99 lines
4.8 KiB
HTML
99 lines
4.8 KiB
HTML
<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 3.2//EN">
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<html> <head>
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<title>A Web-Browser with Source!</title>
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</head>
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<center><h1>Xmosaic Development On A Roll</h1></center>
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<center><h4><a href="mailto: layers@vax2.rain.gen.mo.us">by Larry
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Ayers</a></h4></center>
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<center>Copyright (c) 1996</center><BR>
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<center><H5>Published in Issue 10 of the Linux Gazette</H5></center>
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<hr>
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<p>Netscape binaries are more-or-less freely available for Linux, and the
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program works well, most of the time. As a Linux user I've become accustomed
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to a large potential for customization in software, right down to the
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source-code level. Netscape is available only as a large, opaque executable
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and the source is proprietary. I don't necessarily want a web-browser to fetch
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email and newspostings for me; I use other programs for those purposes but
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with Netscape those functions are unwanted baggage, loaded into memory every
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time the browser start up.
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<p>The recent beta versions of Xmosaic (the latest is 2.7b5) have been
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quicker-loading alternatives. Background colors and images are supported, but
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it just isn't as quick to load images and pages as Netscape.
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<p>Scott Powers, head of the Xmosaic development team at the University of
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Illinois, has for the past couple of months been leading a new Xmosaic
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project. The Xmosaic developers felt that the code upon which the version 2.7
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and earlier browsers had been based needed a complete rewrite. Version 2.8 is
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now in public alpha testing. The project has been dubbed "Hyperion", as a sign
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that something totally new is in the works.
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<p>A mailing list for Hyperion has arisen lately. Perusing the messages from
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the developers one can feel the excitement in the air. These people are
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really motivated, and working extremely long hours as well. Most days a
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"snapshot" of that day's code level is available from their ftp site.
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<p>The first alpha releases were pretty rudimentary; there was no image
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support and many HTML files couldn't be loaded. I think that the source code
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was released at such an early level so that the developers could be sure that
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the core parsing routines, etc., could be successfully compiled on all
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targeted platforms. On September 10 the alpha version 2 was completed and
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released. Image support is now functional, though at this stage you must use
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specific versions of the JPEG and Xpm libraries. There's still a long way to
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go before Xmosaic 2.8 is actually very usable, but that's what the alpha
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tester's reports are helping to expedite.<hr>
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<center><h3>What Can We Expect?</h3></center>
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<p>Scott Powers and the rest of the Hyperion team have an impressive list of
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planned features. One of the most exciting is a modularization of the source
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code. This means that if you wanted a speedy, basic browser the compile-time
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option would be available to not include, say, Java and sound support. A user
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could conceivably compile several versions, each with different capabilities.
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<p>Developers of web-browsers are faced with some difficult decisions. What
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standards to follow? How many of the "Netscape-isms" are now prevalent enough
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to be considered desirable? As an example, tables are now standard and to be
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expected in any new browser, as are forms. Frames are another matter; they
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are common on the web but many find them of limited value and they have
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yet to gain widespread acceptance. Xmosaic 2.8 will be HTML-3 compliant, and
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various sorts of multimedia support are being discussed. The alpha-testers
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have been making numerous suggestions, and their ideas are being taken
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seriously by the Xmosaic team.<hr>
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<center><h3>Locations and Sources</h3></center>
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<p>If you'd like to check in from time to time and see what progress has been
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made, <a href="http://xmosaic.ncsa.uiuc.edu/hyperion/">Xmosaic 2.8</a> is the
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home-page. The current alpha (and before too long, beta) version source code
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can be downloaded from the page. The <a
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href="ftp://xmosaic.ncsa.uiuc.edu/hyperion/download">ftp site</a> might be
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faster, but at this early stage the source code is only about three hundred
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kilobytes. Information concerning the mailing list is also on the home page.
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<p>I encourage anyone who has a little time and the inclination to participate
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in the alpha testing. Every bug report contributes to a higher quality final
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release, and I'd hate to see Xmosaic 2.8 work really well only on Sparc or
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HPUX machines because not enough Linux users contributed reports!
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<P>
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Larry Ayres
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