
running
copy of Mosaic instead of launching another. (You can use the same
rn
macro as above, invoking "goto-xm" instead of "readwebpost".) Read
the
comments for details on the assumptions made by the script.
#! /bin/sh
# goto-xm, by Joseph T. Buck
# Modified heavily by Larry W. Virden
# Script for use with newsreaders such as trn. Piping the article
# through this command causes xmosaic to pop up, pointing to the
# article. If an existing xmosaic (version 1.1 or later) exists,
# the USR1 method will be used to cause it to point to the correct
# article, otherwise a new one will be started.
# assumptions: ps command works as is on SunOS 4.1.x, may need changes
# on other platforms.
URL=`/bin/grep '^Message-ID:' | /bin/sed -e 's/.*.*//'`
if [ "X$URL" = "X" ]; then
echo "USAGE: $0 [goto] [once] < USENET_msg" >&2
exit 1
fi
pid=`ps -xc | egrep '[Mm]osaic' | awk 'NR == 1 {print $1}'`
p=`which Mosaic`
gfile=/tmp/Mosaic.$pid
$p "$URL" &
if [ "$#" -gt 0 ] ; then
if [ "$1" = "goto" -o "$1" = "same" ] ; then
shift
echo "goto" > $gfile
else
echo "newwin" > $gfile
fi
else
echo "newwin" > $gfile
fi
/bin/awk 'END { printf "'"$URL"'" }' > $gfile
trap "echo signal encountered" 30
kill -USR1 $pid
exit 0
See also MosaicMail (URL is
http://www.oac.uci.edu/indiv/ehood/mhonarc.doc.html ), a Perl
script
which pipes email and/or news to your current Mosaic session.
4.12: I can't get SLIP. I want Mosaic. Is there a way?
YES! If you have a plain old Unix shell account on a Unix system,
such
as a SunOS or Ultrix system, you can run The Internet Adapter
(TIA), a
program which provides a pseudo-SLIP connection. TIA is _not_ free
software, but there is a free two-week trial period and it is very
cheap to register.
"So what do I run on my machine at home?"
Exactly the same software you would use for real SLIP; as far as
your
PC is concerned, it _is_ a SLIP connection. If you're unfamiliar
with
SLIP please check out a newsgroup relevant to your particular type
of
PC (Windows, Mac, etc). (This isn't restricted to common systems;
because all the emulation happens on your Unix shell account, your
client machine can run anything that supports SLIP.)
"Details, please! I'm confused."
Check out the TIA home page (URL is
http://marketplace.com/tia/tiahome.html ), or send email to
info@marketplace.com and request details about TIA.
ÿ@FROM :boutell@netcom.com
ÿ@SUBJECT:World Wide Web Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ), Part 2/2
ÿ@PACKOUT:11-20-94
Message-ID:
Path:
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gatech!bloom-beacon.mit.edu!senator-bedfellow.mit.edu!faqserv
From: boutell@netcom.com (Thomas Boutell)
Newsgroups: comp.infosystems.www,comp.infosystems.www.misc
comp.infosystems.www.users,comp.infosystems.www.providers
comp.infosystems.wais,comp.infosystems.gopher,comp.infosystems,alt.hyp
ertext
comp.answers,alt.answers,news.answers
Subject: World Wide Web Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ), Part 2/2
Supersedes:
Followup-To: comp.infosystems.www.misc
Date: 20 Nov 1994 08:15:26 GMT
Organization: Nerdsholm
Lines: 736
Approved: news-answers-request@MIT.Edu
Distribution: world
Expires: 11 Dec 1994 08:14:15 GMT
Message-ID:
References:
NNTP-Posting-Host: bloom-picayune.mit.edu
Summary: beginner & advanced world wide web questions-read before
posting to
comp.infosystems.www.[...] newsgroups
X-Last-Updated: 1994/11/04
Originator: faqserv@bloom-picayune.MIT.EDU
Xref: ns.channel1.com comp.infosystems.www.misc:9374
comp.infosystems.www.users:8149 comp.infosystems.www.providers:8828
comp.infosystems.wais:3825 comp.infosystems.gopher:15103
comp.infosystems:4441
alt.hypertext:6226 comp.answers:8219 alt.answers:5421
news.answers:31718
Archive-name: www/faq/part2
Last-modified: 1994/11/4
WORLD WIDE WEB FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
This is part 2 of a 2-part posting.
Part 2 begins with section 5 (providing
information to the web). Part 1 should be the
previous posting in this thread.
5.1: 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
.
EIT httpd
EIT has created the Webmaster's Starter Kit, which installs
their WWW server on your system via the web through a
painless
forms interface. Recommended for those unfamiliar with
server
installation. You can learn more about the starter kit and
the
EIT httpd at the starter kit site (URL is
http://wsk.eit.com/wsk/doc/ ).
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.
OS2HTTPD
An OS/2 server, written by Frankie Fan. See the home page
(URL
is ftp://ftp.netcom.com/pub/kfan/overview.html ) for
details,
or fetch the package by anonymous FTP from ftp.netcom.com in
the directory pub/kfan.
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.
5.2.7: VM/CMS SERVERS
A VM/CMS web server is available; see the URL
http://ua1vm.ua.edu/~troth/rickvmsw/rickvmsw.html for more
information. If you don't yet have a web browser to try this URL
with,
check out the VM/CMS Browsers section.
5.2.6: AMIGA SERVERS
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.) Hotmetal is available
for
both Sun Sparc systems and Windows systems; note that Windows users
need at least 6 megabytes of free memory. (A 2-megabyte swap file
should just barely do the trick on a 4MB machine.)
Known mirrors:
* ftp://ftp.ncsa.uiuc.edu/Web/html/hotmetal/
* ftp://ftp.ifi.uio.no/pub/SGML/HoTMetaL
* ftp://sgml1.ex.ac.uk/SoftQuad
* ftp://src.doc.ic.ac.uk/packages/WWW/ncsa/html/hotmetal/
*
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; swap files count). Other Unix
systems
may be supported by the time you read this; have a look on one of
the
sites above.
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.
Also see Gabriel White's reviews of MS Windows HTML editors (URL is
http://werple.apana.org.au/~gabriel/html-editors/ ). Another
option,
if you have an SGML editor, is to use it with the HTML DTD (URL is
http://info.cern.ch/hypertext/WWW/MarkUp/DTDHeading.html ).
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
#editors, 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").
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 (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 .
5.3.3: CHECKING YOUR HTML FOR ERRORS
Tools to validate your HTML documents (check them for errors) are
available. There is a form at the URL
http://www.hal.com/%7Econnolly/html-test/service/validation-
form.html
which will check HTML documents for errors according to the latest
specification; note that you are encouraged to set up the program
on
your own system if you make heavy use of the form. There is also a
tool which will check the links in your documents for links to
nonexistent resources, such as pages that have moved (URL is
http://wsk.eit.com/wsk/dist/doc/admin/webtest/verify_links.html ).
Also try web-lint (URL is http://www.unipress.com/web-lint/ ),
which
will check your HTML for errors when you supply it with the URL or
paste your page into a form.
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 ).
* Read Gareth Rees' guide to publishing on the World Wide Web.
(URL
is http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/users/gdr11/publish.html ).
5.5: Can I buy space on an existing server?
úÿ
Yes, you can. A list of sites offering WWW space for lease is
available (at the URL http://union.ncsa.uiuc.edu/www/leasing.shtml
).
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:
By now, most if not all browsers can handle the hidden type. Note
that
"hidden" doesn't mean "secret"; the user can always click on "view
source".
5.6.3.2: How can users send me email through their browsers?
If you have access to the server's configuration files, or if your
server administrator permits users to create their own CGI scripts,
you can arrange it. I've written a simple email forms package (URL
is:
http://siva.cshl.org/email/index.html ), which does it in ANSI C.
There is also a package floating around in Perl (URL, anyone?).
5.6.4: HOW DO I COMMENT AN HTML DOCUMENT?
Use the tag. Note that comments do not
nest,
and the sequence "--" may not appear inside a comment except as
part
of the closing --> tag.
You should _not_ try to use this to "comment out" HTML that would
otherwise be shown to the user, since some browsers (notably
Mosaic)
will still pay attention to tags inside the comment and close it
prematurely.
_Thanks to Joe English for clearing up this issue._
5.6.5: HOW CAN I CREATE DECENT-LOOKING TABLES AND STOP USING
...
?
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 .
GIF does a better job with crisp, sharp images, such as those
typically used to construct buttons, graphs and the like. All
browsers
that can display graphics at all can display GIFs inline.
5.6.11: HOW CAN I MIRROR PART OF ANOTHER SERVER?
Scripts are available to do this, but at this time they are not
very
friendly to the server you are attempting to mirror; their behavior
resembles that of the more poorly written WWW robots. If you are
trying to improve access times to a distant server, you will likely
find the "proxy" capabilities of CERN's WWW server to be a more
effective and general solution to your problem.
5.6.12: HOW CAN I KEEP ROBOTS OFF MY SERVER?
Programs that automatically traverse the web can be quite useful,
but
have the potential to make a serious mess of things. Every so often
someone will write a "depth-first" searching robot that brings
servers
to their knees. See the section on writing robots (4.10) for
details.
Fortunately, most robots on the web follow a simple protocol by
which
you can keep them off your server if you wish, or keep them out of
portions of your server which are robot traps (ie, they contain an
infinite number of possible links). Read 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,
including useful cataloging robots you probably do _not_ want to
keep
off your server.
5.6.13: HOW CAN I KEEP STATISTICS ABOUT MY WEB SERVER?
There are several tools which can generate statistics about your
web
server:
getstats
getstats is a versatile log analyzer, also written in C,
which
provides reports for various time periods with a high degree
of
flexibility. Add-on packages have been written to generate
reports in HTML and also to generate graphs. You can access
the
getstats home page for more information (URL is
http://www.eit.com/software/getstats/getstats.html ), or
obtain
the package by anonymous FTP from ftp.eit.com in the
directory
/pub/web.software/getstats.
WebStat
WebStat is a package written in the language Python which
supplies statistics on usage by domain, country, etc., with
daily, weekly, monthly and annual reports available. You
will
need Python in order to use it. See the WebStat home page
(URL
is
http://www.pegasus.esprit.ec.org/people/sijben/statistics/adver
tisment.html ) for details, or obtain Python from ftp.cwi.nl
in
the directory /pub/python and WebStat from
ftp.pegasus.esprit.ec.org in the directory /pub/misc.
Wusage
Wusage, which I wrote, is a C program which generates simple
weekly reports in HTML, with inline image graphs displaying
server growth and the distribution of accesses by continent.
You can also exclude irrelevant accesses (inline images,
local
machines, etc.) from the results. Read the Wusage home page
(URL is http://siva.cshl.org/wusage.html ) for more
information, or obtain Wusage by anonymous FTP from
isis.cshl.org in the directory pub/wusage.
wwwstat
wwwstat is a full-featured log analyzer written in the
language
Perl. (See the newsgroup comp.lang.perl for more information
about the language.) See the wwwstat home page (URL is
http://www.ics.uci.edu/WebSoft/wwwstat/) for more
information,
or obtain the package by anonymous FTP from
liege.ics.uci.edu
in the directory /pub/arcadia/wwwstat. See also gwstat (URL
is
http://dis.cs.umass.edu/stats/gwstat.html ), a package which
produces GIF graphs from the output of wwwstat.
6: WHAT NEWSGROUPS DISCUSS THE WEB?
You can find discussion of World Wide Web topics in three
newsgroups,
and one newsgroup which will soon be removed:
comp.infosystems.www.users
A forum for the discussion of WWW client software and its
use
in contacting various Internet information sources. New user
questions, client setup questions, client bug reports,
resource-discovery questions on how to locate information on
the web that can't be found by the means detailed in the FAQ
and comparison between various client packages are among the
acceptable topics for this group. Please specify what
browser
and what system type (Windows, Mac, Unix, etc.) your post is
about if you are asking questions about a specific program.
comp.infosystems.www.providers
A forum for the discussion of WWW server software and the
use
of said software to present information to users. General
server design, setup questions, server bug reports, security
issues, HTML page design and other concerns of information
providers are among the likely topics for this group.
comp.infosystems.www.misc
A forum for general discussion of WWW (World Wide Web)-
related
topics that are NOT covered by the other newsgroups in the
hierarchy. This will likely include discussions of the Web's
future, politicking regarding changes in the structure and
protocols of the web that affect both clients and servers,
et
cetera.
comp.infosystems.www (DEFUNCT)
The old catch-all newsgroup, which may still exist on your
system but was officially removed on September 7th,
according
to David Lawrence, moderator of news.announce.newgroups. If
your system still carries this group, ask your administrator
to
remove it.
7: I WANT TO KNOW MORE
To find out more, use the web. This FAQ hopefully provides enough
information for you to locate and install a browser on your system.
If
you have system specific questions regarding FTP, networking and
the
like, please consult newsgroups relevant to your particular
hardware
and operating system!
Once you're up and running, you may wish to consult the World Wide
Web
Primer by Nathan Torkington. It is available at the URL
http://www.vuw.ac.nz/who/Nathan.Torkington/ideas/www-primer.html .
Later you may return to this FAQ for answers to some of the more
advanced questions. I encourage you to check out the changes listed
early in the document each time the FAQ appears.
8: CREDITS
Present Maintainer: Thomas Boutell, _boutell@netcom.com_
Former Maintainers:
* Nathan Torkington, _Nathan.Torkington@vuw.ac.nz_
* Marc Andreessen, _marca@ncsa.uiuc.edu_
* Tony Johnson
ÿ@FROM :boutell@netcom.com
ÿ@SUBJECT:World Wide Web Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ), Part 1/2
ÿ@PACKOUT:11-20-94
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Subject: World Wide Web Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ), Part 1/2
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Archive-name: www/faq/part1
Last-modified: 1994/11/4
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.
WORLD WIDE WEB FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
_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!_
_ Last update: 11/4/94 _
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: What are SGML and HTML?
+ 3.4: 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: VM/CMS browsers
o 4.3.9: 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?
+ 4.12: I can't get SLIP. I want Mosaic. Is there a way?
(YES!)
* 5: Providing Information to the Web (Provider Questions)
5.1: 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, Windows NT and OS/2 Servers
o 5.2.4: MSDOS Servers
o 5.2.5: VMS Servers
o 5.2.6: Amiga Servers
o 5.2.7: VM/CMS 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
o 5.3.4: Checking your HTML for errors
+ 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?
o 5.6.13: How can I keep statistics about my web site?
* 6: What newsgroups discuss the web?
* 7: I want to know more.
* 8: Credits
1: RECENT ADDITIONS AND CHANGES TO THE FAQ
* 10/26/94: Corrections to the TIA section
* 10/26/94: Client for VM/CMS
* 10/26/94: Server for VM/CMS
* 10/26/94: Updated mirrors of HoTMetaL
* 10/26/94: Fixed URL for web page leasing
* 11/3/94: Updates to web-by-mail section
* 11/3/94: How to get the HTML version of the FAQ via email
* 11/3/94: gwstat added to wwwstat description
* 11/3/94: Spaces follow all plaintext URLs to make Netscape,
etc.
happy
* 11/3/94: Gabriel White's HTML editor reviews linked
* 11/3/94: Webmaster's Starter Kit
* 11/3/94: WebLint
* 11/3/94: Added comp.internet.net-happenings
* 11/3/94: Added MosaicMail to section on piping to Mosaic
* 11/3/94: Added Netscape to clients section ( Mac, Windows, X
Window System)
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 and best
version is always available on the web as
http://sunsite.unc.edu/boutell/faq/www_faq.html , and is mirrored
in
Japan (URL is
http://www.glocom.ac.jp/mirror/sunsite.unc.edu/boutell/faq/www_faq.htm
l ). (see section 3.2, "What is a URL?" to understand what this
term
means.) If you run a mirror site which automatically mirrors this
document, please submit the URL for inclusion in the list of
mirrors.
Thanks to both Sunsite and Glocom.
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.
If you want the HTML version but are located behind a firewall, you
can acquire it from CERN's WWW email server. Send mail to
listproc0@www.cern.ch with the following single line in the body
(leave the subject blank):
source http://sunsite.unc.edu/boutell/faq/www_faq.html
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: What are SGML and HTML?
Documents on the World Wide Web are written in a simple "markup
language" called HTML, which stands for Hypertext Markup Language.
See
section 5.3 for more information about creating HTML documents for
use
on the web.
SGML is a much broader language which is used to define particular
markup languages for particular purposes. HTML is just a specific
application of SGML. You can learn more about SGML, and the
rationale
behind HTML, by reading A Gentle Introduction to SGML (URL is
http://etext.virginia.edu/bin/tei-tocs?div=DIV1&id=SG ), a document
provided by the Text Encoding Initiative. (_Note:_ Some browsers
apparently crash on this URL. There's nothing wrong with the
document;
try another browser if you have problems.)
3.4: 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.
World Wide Web usage grew far beyond Gopher usage in the last few
months, 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.) WWW has long since
reached
critical mass, with new commercial and noncommercial sites
appearing
daily.
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!_). Note that
"your machine" can be defined as a system you dial into from home,
such as netcom or another account provider. Running a text-based
browser on such a system is still preferable to telnetting to a
faraway site.
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 listproc0@www.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
úÿ
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. You can do this one of two ways: using a proper SLIP
account,
which requires the active cooperation of your network provider or
educational institution, or using The Internet Adapter (section
4.12),
a product which simulates SLIP through your dialup Unix shell
account.
If you only have non-Unix based dialup shell access, or have no PC
at
home, your best option at this time is to run Lynx on the VMS (or
Unix, 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.
WinWeb From EINet. Available by anonymous FTP from
ftp.einet.net
in the directory /einet/pc/winweb as the file winweb.zip.
Netscape From Mosaic Communications Corp (URL is:
http://home.mcom.com/info/index.html ). Downloads and displays
images
incrementally while you read pages, which also display
incrementally,
making it the best browser at the time of this writing for those
who
connect to the web via modems. Also supports many extensions to
HTML,
although not all conform to the proposed standard. Netscape is a
commercial product but is free for personal use by individuals.
Version 0.9 (available to the public as of this writing) does not
support printing, but this is promised in the forthcoming version
1.0.
_Contrary to popular myth, version 1.0 will be free for personal
use,
just like version 0.9._ The 16-bit version works under OS/2 as well
as
Windows 3.1. Available by anonymous FTP from the following sites
(use
the mirror closest to you; see the URL above for the latest list):
* ftp://ftp.mcom.com/netscape/
* ftp://ftp.uu.net/networking/info-service/www/mcc/
* ftp://ftp.digital.com/pub/net/infosys/Mosaic_Comm/Netscape/
* ftp://ftp.icsi.net/pub/packages/netscape/
* ftp://www.sandia.gov/Netscape/
* ftp://lark.cc.ukans.edu/Netscape/
* ftp://www.jsc.nasa.gov/pub/netscape/
* ftp://ftp.meer.net/pub/Netscape/
* ftp://src.doc.ic.ac.uk/packages/Netscape/
Spry Mosaic From Spry. Available by anonymous FTP from
ftp.spry.com
in the directory AirMosaicDemo as the file AMOSDEMO.EXE. Spry
Mosaic
is a commercial product but a demonstration version is available
and
can be registered inexpensively. Works under OS/2. Supports the
mailto: URL, transparent GIFs, ALT tags, etc.; also supports
hierarchical hotlists, a unique feature at the time of this
writing.
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. You can do this one of two ways: using a proper SLIP
account,
which requires the active cooperation of your network provider or
educational institution, or using The Internet Adapter (section
4.12),
a product which simulates SLIP through your dialup Unix shell
account.
If you only have non-Unix based dialup shell access, or have no PC
at
home, your best option at this time is to run Lynx on the VMS (or
Unix, 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. You can do this one of two ways: using a proper SLIP
account,
which requires the active cooperation of your network provider or
educational institution, or using The Internet Adapter (section
4.12),
a product which simulates SLIP through your dialup Unix shell
account.
If you only have non-Unix based dialup shell access, or have no PC
at
home, your best option at this time is to run Lynx on the VMS (or
Unix, 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.
Netscape
From Mosaic Communications Corp (URL is:
http://home.mcom.com/info/index.html ). Downloads and
displays
images incrementally while you read pages, which also
display
incrementally, making it the best browser at the time of
this
writing for those who connect to the web via modems. Also
supports many extensions to HTML, although not all conform
to
the proposed standard. Netscape is a commercial product but
is
free for personal use by individuals. Version 0.9 (available
to
the public as of this writing) does not support printing,
but
this is promised in the forthcoming version 1.0. _Contrary
to
popular myth, version 1.0 will be free for personal use,
just
like version 0.9._ Available by anonymous FTP from the
following sites (use the mirror closest to you; see the URL
above for the latest list):
+ ftp://ftp.mcom.com/netscape/
+ ftp://ftp.uu.net/networking/info-service/www/mcc/
+
ftp://ftp.digital.com/pub/net/infosys/Mosaic_Comm/Netscape/
+ ftp://ftp.icsi.net/pub/packages/netscape/
+ ftp://www.sandia.gov/Netscape/
+ ftp://lark.cc.ukans.edu/Netscape/
+ ftp://www.jsc.nasa.gov/pub/netscape/
+ ftp://ftp.meer.net/pub/Netscape/
+ ftp://src.doc.ic.ac.uk/packages/Netscape/
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;
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. The original multimedia
browser.
Full http 1.0 support including PUT-method forms, image
maps,
etc. Version 2.5 beta 2 has introductory support for tables.
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. Full http 1.0 support including PUT-method forms,
image
maps, etc. Probably the best browser available for VMS.
Available by anonymous FTP from ftp.ncsa.uiuc.edu in the
directory Mosaic.
Netscape
From Mosaic Communications Corp (URL is:
http://home.mcom.com/info/index.html ). Downloads and
displays
images incrementally while you read pages, which also
display
incrementally, making it the best browser at the time of
this
writing for those who connect to the web via modems. Also
supports many extensions to HTML, although not all conform
to
the proposed standard. Netscape is a commercial product but
is
free for personal use by individuals. Version 0.9 (available
to
the public as of this writing) does not support printing,
but
this is promised in the forthcoming version 1.0. _Contrary
to
popular myth, version 1.0 will be free for personal use,
just
like version 0.9._ Available by anonymous FTP from the
following sites (use the mirror closest to you; see the URL
above for the latest list):
+ ftp://ftp.mcom.com/netscape/
+ ftp://ftp.uu.net/networking/info-service/www/mcc/
+
ftp://ftp.digital.com/pub/net/infosys/Mosaic_Comm/Netscape/
+ ftp://ftp.icsi.net/pub/packages/netscape/
+ ftp://www.sandia.gov/Netscape/
+ ftp://lark.cc.ukans.edu/Netscape/
+ ftp://www.jsc.nasa.gov/pub/netscape/
+ ftp://ftp.meer.net/pub/Netscape/
+ ftp://src.doc.ic.ac.uk/packages/Netscape/
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
A WWW browser for emacs. Runs under Xwindows, NeXTstep, VMS,
OS/2, Windows NT, Windows 3.1, AmigaDOS, or just about any
Unix
system. Supports multiple fonts, color, and mouse support if
using Lemacs, Epoch, or Emacs 19. Also works in local mode
under DOS and on the Macintosh. Available by anonymous ftp
from
ftp.cs.indiana.edu in the directory pub/elisp/w3.
4.3.9: VM/CMS BROWSERS
Albert
A WWW browser for the VM/CMS operating system. Available by
anonymous FTP from gopher.ufl.edu in the directory
pub/vm/www/.
4.3.9: 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).
You can also check out the newsgroup comp.internet.net-happenings,
which carries WWW announcements and many other Internet-related
announcements. The ball is rolling to create
comp.infosystems.www.announce, but this group does not yet exist.
You
can follow the discussion in news.groups.
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
úÿ
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. However, it does a good
job
of sorting the documents it finds according to how closely they
match your search.
* 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.
* Lycos (URL is http://fuzine.mt.cs.cmu.edu/mlm/lycos-home.html )
is
another web-indexing robot, which includes the ability to
submit
the URLs of your own documents by hand, ensuring that they are
available for searching.
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
documen
t
// you supply the blank line
HTTP/1.0 200 OK // the rest of this comes from
the
serve
r 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):
#!/bin/sh
echo \ > .article.html
cat >> .article.html
echo \ >> .article.html
lynx .article.html < /dev/tty
rm .article.html
Then add the following line to your .rnmac file (create it if you
don't already have one):
W |readwebpost %C
Now, when you press "W" while reading a post in rn, a message will
be
sent to Lynx, and the links enclosed in it will be live.
Larry W. Virden provides the following version which invokes Mosaic
instead, and is also capable of communicating with an already-
running
copy of Mosaic instead of launching another. (You can use the same
rn
macro as above, invoking "goto-xm" instead of "readwebpost".) Read
the
comments for details on the assumptions made by the script.
#! /bin/sh
# goto-xm, by Joseph T. Buck
# Modified heavily by Larry W. Virden
# Script for use with newsreaders such as trn. Piping the article
# through this command causes xmosaic to pop up, pointing to the
# article. If an existing xmosaic (version 1.1 or later) exists,
# the USR1 method will be used to cause it to point to the correct
# article, otherwise a new one will be started.
# assumptions: ps command works as is on SunOS 4.1.x, may need changes
# on other platforms.
URL=`/bin/grep '^Message-ID:' | /bin/sed -e 's/.*.*//'`
if [ "X$URL" = "X" ]; then
echo "USAGE: $0 [goto] [once] < USENET_msg" >&2
exit 1
fi
pid=`ps -xc | egrep '[Mm]osaic' | awk 'NR == 1 {print $1}'`
p=`which Mosaic`
gfile=/tmp/Mosaic.$pid
$p "$URL" &
if [ "$#" -gt 0 ] ; then
if [ "$1" = "goto" -o "$1" = "same" ] ; then
shift
echo "goto" > $gfile
else
echo "newwin" > $gfile
fi
else
echo "newwin" > $gfile
fi
/bin/awk 'END { printf "'"$URL"'" }' > $gfile
trap "echo signal encountered" 30
kill -USR1 $pid
exit 0
See also MosaicMail (URL is
http://www.oac.uci.edu/indiv/ehood/mhonarc.doc.html ), a Perl
script
which pipes email and/or news to your current Mosaic session.
4.12: I can't get SLIP. I want Mosaic. Is there a way?
YES! If you have a plain old Unix shell account on a Unix system,
such
as a SunOS or Ultrix system, you can run The Internet Adapter
(TIA), a
program which provides a pseudo-SLIP connection. TIA is _not_ free
software, but there is a free two-week trial period and it is very
cheap to register.
"So what do I run on my machine at home?"
Exactly the same software you would use for real SLIP; as far as
your
PC is concerned, it _is_ a SLIP connection. If you're unfamiliar
with
SLIP please check out a newsgroup relevant to your particular type
of
PC (Windows, Mac, etc). (This isn't restricted to common systems;
because all the emulation happens on your Unix shell account, your
client machine can run anything that supports SLIP.)
"Details, please! I'm confused."
Check out the TIA home page (URL is
http://marketplace.com/tia/tiahome.html ), or send email to
info@marketplace.com and request details about TIA.
ÿ@FROM :boutell@netcom.com
ÿ@SUBJECT:World Wide Web Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ), Part 2/2
ÿ@PACKOUT:11-20-94
Message-ID:
Path:
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gatech!bloom-beacon.mit.edu!senator-bedfellow.mit.edu!faqserv
From: boutell@netcom.com (Thomas Boutell)
Newsgroups: comp.infosystems.www,comp.infosystems.www.misc
comp.infosystems.www.users,comp.infosystems.www.providers
comp.infosystems.wais,comp.infosystems.gopher,comp.infosystems,alt.hyp
ertext
comp.answers,alt.answers,news.answers
Subject: World Wide Web Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ), Part 2/2
Supersedes:
Followup-To: comp.infosystems.www.misc
Date: 20 Nov 1994 08:15:26 GMT
Organization: Nerdsholm
Lines: 736
Approved: news-answers-request@MIT.Edu
Distribution: world
Expires: 11 Dec 1994 08:14:15 GMT
Message-ID:
References:
NNTP-Posting-Host: bloom-picayune.mit.edu
Summary: beginner & advanced world wide web questions-read before
posting to
comp.infosystems.www.[...] newsgroups
X-Last-Updated: 1994/11/04
Originator: faqserv@bloom-picayune.MIT.EDU
Xref: ns.channel1.com comp.infosystems.www.misc:9374
comp.infosystems.www.users:8149 comp.infosystems.www.providers:8828
comp.infosystems.wais:3825 comp.infosystems.gopher:15103
comp.infosystems:4441
alt.hypertext:6226 comp.answers:8219 alt.answers:5421
news.answers:31718
Archive-name: www/faq/part2
Last-modified: 1994/11/4
WORLD WIDE WEB FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
This is part 2 of a 2-part posting.
Part 2 begins with section 5 (providing
information to the web). Part 1 should be the
previous posting in this thread.
5.1: 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
.
EIT httpd
EIT has created the Webmaster's Starter Kit, which installs
their WWW server on your system via the web through a
painless
forms interface. Recommended for those unfamiliar with
server
installation. You can learn more about the starter kit and
the
EIT httpd at the starter kit site (URL is
http://wsk.eit.com/wsk/doc/ ).
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.
OS2HTTPD
An OS/2 server, written by Frankie Fan. See the home page
(URL
is ftp://ftp.netcom.com/pub/kfan/overview.html ) for
details,
or fetch the package by anonymous FTP from ftp.netcom.com in
the directory pub/kfan.
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.
5.2.7: VM/CMS SERVERS
A VM/CMS web server is available; see the URL
http://ua1vm.ua.edu/~troth/rickvmsw/rickvmsw.html for more
information. If you don't yet have a web browser to try this URL
with,
check out the VM/CMS Browsers section.
5.2.6: AMIGA SERVERS
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.) Hotmetal is available
for
both Sun Sparc systems and Windows systems; note that Windows users
need at least 6 megabytes of free memory. (A 2-megabyte swap file
should just barely do the trick on a 4MB machine.)
Known mirrors:
* ftp://ftp.ncsa.uiuc.edu/Web/html/hotmetal/
* ftp://ftp.ifi.uio.no/pub/SGML/HoTMetaL
* ftp://sgml1.ex.ac.uk/SoftQuad
* ftp://src.doc.ic.ac.uk/packages/WWW/ncsa/html/hotmetal/
*
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; swap files count). Other Unix
systems
may be supported by the time you read this; have a look on one of
the
sites above.
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.
Also see Gabriel White's reviews of MS Windows HTML editors (URL is
http://werple.apana.org.au/~gabriel/html-editors/ ). Another
option,
if you have an SGML editor, is to use it with the HTML DTD (URL is
http://info.cern.ch/hypertext/WWW/MarkUp/DTDHeading.html ).
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
#editors, 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").
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 (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 .
5.3.3: CHECKING YOUR HTML FOR ERRORS
Tools to validate your HTML documents (check them for errors) are
available. There is a form at the URL
http://www.hal.com/%7Econnolly/html-test/service/validation-
form.html
which will check HTML documents for errors according to the latest
specification; note that you are encouraged to set up the program
on
your own system if you make heavy use of the form. There is also a
tool which will check the links in your documents for links to
nonexistent resources, such as pages that have moved (URL is
http://wsk.eit.com/wsk/dist/doc/admin/webtest/verify_links.html ).
Also try web-lint (URL is http://www.unipress.com/web-lint/ ),
which
will check your HTML for errors when you supply it with the URL or
paste your page into a form.
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 ).
* Read Gareth Rees' guide to publishing on the World Wide Web.
(URL
is http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/users/gdr11/publish.html ).
5.5: Can I buy space on an existing server?
úÿ
Yes, you can. A list of sites offering WWW space for lease is
available (at the URL http://union.ncsa.uiuc.edu/www/leasing.shtml
).
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:
By now, most if not all browsers can handle the hidden type. Note
that
"hidden" doesn't mean "secret"; the user can always click on "view
source".
5.6.3.2: How can users send me email through their browsers?
If you have access to the server's configuration files, or if your
server administrator permits users to create their own CGI scripts,
you can arrange it. I've written a simple email forms package (URL
is:
http://siva.cshl.org/email/index.html ), which does it in ANSI C.
There is also a package floating around in Perl (URL, anyone?).
5.6.4: HOW DO I COMMENT AN HTML DOCUMENT?
Use the tag. Note that comments do not
nest,
and the sequence "--" may not appear inside a comment except as
part
of the closing --> tag.
You should _not_ try to use this to "comment out" HTML that would
otherwise be shown to the user, since some browsers (notably
Mosaic)
will still pay attention to tags inside the comment and close it
prematurely.
_Thanks to Joe English for clearing up this issue._
5.6.5: HOW CAN I CREATE DECENT-LOOKING TABLES AND STOP USING
...
?
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 .
GIF does a better job with crisp, sharp images, such as those
typically used to construct buttons, graphs and the like. All
browsers
that can display graphics at all can display GIFs inline.
5.6.11: HOW CAN I MIRROR PART OF ANOTHER SERVER?
Scripts are available to do this, but at this time they are not
very
friendly to the server you are attempting to mirror; their behavior
resembles that of the more poorly written WWW robots. If you are
trying to improve access times to a distant server, you will likely
find the "proxy" capabilities of CERN's WWW server to be a more
effective and general solution to your problem.
5.6.12: HOW CAN I KEEP ROBOTS OFF MY SERVER?
Programs that automatically traverse the web can be quite useful,
but
have the potential to make a serious mess of things. Every so often
someone will write a "depth-first" searching robot that brings
servers
to their knees. See the section on writing robots (4.10) for
details.
Fortunately, most robots on the web follow a simple protocol by
which
you can keep them off your server if you wish, or keep them out of
portions of your server which are robot traps (ie, they contain an
infinite number of possible links). Read 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,
including useful cataloging robots you probably do _not_ want to
keep
off your server.
5.6.13: HOW CAN I KEEP STATISTICS ABOUT MY WEB SERVER?
There are several tools which can generate statistics about your
web
server:
getstats
getstats is a versatile log analyzer, also written in C,
which
provides reports for various time periods with a high degree
of
flexibility. Add-on packages have been written to generate
reports in HTML and also to generate graphs. You can access
the
getstats home page for more information (URL is
http://www.eit.com/software/getstats/getstats.html ), or
obtain
the package by anonymous FTP from ftp.eit.com in the
directory
/pub/web.software/getstats.
WebStat
WebStat is a package written in the language Python which
supplies statistics on usage by domain, country, etc., with
daily, weekly, monthly and annual reports available. You
will
need Python in order to use it. See the WebStat home page
(URL
is
http://www.pegasus.esprit.ec.org/people/sijben/statistics/adver
tisment.html ) for details, or obtain Python from ftp.cwi.nl
in
the directory /pub/python and WebStat from
ftp.pegasus.esprit.ec.org in the directory /pub/misc.
Wusage
Wusage, which I wrote, is a C program which generates simple
weekly reports in HTML, with inline image graphs displaying
server growth and the distribution of accesses by continent.
You can also exclude irrelevant accesses (inline images,
local
machines, etc.) from the results. Read the Wusage home page
(URL is http://siva.cshl.org/wusage.html ) for more
information, or obtain Wusage by anonymous FTP from
isis.cshl.org in the directory pub/wusage.
wwwstat
wwwstat is a full-featured log analyzer written in the
language
Perl. (See the newsgroup comp.lang.perl for more information
about the language.) See the wwwstat home page (URL is
http://www.ics.uci.edu/WebSoft/wwwstat/) for more
information,
or obtain the package by anonymous FTP from
liege.ics.uci.edu
in the directory /pub/arcadia/wwwstat. See also gwstat (URL
is
http://dis.cs.umass.edu/stats/gwstat.html ), a package which
produces GIF graphs from the output of wwwstat.
6: WHAT NEWSGROUPS DISCUSS THE WEB?
You can find discussion of World Wide Web topics in three
newsgroups,
and one newsgroup which will soon be removed:
comp.infosystems.www.users
A forum for the discussion of WWW client software and its
use
in contacting various Internet information sources. New user
questions, client setup questions, client bug reports,
resource-discovery questions on how to locate information on
the web that can't be found by the means detailed in the FAQ
and comparison between various client packages are among the
acceptable topics for this group. Please specify what
browser
and what system type (Windows, Mac, Unix, etc.) your post is
about if you are asking questions about a specific program.
comp.infosystems.www.providers
A forum for the discussion of WWW server software and the
use
of said software to present information to users. General
server design, setup questions, server bug reports, security
issues, HTML page design and other concerns of information
providers are among the likely topics for this group.
comp.infosystems.www.misc
A forum for general discussion of WWW (World Wide Web)-
related
topics that are NOT covered by the other newsgroups in the
hierarchy. This will likely include discussions of the Web's
future, politicking regarding changes in the structure and
protocols of the web that affect both clients and servers,
et
cetera.
comp.infosystems.www (DEFUNCT)
The old catch-all newsgroup, which may still exist on your
system but was officially removed on September 7th,
according
to David Lawrence, moderator of news.announce.newgroups. If
your system still carries this group, ask your administrator
to
remove it.
7: I WANT TO KNOW MORE
To find out more, use the web. This FAQ hopefully provides enough
information for you to locate and install a browser on your system.
If
you have system specific questions regarding FTP, networking and
the
like, please consult newsgroups relevant to your particular
hardware
and operating system!
Once you're up and running, you may wish to consult the World Wide
Web
Primer by Nathan Torkington. It is available at the URL
http://www.vuw.ac.nz/who/Nathan.Torkington/ideas/www-primer.html .
Later you may return to this FAQ for answers to some of the more
advanced questions. I encourage you to check out the changes listed
early in the document each time the FAQ appears.
8: CREDITS
Present Maintainer: Thomas Boutell, _boutell@netcom.com_
Former Maintainers:
* Nathan Torkington, _Nathan.Torkington@vuw.ac.nz_
* Marc Andreessen, _marca@ncsa.uiuc.edu_
* Tony Johnson