pre-release 1 of MidasWWW Version 2.0
(X Window browser with Chinese support for World-Wide-Web)
Foreword:
---------
Yesterday, I received an e-mail feedback from a midaswww user.
This reminded me that my time is running out (going back school) for
working on midaswww. Therefore, I would like to release the rest of
what I've done. It 's only minor change from pre 0. It still has
a *font problem* (see below) that I couldn't solve yet. :-( , no
more time to work on it.
This would be my last copy of working on midaswww and hopefully,
when the HTML+ and HTTP/1.0 will be mature soon so that viewing
Chinese on WWW will be much nicer and easier.
The changes include:
- add resource for choice of xterm or cxterm while doing a telnet session.
midaswww.xterm: cxterm -your_favorite_option
(the default is xterm)
- add support of HZ file with file extension *.hz and *.HZ
(***NOTE***: you need the *hz2gb* program to filter it.
you can get it from ifcss.org:/software/unix/convert/
and it only converts with the .hz and .HZ file extension)
- add change of Chinese font online.
(the default is none = no chinese font)
Font changing problem:
---------------------
When changing the Chinese font, the current/visited document doesn't change
its font. You need to do a "re-read document" to change it.
(I couldn't solve it and my time is running out so that I give up at the moment)
But there is still one advantage on this problem. For example, if
you have a link from a GB to Big5, and back from Big5 to GB, then
you don't need to change the font to GB again. :-)
*** The rest of this document is mostly the same as pre 0.***
What is World-Wide-Web (WWW)?
-----------------------------
WWW is a HyperText client-server based global information retrieval system.
It could be considered a superset of gopher, hytelnet, wais, etc. It is
not possible to describe it in detail here. Please refer to the following
resources for more informantion:
ftp: info.cern.ch /pub/www/doc/*
newsgroup: comp.infosys.www, cern.www-talk
What is MidasWWW?
-----------------
MidasWWW is a Motif/X based World Wide Web browser. It is intended to be fully
compliant with the Motif Style Guide, and portable to any UNIX or VMS system
with Motif. MidasWWW includes extensive online HELP for new users.
MidasWWW is written by Tony Johnson, my boss, and I 've involved in developing
this project recently.
What did I do to this release?
------------------------------
I 'm using my spare time in the weekend to slidely modify midaswww to
support Chinese. I didn't test it extensively so there might
be some bugs. I'll work on this to make it better.
***NOTE*** Therefore, this release is not very stable and is intend to
give the users for temperary use until the release of the offical version 2.0.
Where to get this release?
--------------------------
I've uploaded it to the anonymous ftp sites in the incoming or upload
directory:
ifcss.org (including the binary of RS6000 and Sun4)
Build this package:
-------------------
See the README file.
About this release:
-------------------
This is a pre-release (actually this copy that I'm working on and hopefully
I've removed all the "debug printf" statement :-) ). So It might still have
some bugs that we didn't find out yet.
This release has been compiled on the RS6000 and and Sun4 systems only.
It should be compiled on VMS/SGI/HP systems (as feedback by some users).
The defaut homepage is the MidasWWW homepage. From there, you can get help
on using MidasWWW online.
Since this is a pre-release, so some online help files (especially the error
msg handling) are not yet documented.
About Chinese in this release:
------------------------------
First, you need to successfully install the Chinese font in your system.
The default Big5 font is hku-ch16 and GB font is cclib16st.
You can open my Chinese test page (big5) by clicking <File>-<Open>-<Document...>
and enter the following:
http://slacvx.slac.stanford.edu/chuynhwww/chinesetest.html
Problem with Chinese document:
------------------------------
- The Search function is not working properly within a Chinese document.
- If the document has a Chinese chars Title, a Xt error msg is printed out.
This is due to that the Title widget is a XmText widget.
- There is no input for Chinese.
- There is ambigousity if the document contains 2 non-ascii charset.
(ie: It is not smart enough to distinguish a German-English document
and Chinese-English one)
Tips:
-----
After you successfully compiled midaswww, you might want to create a small
shell script file (e.g. web2) as follows: (assume that you are doing on the
same directory as the midaswww located)
==================================
#!/bin/csh -f
setenv UIDPATH ./%U
# setenv WWW_HOME your-favorite-homepage-here
setenv XFILESEARCHPATH ./%N_color.ad:./%N.ad
# use the below statement instead if you are using mono monitor.
#setenv XFILESEARCHPATH ./%N_mono.ad:./%N.ad
exec ./midaswww $*
=====================================
Brief outline of filetypes supported:
-------------------------------------
Text:
- html, postscript, txt (ascii and Chinese text).
Image:
- gif, xbitmap, pixmap, jpeg*, tiff*,
Movie:
- mpeg*
Sound:
- au*
Compress:
- Z, gz*
Archive (save to disk):
- tar, shar
* = external software needed to be first installed in the system.
filetype software
jpeg djpeg
tiff tifftopnm & ppmtogif
mpeg mpeg_play
gz gzip
au ???
These are default filetypes which have been setup. You could add more
if your system support them.
Try it! you would like it:
-----------------------------
All after all, I can't give you all the details about WWW here, you need to
run the program to see how powerful the World-Wide-Web is.
I hope that there will be more Chinese WWW servers coming up
in the near future.
--
[email protected]
[email protected]
