New Version of the Emacs WWW Browser

William M. Perry,,855-2896,331-9062 ([email protected])
Tue, 16 Nov 1993 07:04:40 +0000


Hello folks,

This is to announce version 1.5Beta of the emacs world wide web browser.
This is getting very close to a non-beta release, and I would like some
additional testing done before I officially call it 1.0 and stable. Here
is part of the README:

Features of the Emacs WWW Browser
Date: Tue Nov 16 06:48:11 1993
Version: 1.50Beta

What does the emacs browser do?

The emacs browser will allow you to access this great information service, all
from within emacs. The emacs browser supports all major network protocols.

* FTP: transparently finds files over ftp by using ange-ftp.
Directories on remote sites can be viewed either with dired or
converted into a simple hypertext document and viewed like all the
others.
* NNTP: uses the nntp.el package by Masanobu UMEDA to retrieve news
articles and then converts them into hypertext documents. There is
no support for reading the users .newsrc yet, but it is planned for
the future.
* Gopher: Can either use the gopher.el package by Scott Snyder, or
convert the gopher output into hypertext and view it normally in
w3-mode.
* HTTP: This is the World Wide Web's hypertext transfer protocol used
to request hypertext documents. The preferred way to retrieve Web
documents. Uses open-network-stream, but also has support for using
an external program in a subprocess (to get around firewalls, or
similar obstacles).

Features of the emacs WWW browser:
* Extremely portable - if your machine can run emacs, odds are it
can use the emacs browser. (has been run on DOS, Windows, OS/2,
NeXTstep, Xwindows, vt100s, etc)
* Easy to use from other elisp programs (functions to easily parse
a buffer for just links, etc. For GNUS & VM users)
* Support for different fonts, bold, italics, etc, if in Xwindows and
using Emacs 19, Epoch, or Lucid Emacs.
* Mouse support if in Emacs 19, Epoch, Lucid Emacs, or NeXT Emacs.
* Fill out forms support as specified in the HTML+ specification, plus
all the Xmosaic extensions. Forms work on tty's and in Xwindows.
* Compatibility with Xmosaic so they can use the same hotlist file,
global history file, and personal annotation directory.
* Lots of HTML+ support - headers/paragraphs with ID support,
RENDER hints, NOTE tags, etc.
* Full image support within Epoch.
* Images are cached
* Delayed image loading
* Full HTTP/1.0 support, including redirection, authentication, and
specifying viewers by MIME types.
* Can specify MIME viewers in emacs lisp, or let it parse
your .mailcap file directly.
* Fairly complete listing of file extensions and what MIME
types they represent, plus the ability to change them.
* 'Basic' authorization works, and public key is being
worked on.
* Can print or save a document you are viewing in HTML source,
formatted output, or LaTeX source. (LaTeX is converted to
postscript before printing).
* Ability to 'preview' any emacs buffer as an HTML document.
* Lots more

Where can I get the emacs WWW browser:
* You can always ftp the latest and greatest from cs.indiana.edu in
/pub/elisp/w3. The files you will need are w3.tar.z and
extras.tar.z. If you already have ange-ftp, nntp, and gopher.el
installed, you will only need the w3.tar.z file.

Please send me some mail if you get this package, so that I can get a rough
estimate of how many people are using it, and so I can send you mail if I
find a really urgent mistake. :) Doesn't happen often anymore, but just in
case.

Thanks,
Bill Perry, [email protected]

PS: I will be in Ireland for the next 10 days or so - not sure what my
email access will be like, but probably limited to non-existent. Please
send in bug reports, but be prepared for a wait. Please feel free to use
the [email protected] mailing list for questions/discussion.