X/Motif-based networked HypTxt-based information system

[Justine Correa <correaj -at- SDSC -dot- EDU>]

>     This time, however, I am planning ahead for the crisis.
>     We will be implementing a CWIS (Campus Wide Information
>     Server) in the very near future, and I will be doing
>     most of the information side of it. Does anyone have
>     any horror stories which could serve me as an object
>     lesson, or can anyone claim complete happiness with
>     their approach? I realize that there are other forums
>     for this sort of discussion, but I am looking for the
>     technical writer perspective, not the techie view of
>     the world.

>     We have a UNIX platform, but haven't decided on
>     software yet, so I have a fair amount of control about
>     what I do. All we know is that we will be trying to
>     adhere to Z39.50 standards.

>     Additionally, while I know that I should
>     rewrite/restructure/redo all of the information and not
>     just dump ASCII text out there, the political situation
>     here will probably not allow me that luxury. Does
>     anyone have any suggestions on quick, fairly automated,
>     ways of getting acceptable and usable information out
>     there quickly?

hi eric -- thought this might be interesting for you. we're pretty excited
about using it.

justine
correaj -at- sdsc -dot- edu

------------------------------------------
Marc Andreessen
Software Development Group
National Center for Supercomputing Applications
marca -at- ncsa -dot- uiuc -dot- edu

Newsgroups:
comp.infosystems.gopher,comp.infosystems.wais,comp.infosystems,alt.hypertext
Subject: NCSA Mosaic for X 0.9 available.
--text follows this line--
NCSA is developing a new X/Motif-based networked information systems
browser called Mosaic.  Beta version 0.9, including full source code
and binaries (for SunOS 4.x, SGI IRIX 4.x, AIX 3.2, and DEC Ultrix),
is at ftp.ncsa.uiuc.edu in /Web/xmosaic.

Mosaic provides a consistent and easy-to-use hypertext-based interface
into a wide variety of information sources, including Gopher, WAIS,
World Wide Web, NNTP/Usenet news, Techinfo, Texinfo, FTP, local
filesystems, telnet, tn3270, and others.

A list of changes made from version 0.8 to version 0.9 follows:

 o Some multimedia support. Yew asked for it...
    o GIF, JPEG, TIFF, audio, AIFF, DVI, MPEG, MIME, XWD,
      PostScript automatically recognized.
    o Pipe to external viewers (with viewers set via X resource
      mechanism).
    o Also retrieve images, audio over Gopher.
    o But not over HTTP (unless you're running a modified HTTP
      server).
    o Inlined MIME/multimedia support will be coming down the
      road, so this is all just a temporary hack.
 o Transparent handling of compressed (.Z) files.
 o Hotlist now *always* saved after modification.
 o Fixed occasional infinite loop/crash for some 8-bit documents.
 o Fixed various parsing bugs associated with using <xmp> instead of
   <plaintext> internally.
 o Links to specific anchors now work properly.
 o Fixed bug with failure in repeated accesses via FTP.
 o Fixed bug with spurious ^M's in Gopher anchors.
 o Fixed bug opening local file while visiting remote file.
 o Fixed display bug with punctuation falling off end of line.
 o Fixed problem with BadAlloc crashes on some servers.
 o Annotation text features.
    o Choice of annotation links in header or footer.
    o Automatic (& fast) updating of annotations on every document
      view.
    o New defaultAuthorName resource to override use of normal
      fullname.
    o Annotations now always use machine's full name.
 o Menubar item 'Delete This Annotation'.
 o Audio annotations (SGI only, so far).
 o Fixed BadWindow bug for annotation window on DECstations.
 o All plaintext files can now be annotated.
 o Fixed occasional problem with size of hotlist/history windows.
 o Added sample app-defaults files to distribution.
 o New resources for multimedia stuff:
    o gifViewerCommand (default 'xv')
    o jpegViewerCommand (default 'xv')
    o tiffViewerCommand (default 'xv')
    o audioPlayerCommand (default 'showaudio' from Metamail
      distribution)
    o aiffPlayerCommand (default 'sfplay' -- SGI specific)
    o dviViewerCommand (default 'xdvi')
    o mpegViewerCommand (default 'mpeg_play')
    o mimeViewerCommand (default 'xterm -e metamail')
    o xwdViewerCommand (default 'xwud -in')
    o rgbViewerCommand (default 'ipaste' -- SGI specific)
    o postscriptViewerCommand
 o Deleted annotations now have all corresponding disk files removed.
 o Mosaic is smarter about the <plaintext> HTML token at the head of
   plaintext files.
 o Lots of little cleanups and bug fixes.

We're targeting a 1.0 release around the middle to end of March, so
quick feedback and bug reports will be GREATLY appreciated.  (Please
note that the online documentation is not quite up to date, as we are
still busy writing code.)

Finally, thanks *again* to everyone who's been contributing comments
and bug reports -- keep 'em coming!

Cheers,
Marc

___________________________________
Justine Correa
Writer, San Diego Supercomputer Center
correaj -at- sdsc -dot- edu, 619/534-5143, fax: 5117