DOSLYNX V0.71 ALPHA RELEASE INFORMATION
Contents:
Introduction
System Requirements
Obtaining DosLynx
Required Files
Installing DosLynx
Configuring DosLynx
Command Line Options
Using DosLynx
Special Notes on Usage
New DosLynx Features
Distributing DosLynx
Credits
Garrett's E-Mail Address
Introduction
This is an alpha release of DosLynx for DOS compatible computers written
by Garrett Arch Blythe for The University of Kansas.
DosLynx is a distributed hypertext browser with some World Wide Web
capabilities.
This file provides information about installing, configuring, and using
DosLynx v0.71a.
DosLynx is copyrighted by the University of Kansas and is free for
instructional and research educational use. Non-educational use will be
licensed at a later date.
DosLynx is available in its binary form only.
System Requirements
One of DosLynx's goals is to provide support for as many DOS users as
possible. We have scaled DosLynx towards this end.
DosLynx's system requirements are not well defined at this point due to
the number of computers it has been tested on. The alpha release will
provide more information about system requirements. The known system
requirements are:
CPU 8086 compatible.
Memory 512 kilobytes free or more recommended.
Hard Drive
Required. 2 megabytes free or more recommended.
Monitor
Monochrome, Black and White, and Color supported.
Graphics capability
Optional.
Mouse Optional.
Network
None, or Class 1 (ethernet) packet driver connected to
the Internet. You may, of course, emulate a Class 1 packet driver
if you have the required software for your particular system
(i.e.
PPP, ODI, SLIP, etc).
DosLynx is known not to work on the following systems:
DOS Versions below 3.0 will not work properly.
Release 0.7a stated erroneously that computers using Lan Workplace for
DOS (or any other comparable TCP/IP stack) were not compatible with
DosLynx. See the Installating DosLynx section on how to properly setup
your computer when running an existing TCP/IP stack like Lan Workplace
but would like to use DosLynx.
If your system is also not supportable, we would very much like to know
your system configuration. Please mail the DosLynx developer at this
Internet address:
doslynx@falcon.cc.ukans.edu
Obtaining DosLynx
DosLynx v0.71a is available via binary anonymous FTP at
ftp2.cc.ukans.edu in the pub/WWW/DosLynx directory. DosLynx version 0.71
alpha will be the file named DLX0_71A.EXE which is a self-extracting
archive.
URL notation is ftp://ftp2.cc.ukans.edu/pub/WWW/DosLynx/DLX0_71A.EXE
DosLynx will be updated periodically as new changes are made to the
application. You will be able to find the new versions via binary
anonymous FTP to ftp2.cc.ukans.edu in the pub/WWW/DosLynx directory
under an appropriately named archive.
URL notation for the directory is
ftp://ftp2.cc.ukans.edu/pub/WWW/DosLynx/
Required Files
DosLynx version 0.71 alpha has the following files shipped with it. If
you do not have all of the files listed below we suggest obtaining a
complete release from the Internet address listed above.
DOSLYNX.EXE
The DosLynx v0.71a executable.
DOSLYNX.CFG
The DosLynx v0.71a configuration file.
README.HTM
The HTML equivalent of this file.
README.TXT
The text equivalent of this file.
ERROR.HTM
The default DosLynx HTML error page.
HOTLIST.HTM
The default DosLynx HTML hotlist.
Installing DosLynx
This section assumes that you have not already installed DosLynx version
0.71 alpha on your hard drive. If you already have, you may skip this
section.
Obtain a copy of DosLynx and place it in an appropriately named
directory on your hard drive.
Enter the command "DLX0_71A" from your DOS prompt in the directory which
you placed the DosLynx v0.71a archive.
The required files should be written by the self-extracting archive into
the directory. You may now remove the DLX0_71A.EXE from the directory if
you wish by entering the command "del DLX0_71A.EXE".
For those users with a TCP/IP stack already loaded (such as Lan
Workplace for DOS) you will need to configure your computer so that you
can unload the TCP/IP stack at your convienience. When you are ready to
run DosLynx, you must first unload your TCP/IP stack; for LWP, the
command is "tcpip /u". Next, if need be, load a packet driver emulator
for your system configuration. You should now be ready to run DosLynx.
After using DosLynx, you may want to return your system to its previous
configuration. Do this by unloading the packet driver emulator if one
was loaded. Load your TCP/IP stack again to finish this process.
Configuring DosLynx
Edit the DosLynx v0.71a configuration file named DOSLYNX.CFG with any
text editor. Go through each keyword and provide the appropriate value.
Ample configuration instructions are included in the distribution
configuration file. Once finished, save the modifed file as ASCII text.
If you wish to save your hotlist which was used in your old version of
DosLynx, simply change the hotlist keyword in the configuration file to
point to your old hotlist file.
Command Line Options
DosLynx has the following command line switches and options. All command
line options supercede their configuration file equivalents. All command
line options are case insensitive except for URLs.
/P This is the most important command line option. If you will
be executing DosLynx from a directory other than the one you
installed DosLynx in, you must use the /P option. /P specifies
the directory in which DosLynx may find its configuration file
DOSLYNX.CFG and the errorhtml file ERROR.HTM. If you installed
DosLynx in the directory C:\DLX then you should use the /P option
as follows:
doslynx /PC:\DLX
To avoid having to retype the /P option every time you wish to
use DosLynx, create a DOS batch file automatically specifying
the /P option for you and place the batch file a directory
specified in your DOS PATH environment variable.
/T This option specifies the temporary directory where DosLynx
will create its temporary files. If you wanted to use the
directory C:\TEMP as the place to store temporary files, then you
would use /T in the following manner:
doslynx /TC:\TEMP\
/L This option tells DosLynx how many loaded documents to keep
in memory before it starts releasing the oldest unviewed file. If
you wanted DosLynx to keep the last 5 ready in memory, then you
would use the /L option in the follwing way:
doslynx /L5
/V This option tells DosLynx what text mode to begin in. /VLOW
tells DosLynx to use the 25 row text mode. /VHIGH tells DosLynx
to attempt to use the 43 or 50 row text modes available to EGA
and
VGA compatible video adapters.
/H This option tells DosLynx if it should load the home page
you specified in the configuration file. /HON tells DosLynx to
load the home page on startup. /HOFF tells DosLynx to not load
the home page on startup. /HOFF is automatically assumed if you
also use a URL on the command line unless /HON follows the
command
line URL.
/N This option tells DosLynx if it will allow network access.
To turn off network access, use /NNO. To allow network access,
use /NYES.
URL This command line option is actually any URL that you would
like DosLynx to load from the command line. It can be any valid
URL or it can be a DOS path to a file. Once a URL is specified on
the command line, your home page will not be loaded unless you
also append the /HON to your command line following the URL. To
have DosLynx load this document on startup, execute one of the
following commands from the directory in which you installed
DosLynx:
doslynx readme.htm
doslynx file:///readme.htm
Using DosLynx
DosLynx is a straightforward menu driven application.
A user has several ways to activate the DosLynx menu; pressing F10,
pressing ALT and one of the highlighted menu letters, and by a single
left button mouse click.
Following are a listing of all menu items and their functionality. Menu
titles and the appropriate menu choice are presented side by side with
the '|' character as a separator.
As DosLynx is developed further, you can expect more documentation on
how to use DosLynx to better your understanding of its possible uses.
File|Open URL
Allows you to enter a user specified URL. Once
entered, DosLynx will attempt to load the URL.
File|Open Local
Allows you to select a local file from an
available DOS path. DosLynx will convert the file name into
a URL and attempt to load the file.
File|Close
When this menu item is selected, DosLynx will close
the currently active window so that it is no longer viewable
on your display.
File|Save Rendering
When selected, DosLynx will prompt you
for a local file name in which to save the document in the
currently
active window as ASCII text exactly as seen on your display.
File|Print Rendering
When selected, DosLynx will prompt you
for a DOS device to which to print the rendering. The appropriate
DOS device to enter is the one to which your line printer is
connected, such as LPT1.
File|Dos Shell
DosLynx spawns your command interpreter so that
you may take action outside of DosLynx while it is still
running. After selecting this item, you should always exit
the command interpreter and return to DosLynx after you are
finished.
File|Exit
This will cause the DosLynx application to exit
therefore ending your session inside DosLynx.
Navigate|Find
Allows you to enter a search string that
DosLynx will find in your currently active window.
Navigate|Find Again
DosLynx will again find the last
entered search string from the find command.
Navigate|Next Anchor
This will move you to the next selectable
anchor in the active window.
Navigate|Previous Anchor
This will move you to the previous
selectable anchor in the active window.
Navigate|Activate Anchor
This will cause DosLynx to attempt to
load the destination URL of the currently active anchor.
Navigate|Prior Document
This will cause DosLynx to attempt to
load the last visited URL in the currently active window.
Navigate|Search Index
Some loaded documents are searchable
indexes. To cause DosLynx to search the index of the currently
active window, select this command. This command will not
be active if the window contains no searchable index.
Navigate|Show Destination URL
Select this if you desire to
view the URL of the currently active anchor.
Options|Toggle Low/High Text Mode
Allows you to switch back
and forth between the default 25 line text mode and the 43 or
50 line text mode of EGA or VGA video adapters.
Window|Messages
This will cause the window containing all
DosLynx message to appear as the active window.
Window|Clone Window
Use this if you wish to create a duplicate
of the currently active window. The window should be the
same in every respect except for window number and size.
Window|Zoom
Use this command to switch a window to its maximum
possible size and its previous size before Zoom.
Window|Cascade
Use this command to organize all open windows
in a cascading arrangement on your display.
Window|Tile
Use this command to organize all open windows
in a tiled arrangement on your display.
Hotlist|View
This command causes DosLynx to load the user
specified HotList file for easy access to anchors which you
speicify.
Hotlist|Add current to Hotlist
This command will add the URL
of the currently active window to your hotlist file and then
prompt you for a name by which to remember the URL.
Hotlist|Home Page
Use this command to open a new window with
the user specified home page loaded within.
Help|About DosLynx
Miscellaneous information regarding DosLynx.
Help|Mail Developer
Use this command to send a suggestion or
bug report to the developer of DosLynx if you are connected
to a network.
DosLynx also has many other ways of obtaining user input.
All hotkey equivalents are listed beside the menu choices while running
DosLynx. In addition to the listed keys, you can use the UNIX vi keys
(HJKL) or your numeric keypad with your number lock on for anchor
navigation. This differs from the 0.7a release of DosLynx that allowed
the user to use the Lynx arrow keys for anchor navigation which is no
longer supported. Page up, page down, the arrow keys, and the space bar
allow you to look through a document that is longer than your display
itself. Further, if you utilize a mouse with DosLynx, you can select an
anchor by using a single left button click, and activate an anchor by
using a double left button click.
Items contained in the status bar (the bottom line of your screen while
running DosLynx) correlate directly with items in the navigate menu
which are selectable by the mouse only. In addition, the right mouse
button is the same as issuing the Window|Clone Window command.
Special Notes on Usage
As of the DosLynx v0.71a release, only the following URL types are
supported:
file
ftp
gopher
http
news
wais
For the best DosLynx performance, specify the temporary file directory
in your configuration file or on the command line to be a directory on a
RAMDRIVE. See your DOS documentation for setting up a RAMDRIVE specific
to your system.
DosLynx is a MDI (multiple document interface) application. This may
confuse new users that are used to other World Wide Web clients. As a
rule of thumb, when you open any URL or document through DosLynx's menu
or equivalent hotkeys, then it will exists in it's very own window.
Windows are numbered in their upper right corner and you can switch
between windows by pressing the ALT key and the window number
simultaneously.
Each window represents an open file at any given time. If you open more
windows than you have FILES specified in your CONFIG.SYS file then
DosLynx may crash. Increase the number of open files your machine can
have if you plan to use multiple windows a lot.
When DosLynx has used most of your computer's memory attempting to use
the File|Dos Shell command will not work. Your computer simply does not
have enough memory to execute your command interpretor.
When you ftp a file or activate an anchor that DosLynx cannot display as
text, you are asked to give a file name to save the information in. No
file name is suggested at this point. These files are not removed by
DosLynx when you exit the application. This allows you as the user to do
what you will with such files after exiting DosLynx.
DosLynx has been known to crash when it encounters a file containing a
large number of selectable anchors in it. This is due to an unavoidable
memory limitation. Large files with few anchors will be loaded fine.
Future releases of DosLynx will address this problem in a more stable
manner.
When DosLynx terminates unexpectedly, the temporary files it creates
remain in the temporary file directory you specified in the
configuration file or on the command line. The temporary files follow
the pattern of DLX*.$$$. You will have to remove these files yourself if
this occurs. As DosLynx is improved upon you can expect it to become a
more stable application and prevent you from having to worry about this
temporary file problem.
If you are wondering, the menu bar contains the current time in the
upper right had corner. In the status bar are three numbers in the lower
right corner. The numbers are from left to right the current network
activity in bytes, the size in bytes of the temporary drive you
specified, and the amount of available heap memory in bytes. These were
originally run-time debugging tools for the developer of DosLynx but
were left in as they are harmless and give the user some information of
what is currently happening when DosLynx is at work.
If your computer does not use a packet driver, which DosLynx requires,
to access the network, ask your local network administrator if there is
a packet emulator available for your particular workstation
configuration. For instance, if your computer utilizes an ODI driver for
network access, in order to use DosLynx you will need to install the a
packet driver emulator if one is available to you.
Once one program is utilizing your computer's packet driver, like
DosLynx, no other program may do so at the same time. If you have need
to run more than one packet driver utilizing program at the same time,
we suggest asking your local network administrator if your computer can
be configured to use a packet multiplexor. If so, you will need to find
a suitable packet multiplexor and install it on your computer.
To correctly view the ISO Latin I characters supported by HTML, you must
configure DOS to use multilingual code page of 850. Consult your DOS
manuals on how to specify the appropriate code page for your computer.
To force DosLynx into a supported black and white video mode, type "mode
BW80" at your DOS prompt. Consider doing this if you monitor is black
and white but DosLynx considers it a color monitor (monochrome EGA
monitors).
If you are interested in registering with the DosLynx development
listserv group, send a mail message to listserv@ukanaix.cc.ukans.edu.
Please do not send subscribe requests to the doslynx-dev list directly.
In the body of the message, send only the following information where
username@node is your internet mailing address:
subscribe doslynx-dev Your Name Here
Remember that this version of DosLynx is an alpha and has been released
as a feedback tool only. Expect problems, and when you encounter one
please mail the developer at the following address and inform the
creator of the problem you encountered and your system configuration.
doslynx@falcon.cc.ukans.edu
New DosLynx Features
Please note that all your requests for modifications in release 0.7a are
still in my to do list. There is no need to restate your request; I
haven't had the time to implement them all in a correct manner.
The following new features were added in this release of DosLynx:
ISO Latin I
Latin character handling corrected. User must
modify their computers for code page 850 if need be while running
DosLynx.
Termination
When DosLynx willingly terminates due to an error,
the user is given 5 seconds to read the error message.
Opening a URL to a GIF
DosLynx will now successfully load and
display a GIF when you specify a URL to an image in the File|Open
URL or File|Open Local commands.
Access Authorization
DosLynx can now correctly query the user
for access name and password successfully.
Arrow keys
The arrow keys now allow you to scroll through the
currently active window one line at a time insead of jumping
around between anchors. If you prefer to use the arrow keys for
anchor navigation, turn your number lock on and use your number
keypad.
Space bar
The space bar is equivalent to page down.
Mail Developer
The mail developer command now takes much less
time to send the message you enter.
Memory Memory usage optimized just a bit more.
/HOFF When a URL is specified in the command line, /HOFF is
automatically assumed. If you still want the home page to load,
use /HON after the URL on the command line.
Proxy Servers
Proxy servers are now supported for several URL
access types. See the DOSLYNX.CFG file for more information on
how to tell DosLynx to use a proxy server.
Distributing DosLynx
You may distribute DosLynx version 0.71 alpha at your convenience so
long that you distribute the orignal self-extracting archive obtained by
the means listed in the Obtaining DosLynx section of this document.
Credits
The University of Kansas would like to thank the following organizations
and people for their aid in the creation of DosLynx.
Generous financial assistance given by O'Reilly and Associates
and Intel Corporation.
Fundamental GIF display routines by David Koblas
GIF support and dithering routines by Thomas Boutell
World Wide Web Source Library by CERN
Waterloo TCP by Erick Engelke
FTP code from James W. Matthews, Dartmouth Software Development
Borland C/C++ and TurboVision by Borland International
Further, The University by Kansas recognizes the following:
Borland C/C++ and TurboVision
Trademarks of and Copyright by Borland International.
World Wide Web Source Library
Copyright by CERN, Geneva, Switzeralnd.
Waterloo TCP Library
Copyright by Erick Engelke.
FTP code
Portions Copyright 1994 Trustees by Dartmouth College.
GIF display routines
Copyright by David Koblas along with the following notice:
/* +-------------------------------------------------------------------+ */
/* | Copyright 1990, David Koblas. | */
/* | Permission to use, copy, modify, and distribute this software | */
/* | and its documentation for any purpose and without fee is hereby | */
/* | granted, provided that the above copyright notice appear in all | */
/* | copies and that both that copyright notice and this permission | */
/* | notice appear in supporting documentation. This software is | */
/* | provided "as is" without express or implied warranty. | */
/* +-------------------------------------------------------------------+ */
Garrett's E-Mail Address
Lastly, if you like DosLynx and would like to see its continued
development, please send me a mail message stating such; so that I can
make a case to convince the University of Kansas Computer Center that
DosLynx needs more resources than are currently allocated.
Last Modified: 05-24-94 by Garrett Arch Blythe
Report errors, suggestions, and support to the following address:
doslynx@falcon.cc.ukans.edu