WWW Mode Help

Name:	WWW Mode
Version:	0.2
Last update:	2020-05-27 14:28:42

The WWW Menu provides a simple text based (Lynx-like) web browser, for reading both local HTML files and remote urls via HTTP.
The rendering handles most common html tags, and the menu maintains a history list (the Go To submenu) with a back/forward capability. The menu can handle mailto, ftp and java applets itself; all other stuff is optionally shipped off to Internet Config -- see the Navigating Links section below for more information.
First insert the WWW Menu into the menu bar by selecting it in the prefs dialog Alpha ↣ Preferences ↣ Menus. Then open a local HTML file (that is a file on your own harddrive) and select View This File from the WWW Menu. The page is rerendered in a new locked window. Note that the WWW Menu has many dynamic menu items, press any of the modifier keys to see all that's available. Click here to display the Menus Preferences dialog.
See the WWW Example for a rendering of the introductory page for Alpha's HTML mode manual or the home page for the AlphaTcl Wiki.
Note that Alpha has two global WWW preferences that are used by many other packages in AlphaTcl to optionally use the WWW Menu for opening local or remote web pages, View Html Using and View Url Using. If these are set to text-only viewer/parser then they are directed here.
The services defined in your

determines how the files will be viewed. Note that the WWW Menu provides an optional Go To Url window, much like the location or address text box on web browsers, in which you can type in a url and press Return to open the new web page. See the help window WWW Shell Help for more information.

Appearance of Rendered Windows

The appearance of the rendered page can be adjusted by setting any of the WWW mode preferences, described here.
Some of the more common flag preferences can be toggled directly via the submenu WWW Menu ↣ WWW Menu Options, others can be adjusted using the menu item Alpha ↣ Mode Setup ↣ Mode Preferences… when the mode of the active window is WWW. Note that the window size parameters can not be set using the prefs dialog, see the Default WWW Window Sizes section below for more information. Click here to display the WWW Mode Preferences
Web pages that rely on cookies or extensive javascripts will not be rendered well, if at all. (We not only don't accept cookies, we have no idea what to do with them.) Similarly, any style sheets will be ignored, and images can optionally be rendered with a hyperlink but will not be downloaded -- when a url is rendered, we really are limited to fetching just that single file. This is a feature, not a bug :)

Default WWW Window Sizes

The default window size for all WWW windows is that set by the global preferences for Def Height, Def Left etc. However, if you resize a window and then refresh or reload it, the current settings will be retained and used for all future WWW windows.
If you don't like this feature, and would rather use the default global window geometry for all WWW windows, turn the Remember Window Geometry preference off. Then the previous window's parameters will ONLY be used if you are navigating frameset windows as described below.
Each window will attempt to render the text to fill the entire available width. If this behavior is not desired, toggle the Auto Adjust Width preference, and then the Fill Column preference for WWW mode will always be used instead.

Multiple WWW Windows

By default, each hyperlink will open a new window -- toggle the WWW mode preference Links Open New Windows in order to only have one WWW window open at a time, killing the previous window if it is in front. This preference will only kill the active window when opening pages via hyperlinks or the Go To menu.
Even with this preference turned off, when navigating frameset web sites the sidebar window will remain open, but the window serving as the target will be closed and its active window geometry will be used for the creation of the new window.
The WWW menu includes several functions for creating additional WWW windows even if this preference is turned off, i.e. View Url Or File or Link In New Window. Opening Alpha's .html Help files will always open a new window as well.
You can use the semicolon ';' key to switch between WWW windows. Clicking on the window's name in the title bar will display the url of the active window, selecting this url with the mouse will place it into the clipboard.
Clicking on the title bar while pressing the Option key will display a popover window containing all of the items in the Go To menu.

Frameset Windows

Web pages that are composed using frames will render each frame as a separate browsing window, and attempt to resize them according to the file's source code. In general, selecting a hyperlink in a sidebar frame will open the new page in the other frame's window. (The window geometry of frameset windows is always remembered in case the initial calculation of where they should be placed was off, though these parameters will never be set as the default WWW size.)
Usually you have no idea that a web site uses frames unless you've visited it before. By default, all frameset frames will be rendered, but if you want to first be asked about which frames to render turn off the Always Render Frames preference -- you will then be presented with a dialog giving you the option to render all, some, or none of the frameset windows. (Note that these are identified only by the name of the .html file, since they haven't actually been downloaded yet.)

Marks Menu

Each window has a set of marks corresponding to the section headings found in the web page.

Navigating Links

Navigation between links is accomplished with the Arrow keys or you can click with your mouse. When a link is selected you can press Return to render the link in a new window. WWW Menu maintains a browse history. You can use the Go To Page cascade menu to select a page to view from your recent browsing history. You can also select view source from the menu. Many keys are also bound to imitate the browser lynx.
Use the cursor keys, mouse or one of the following shortcuts to move from web page to web page as follows:

`⌘<` or `⌘[`	go to previous page
`⌘>` or `⌘]`	go to next page
> or `Return`	go to current link
Up/Down Arrow	highlight previous/next link
Mouse-Click	go to clicked-upon link
;	bring other WWW windows to the front

Note that the forward/back menu items and key bindings only refer to the position relative to the current window marked in the Go To Page menu.

Handling Various Link Types

Using the WWW mode preferences you can ask Alpha to handle some URL types internally (currently mailto:, ftp: and http: are supported). Also Java applets may be sent to your javaviewer application (for example the Apple Applet Runner which is free from Apple.
While in WWW mode, select Alpha ↣ WWW Mode Setup ↣ Mode Preferences… from the Alpha menu (F12) and set the flags appropriately -- or use the WWW Menu ↣ WWW Menu Options submenu. Checking WWW Send Remote Links will automatically redirect any unlisted item to the current browser application.
http links can be retrieved and rendered by the WWW Menu. As of this writing, https redirection links are not handled.

Forms

Interactive forms can be rendered using a combination of text in the window and hyperlinks to change field values. Here's an example of how a form might appear in the window:

    The Inter-university Consortium for 
    Political and Social Research (ICPSR)
    
    	<enter text…> <select option…> [search ICPSR archives] [reset] 
    	Search in:  (•) Study Titles ( ) Investigators ( ) Abstracts

Here's one that contains checkboxes instead of radio buttons.

    Sociological Abstracts (formerly Sociofile) 
    
       <enter text…> [Search] [reset] 
       [ ] Words Anywhere [X] Title [X] Author [ ] Subject

Radio buttons and checkboxes will be hyperlinked -- clicking on them will change the setting which will be reflected in the window.
Text and pop-up menus will also appear as hyperlinks -- clicking on them will open the appropriate dialog including any default settings set by the web form.
Submit buttons will be surrounded by [square brackets]. Clicking on them will open a dialog containing all of text and pop-up menu fields for the form allowing you to confirm their values one last time before submitting the information. In most cases submitting a form will open up a new browser page.
Note that this browser does NOT use a secure server for transmitting information over the internet, and you will never be warned about this. Web pages containing forms that ask for password or credit card information are best viewed using a different browser. (Just press 'S' to send the source url of the active window to your browser.)
Toggle the Ignore Forms preference to never include form hyperlinks when rendering the window.

Images

Alpha cannot include any images in its text windows. Rendered windows of web pages that include images will include [image] hyperlinks -- clicking on the hyperlink will send the source url of the image to the current browser application so that you can view it there.
Toggle the Ignore Images preference to never include image hyperlinks when rendering the window.

Parse Funcs Menus

The Parse popup (⚙) contains an alphabetical list of all text in the active window that contains a hyperlink. Selecting any item will move the cursor to the hypertext.

History Cache

The urls of visited web pages are retained in a History Cache. You can use the WWW Menu ↣ History menu item to open a new window listing all of the urls currently in the history cache. Two different preferences will help you manage this list: History Limit and History Days. Note that all items in the History Cache will be rendered as visited links.
The limit pref is the maximum number of items remembered -- as this limit is exceeded, older items are forgotten. A limit greater than 500 might severely delay the opening and hyperlinking of the History Window, but feel free to experiment with larger limits.
The days preference determines how many days the items will be retained in the History Cache. If this preference is empty, then items will be retained so long as the limit is not exceeded.

Additional Key Bindings

The Return key has several different functions attached to it, depending on whether any modifiers are pressed. All of these operate on the currently selected link.

`⌥-Return`	edits the link in the original source file.
`⌃-Return`	modifies the link in the rendered window.
`⇧-Return`	opens the link in a new WWW window.
`⌃⇧-Return`	sends the link to your local browser.

Additional key bindings include:

'a'	add the active window to the bookmarks menu.
'b'	go back one item in the Go To menu.
'c'	copy the current link location to the clipboard.
'e'	edit the source file of the current rendered window.
'f'	go forward one item in the Go To menu.
'g'	open a dialog with the Go To Page menu items.
'h'	open the History page.
'o'	open the source file in Alpha.
'r'	reload the active window.
's'	send the source file of the active window to browser.
'u'	open a WWW shell window.
'v'	open a dialog to view a url/file.

Use this hyperlink WWW Mode Description to get a list of the procedures to which various other keys are bound.

To Do

Could be faster, recent versions have made rendering much faster, especially for reloading pages that you've already seen. At this point it seems to be optimized, but we've thought that before ...
It renders remote urls fairly well and fast enough to use on a regular basis. The parsing engine will always need improvement -- if you run across a url that the WWW menu handles poorly, please send that url to the WWW Menu's current maintainer. The main parsing engine is the proc html::parseBody, so if you have any suggestions for improvement let us know !!

Known problems

Please report any problem or bug you encounter in Alpha's Bug Tracker.

License and Disclaimer

See the wwwVersionHistory.tcl file for more information and credits. This Help document has been placed in the public domain.
Original Author: Vince Darley.
Co-Author: Craig Barton Upright.
Copyright (c) 1997-2020, Vince Darley and Contributors.
Contributors: Craig Barton Upright.
All rights reserved.
The WWW Mode package is free software and distributed under the terms of the new BSD license:
Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions are met:

Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer.
Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the documentation and/or other materials provided with the distribution.
Neither the name of Vince Darley nor the names of its contributors may be used to endorse or promote products derived from this software without specific prior written permission.

THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE COPYRIGHT HOLDERS AND CONTRIBUTORS "AS IS" AND ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE ARE DISCLAIMED. IN NO EVENT SHALL VINCE DARLEY OR THE CONTRIBUTORS BE LIABLE FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION) HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT LIABILITY, OR TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY OUT OF THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGE.