NCSA Mosaic

Version 2.0.0Alpha9 - Release Notes


Table of contents

MOSAIC.INI Update Information

Win32s Update Information (v1.20 with OLE)

Features, Enhancements and Bug Fixes

Feature Descriptions

Special Note: Due to Win32s, Mosaic will only run under the English version of Windows 3.1. Microsoft is aware of this problem and they are working to correct it. We will make a notification on our home page when the updated version of Win32s is available. This and other annoyances will be corrected before we "Officially" release version 2.0. Thanks to all of our field testers and welcome to cutting edge software!

MOSAIC.INI Update Information

These servers are no longer valid.

Please use your local SMTP(Mail) and NNTP(News) servers. You can change these fields by selecting Options, Preferences. When the preferences window opens, select the Services file tab and enter the name of your server in the appropriate field. If you don't know the name for your local SMTP or NNTP server, contact your local System Administrator or your Internet Access Provider. The "Help", "Mail Technical Support" function will continue to work without a defined SMTP server.

[Settings]

Anchor Color=0,0,255

[proxy information] (For those users behind Firewalls)

Example:

http_proxy=http://your.proxies.name:portnumber/
ftp_proxy=http://your.proxies.name:portnumber/
wais_proxy=http://your.proxies.name:portnumber/
gopher_proxy=http://your.proxies.name:portnumber/


Win32s Update Information

Mosaic is a 32-bit application. This means that Mosaic is compatable with Windows 3.1, Windows for Workgroups 3.11, Windows NT and Windows 95. The Windows NT operating system is available for the following processors:

iX86 - Intel's 386, 486, and Pentium Processors
aXP - Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) aXP 64-bit processor
MIPS - Mips Technology processor
PPC - Motorola,IBM,Apple Power PC processor

Windows 3.1 and Windows for Workgroups Users

You have a 16-bit operating system and you need to use Microsoft's freely available Win32s software. This software will allow you to run 32-bit applications in Windows 3.1 or WfW 3.11. Since Mosaic is now an OLE compatible application, Mosaic users must use Win32s v1.20 with the OLE v2.02. This version of Win32s is available at NCSA's ftp site, ftp.ncsa.uiuc.edu, in the /Mosaic/Windows directory. The file W32sOLE.exe is a self-extracting executable. Just put this file in a temporary directory like c:\install, type w32sole, and the associated files will decompress. Next change directories to c:\install\disk1 and run setup.exe.

You MUST install WIN32S v1.20 with OLE 2.02 BEFORE you use Mosaic.

Windows NT users and Win95 beta-testers

Windows NT and Win95 are true 32-bit operating systems with OLE support built-in.

Features, Enhancements, and Bug fixes

Version 2.0 Alpha 9

Features and Enhancements:

  1. Presentation Mode (ALT-P)
  2. "Cancel" and "Check" buttons in the URL Bar
  3. Right Mouse Button Menu Options
  4. New HTML Tags:
    HTML 2.0 Entities
    mailto
  5. A new CCI function call
  6. Additional Options, Preferences:
    Apply Now
    Viewer Configuration
    General, Delayed Image Loading
    Services, Display FTP Messages

  7. Improved Image Palette Management

Bug Fixes

  1. - Mosaic is more lenient about the syntax of the menu item definitions in the "mosaic.ini" file. Bad syntax caused crashes on startup in Version 2Alpha8. :(

  2. - Mosaic will no longer crash if you try to print a document with inline images when the "Display Inline Image" option is turned off.

  3. - Mosaic won't choke on the Comment Tag, "<!-- Your comment -->

  4. - Title Tags, <TITLE> ... </TITLE> will recognize entities

  5. - Mosaic won't choke on CRs and LF between the quotes in the Image Tags, <IMG SRC="..."> and Anchor Tags, <A HREF=" ... ">.


Feature Descriptions

Presentation Mode (ALT-P)

Presentation mode will allow you to present your HTML documents in full screen mode. If you choose, the only thing your audience will see is your HTML document. Accompanied with our Stand-alone mode, we hope Mosaic will make your presentation work a little easier. ;^)

ALT-P still allows your viewers to appear on the screen. In fact, they will appear on top of the Mosaic screen when the viewer is called. When you are done showing a movie or viewing an image, you can click on your HTML document and the viewer application will disappear into the background. However, we recommend you close the viewer instead of allowing it to remain active in the background. By doing so, you will conserve the memory on your system. This is especially important if you download files that require multiple viewers. (Just a tip to help ensure your presentations go as smooth as possible. ;^)

The following keyboard functions are available to you while in Presentation mode:

ALT-P - toggles Presentation Mode on/off
ESC - toggles Presentation Mode off
ALT-S - toggles the Status bar on/off
ALT-T - toggles the Toolbar on/off
ALT-U - toggles the URL bar on/off

* NOTE: The Tool bar, the URL bar and the Status bar are set to off by default. Toggleing the various toolbars in presentation mode will not affect the default settings.

"Cancel" and "Check" buttons in the URL Bar

These buttons were added to make cancelling and accessing URLs easier. Once you've typed or copied/pasted a URL into the URL bar, you can either go to that URL or return the present URL with the click of a button.

Right Mouse Button Menu Options

Your right mouse button is now a contact sensitive menu. When you click on the right mouse button over an Inline Image, Image Anchor , Text Anchor or over Plain Text, Mosaic will open up a Menu and give you a set functions.

Inline Images:

Save Image
Selecting this options allow you to save the image to your local disk using the standard Windows "Save As" dialog box. You can save the image in one of two formats:

Windows BMP Format
The standard file format used by Windows for the desk top background.

Remote Site Format
The default format of the file. This format is dictated by the server and the image is usually in a .gif format.

Image Information
Mosaic will query the web server for information about the image and display it to you in a dialog box. The dialog box contains the following information:

  • URL
  • Size
  • Last Modified (Date)
  • Type (MIME Type/Sub Type)
  • Server Type (Web server and version number)
  • MIME (version number)

Image Anchors:

Load Anchor to Disk
Load Anchor to Disk allows you to save that html file to your local disk via a the "Save As" dialog box. Note: Only the html file will be saved to disk, not the images that are associated with that file. (Yet!)

Anchor Information
Mosaic will query the web server for information about the HTML file behind the anchor. Mosaic will then display this information to you within a dialog box. The dialog box contains the following information:

  • URL
  • Size
  • Last Modified (Date)
  • Type (MIME Type/Sub Type)
  • Server Type (Web server and version number)
  • MIME (version number)

Save Image
Ditto

Image Information
Ditto

Create Internet Shortcut
Internet shortcuts create .url files that contain an anchor URL. These files can be opened by File, Open Local File or they can be dragged and dropped from File Manager into a Mosaic Window. When one of these files are opened, Mosaic will retrieve the document from the network and display it to you.

Spawn Mosaic at Anchor
This function will open a new Mosaic window with this anchor URL.

Text Anchors:

Load Anchor to Disk
Ditto

Anchor Information
Ditto

Create Internet Shortcut
Ditto

Spawn Mosaic at Anchor
This function will open a new Mosaic window with this anchor URL.

All Other Space within the Document

Save to Disk
Saves the current HTML file to your local disk. This function is equivalent to Options, Load to Disk...

Create Internet Shortcut
Ditto

New HTML Tags

Entities

Entities represent particular graphic characters which are not a part of the standard character set available to an HTML author. Entities are always prefixed by an ampersand (&) and end with a semicolon(;). For example:

& trade; represents the Trade Mark symbol, ™

& copy; represents the copyright symbol, ©.
Mosaic supports all HTML 2.0 Entities. See the online
list of entities supported by Mosaic.

Mailto:

<A HREF="your_name@where.ever"> Your_Name </A>

Mailto allows you to send mail to the individual whose email address is defined in the anchor. A Mailto can be used anywhere, but many people use them in the ADDRESS block at the end of each HTML document. Mailto offers you an easy method to provide feedback to the author or owner of a particular document.

For example, here is a copy of the HTML for our signature block at the bottom of this document.

<ADDRESS>
<A HREF="mailto:mosaic-w@ncsa.uiuc.edu">mosaic-w@ncsa.uiuc.edu</A><BR>
<A HREF="http://www.ncsa.uiuc.edu">National Center for Supercomputing Applications </A> <BR>
<A HREF="http://www.uiuc.edu">University of Illinois at Urbana/Champaign </A> <BR>
</ADDRESS>

A New CCI Function Call

"GetLastLaunchedAnchor" has been added to the list of "Common Client Interface" function calls . This function allows a calling program to get the URL for the last document Mosaic launched.

Additional Options, Preferences:

Apply Now

Options, Preferences..
Apply Now is used when you make changes to any of the Preference Menus. When you select "Apply Now", Mosaic will apply the changes you've made to your preference menus to your current session.

Viewer Configuration

Options, Preferences..., Viewers
Select the "Viewers" file tab and Mosaic will display your current viewer configuration. The "Viewers" file menu will allow you to add and edit the elements that are associated with each external viewer. See the Preferences Table Below for a list and description of each item on the menu.
Options, Preference..., Viewers

Viewers

Associate MIME Type of:Select to view one MIME type of a view from your current configuration.
Description of MIME Type: (Optional)Enter the discription of the MIME type
With This/These Extensions:Enter the file extensions that are associatedwith this MIME type
To this Application:Enter the path and file name of the external viewers to be launched when Mosaic receives a file of this MIME type.

Browse...

Used to select an application for the "To this Application:" section. Browse opens a dialog box that allows you to view your directories and files using the standard Windows tree format. Select to add a new MIME Type and viewer to your present configuration.

Add

Select to add a new MIME Type and viewer to your present configuration.

Remove

Select to delete a MIME Type and all associated information.

Delayed Image Loading

Options, Preferences, General, Delayed Image Loading
This function will force Mosaic to display an HTML file before it goes back to the network for the image files. We recognize the fact that there are many users who would like to begin reading the HTML file while they are waiting for the inline images. This feature is not yet complete and we are aware that if you try to scroll, you will loose the displayed file. We will iron the wrinkles out of this feature in a future alpha release of Mosaic.

Display FTP Messages

Options, Preferences, Services, Display FTP Messages
When checked, Display FTP Messages will open a dialog box that will display ftp server messages. This window will remain open until you select close.

See our
Home Page for more information about Mosaic, viewers, other features, bugs, HTML Editors, etc....

Enjoy!


mosaic-w@ncsa.uiuc.edu
National Center for Supercomputing Applications
University of Illinois at Urbana/Champaign