Configuring NCSA Mosaic

NCSA Mosaic for Microsoft Windows User's Guide

To configure NCSA Mosaic, first copy the file mosaic.ini to your Windows directory, usually c:\windows. This is important because if NCSA Mosaic does not know where to find this file, NCSA Mosaic will not recognize default settings or pre-configured user-configurable menus. Be sure to leave a copy of mosaic.ini in your NCSA Mosaic directory in case you need to restore any original entries.

If you are administrating a network site, and want to have one copy of Windows, and therefore cannot put mosaic.ini in the Windows directory, use the environment variable mosaic.ini in the file autoexec.bat to specify the pathname of each user's mosaic.ini file.

Edit the file \windows\mosaic.ini as follows using Notepad, edit, or any other ASCII editor. General users will not usually need to modify fields that are not mentioned in the following discussion.

Main section

If you can be reached via Internet email, put your full email address in quotes in the E-mail field. This is used for annotations and for a return address when you select Mail to Developers. If your login ID is jdoe and you work at Business, Inc., your email entry might read as follows:

        E-mail="jdoe@business.com"

If you do not want NCSA Mosaic to automatically load a document every time you run it, set Autoload Home Page to no:

        Autoload Home Page=no

The Home Page entry contains the URL of your default home page, the document that is automatically loaded when NCSA Mosaic is launched. You can change this entry to point to whatever document you want to use in this position. As distributed, NCSA Mosaic for Microsoft Windows points to a customized Home Page on NCSA's Web server:

        Home Page =http://www.ncsa.uiuc.edu/SDG/Software/WinMosaic/HomePage.html

Due to the tremendous load on NCSA's Web server, you may not always be able to load this default home page. To reduce the server's load, NCSA suggests that you either set Autoload Home Page=no (see above) or change your default home page (see ``A special request from NCSA'').

If you will be using NCSA Mosaic over a slow network connection and do not want inline images to be automatically transferred, set Display Inline Images to no. Inline images will be replaced with an NCSA logo:

        Display Inline Images=no

The Grey Background entry allows you to specify whether the NCSA Mosaic window has a white (no) or grey (yes) background. Many documents posted to the Web are tuned to a grey background:

        Grey Background=yes

Fancy Rules toggles a different style of drawing horizontal rules in HTML documents (the <hr> tag.)

        Fancy Rules=yes

List bullets slow down drawing documents. If you are a speed maven, you may wish to turn on simplified bullet drawing (line bullets instead of round bullets.)

        Round List Bullets=yes

General users will not usually need to modify fields that are not mentioned in this discussion.

Settings section

The anchor color is the color of the hyperlink anchors that appear in an NCSA Mosaic document. You may set the anchor color to any valid RGB (red, green, blue) combination. The RGB values must be separated by commas and can range from 0 to 255. As posted on the FTP server, the default color is blue (0,0,255):

        Anchor Color=0,0,255

In some instances, it is desirable to have NCSA Mosaic underline hyperlink anchors (e.g, when using a gray scale or monochrome monitor). As distributed, NCSA Mosaic is set to underline hyperlink anchors. Since underlining slows performance somewhat, you may wish to set Anchor Underline to no if your system has a color monitor:

        Anchor Underline=no

If you are using a monochrome monitor or printing documents to a black and white printer, you will need to set Anchor Underline to yes.

Mail section

Edit the Default Title to contain the message you want to have appear in the subject line when you send email to the NCSA developers via the Mail to Developers selection on the Help menu. As distributed, NCSA Mosaic enters the phrase "WinMosaic auto-mail feedback":

        Default Title="WinMosaic auto-mail feedback"

Services section

If you want to use NCSA Mosaic's news support, set your network news (NNTP) server here. As distributed, NCSA Mosaic specifies the University of Illinois' NNTP server:

        NNTP Server="news.cso.uiuc.edu"

NCSA Mosaic uses the SMTP server specified here to send mail back to the NCSA developers when you select Mail developers from the Help menu. As distributed, NCSA Mosaic specifies NCSA's FTP server because it is known and almost always available. If you have a local SMTP server that you would rather use, edit the entry accordingly:

        SMTP Server="ftp.ncsa.uiuc.edu"

Viewers section

This section contains two subsections. The first subsection contains a list of file types in MIME (Multimedia mail) form. The second subsection specifies the viewer for each of the listed file types. This information is used to determine whether an external viewer must be launched to view a file and, if so, which viewer to launch.

If necessary, edit the MIME type entries in the second Viewers subsection to point to your viewers. If you do not have a viewer for a file type, leave the line alone. You may add arbitrary spawning of external viewers by defining a new TYPE#, specifying a viewer, and optionally providing a suffix list.

NCSA Mosaic must use telnet to connect to some information servers. To do so, NCSA Mosaic needs to know where to find the telnet application on your system. Specify the full pathname for your telnet application in the telnet entry at the end of the Viewers section:

        telnet="c:\trumpet\telw.exe"

Suffixes section

This section lists the filename suffixes (extensions) used to identify the file types of files retrieved via FTP or from HTTP version 0.9 servers. In such situations, NCSA Mosaic uses the information in this section and in the Viewers section to determine whether an external viewer must be launched to view a file and, if so, which viewer to launch. Note that files that reside on HTTP Version 1.0 servers are typed by the server and only the information in the Viewers section is used. In such cases, the extensions defined in the Suffixes section will not have any effect on the file's assumed MIME type. Most HTTP servers on the Web are Version 1.0.

You may list any number of filename extensions for a given file type; simply separate them by commas.

The last suffix listed will be used when writing a file of that type to the local hard drive. If your external viewer requires a particular extension, make sure that it is listed last.

Consider the example of the JPEG file type. The line

        image/jpeg=.jpeg,.jpe,.jpg

indicates that any file with the suffix .jpeg, .jpe, and .jpg is a JPEG image.

Now look at the preceding section of the file. The lines

        TYPE3="image/jpeg"

and

        image/jpeg="c:\windows\apps\lview\lview31 %ls"

define a JPEG image as TYPE3 and identify the required external viewer. Using the information in the Suffixes and Viewers sections of this file, NCSA Mosaic will recognize files with the extensions .jpeg, .jpe, and .jpg as JPEG images and know that it must launch the external viewer lview31 when it encounters them.

Viewers specified in this section must be able to take a specified filename as a command line argument.

Annotations section

This section is used if you or your group want to attach comments to documents accessed via NCSA Mosaic. For example, if you find an interesting URL, you can write a comment about the file and save that comment as a personal annotation or as a group annotation. Personal annotations are saved on your machine; group annotations are saved on a common machine on the network. Your personal annotations will be available to you each time you access the URL; group annotations will be available to members of your group any time they access the URL.

Change the Directory entry to point to the directory on your local hard disk where you want to store personal annotations.

Change the Default Title entry to the title you want to use for your personal annotations.

Set Group Annotations to no if you want to view personal annotations; set Group Annotations to yes if you want to view group annotations. This option can also be toggled on and off via the menu selection Options...Show Group Annotations.

Set the Group Annotation Server entry to point to your group annotation server.

User Menu sections

Do not edit these sections directly! A graphic user interface is provided by selecting Navigate ... Menu Editor.

These sections specify the user-configured menus. NCSA Mosaic will accommodate up to twenty user-configured menus or submenus. Top level menus (Menu_Type=TOPLEVEL) will show up in the main menu bar; otherwise, the menu must be listed as a submenu from one of the top level menus.

HotList section:

Do not edit this section directly! A graphic user interface is provided by selecting Navigate ... Menu Editor.

This is where the Quicklist, a hotlist of files you wish to have conveniently available, is maintained. The Quicklist is displayed when you select Navigate ... Menu Editor and select Quicklist.

Document Caching section

This sections tells NCSA Mosaic how many documents to cache so that you do not have to return to the network to retrieve a recently viewed document. As distributed, NCSA Mosaic caches two documents:

        Type=Number
        Number=2

If you have lots of memory on your system, you can increase the cache number. If you have little memory (e.g., 4Mb), you may wish to decrease the number. If you want to turn caching off, set it to 0 (zero).

Do not modify the Type entry.

Font sections

Do not edit this section directly! All font changes must be made by selecting Options ... Choose Font....

Main Window section

Do not edit this section directly! Adjust the NCSA Mosaic window size and location with the mouse, then select File ... Save Preferences to save the new window dimensions and location. This selection also saves the current options settings.

Proxy Information section

If you are running NCSA Mosaic through a firewall, you will need to access a proxy server. See ``Gateways and Proxy Gateways'' on page 6 -- 40, the faq.txt file in the directory where you downloaded NCSA Mosaic on your machine, or the following URL:

        http://www.ncsa.uiuc.edu/SDG/Software/WinMosaic/ProxyInfo.html

Finding External Viewers

NCSA Mosaic uses external viewers and players to display certain types of files, such as JPEG images or MPEG movies. These viewers and players are separate applications and they are neither maintained nor supported by NCSA.

However, NCSA is always watching for particularly suitable viewers and players. When one is located that NCSA can legally distribute, a copy is placed on NCSA's FTP server in the directory PC/Mosaic/viewers. If you do not have a good viewer or player for a particular file type, check this directory. If you find a viewer or player for a common data type that is not in this directory, or is significantly more useful than the one on our server, please let us know about it. (One way to communicate that information is to select Help ... Mail to Developers and send us email.)

National Center for Supercomputing Applications / mosaic-win@ncsa.uiuc.edu