Menus
The menu items of the WWW application
operate in the usual NeXTStep way
in most cases. Where the menu item
has a character at the right hand
end of the menu item, typing that
character while holding down the
Command key will have the same effect
as the menu item: see the list of
such keys . There follows a list
of the menu items in the application,
under the top level items: Info ,
Links , Navigate , Document , Edit
, Print , Page Layout , Style ,
Help , Hide , Quit .
This displays a little information
about the particular version of WWW
which you have. The submenu has two
items:
PanelThis displays a single panel with
information such as the version number
of your software - you can check
this against the history to find
out whether you're missing any serious
improvments in the latest copy.
HelpThis takes you to a small document
shipped with the application, which
has pointers to the user manual (part
of which you're reading now). The
help page is local to your machine
-- you can edit it. The user manual
is, by default, on a central server
machine, unless you have changed
the links in your help page. (Taking
a private copy of the user manual
means it might become out of date,
but it will be quicker to access).
Items in this menu are used to manipulate
the connections, or links , between
different hypertext documents.
Creating a link is done in two stages.
Firstly, the destination of the link
(the bit which will be jumped to
) is "marked". Secondly, the source
of the link is selected, and "Link
to mark" used. The source and destination
regions are known as anchors .
If you want to make a link to a document
whose address you know, but which
you can't access through other links,
then first open it using its address
, then mark it and link to it.
Mark AllThis marks the whole document as
the destination of a link. Use this
to refer to a whole document rather
than any part of it, or when the
server does not allow you to make
an anchor within it.
Mark SelectionThis marks just the area you have
selected as the destination of the
next link(s) you might create.
Link To MarkedThis creates a link from the selection
to the marked text. First, select
the piece of text you wish to be
sensitive, and then use this item.
From then on, clicking on that piece
of text will take you to the previously
marked document or anchor.
Link to FileThis allows you to link the selected
text to any file. You are prompted
for the name with an "Open" panel.
The file need not be a hypertext
file. If is not a file type which
WorldWideWeb recognizes and handles
itself, then following the link will
cause the file to be opened from
the workspace. You cannot link to
a directory (yet).
Link to NewThis creates a link from the current
selection to a new node to be stored
as a file. A panel opens to allow
you to select the name of the file.
UnlinkThis remove link information from
the selection. ALL link information
(coming or going) is removed from
the selected text, which then becomes
ordinary text.. This may be used
to trim an anchor whose sensitive
area is too big, or to remove an
anchor entirely.
These options allow you to move through
lists of items, for example, with
ease, and should prevent you geting
lost.
BackThe applicatioin keeps a record of
every link you jump through. This
item allows you to retrace your steps.
Each time you use it, you go back
one link, until you get to the first
link you used.
NextThis has the same effect as using
"BackUp", and then selecting the
next link from that last document.
For example, if you had just selected
the first of a list of references,
then using "NeXT" would allow you
to move through successive one by
one. It you select a news conference
and then a news article in it, NeXT
allows you to move to the next article
directly, without going back to the
conference.
PreviousThis is like " Next ", but goes to
the link before the one you last
selected rather than the one after.
HomeThis goes back to the document which
is first loaded when you run the
application.
PanelThis brings up a navigation panel.
The buttons in the panel are mostly
the same as the functions in the
menu.
The items in this menu allow hypertext
documents to be loaded explicitly
and saved.
Open fileThis allows a file to be opened explicitly
by file name. An HTML file (.html
filetype) will be read as hypertext.
A Rich Text Format (.rtf) file will
be read as rich (ie formatted text).
Files without extension or with .txt
extensions are read as plain text.
All other files are opened as the
workspace manager considers fit.
Open given document addressThis option allows not only files,
but also news groups, news articles,
and information on remote hypertext
servers to be loaded. You need the
complete hypertext reference for
the information. See Address Formats
for a description of the various
formats.
The menu item brings up the document
inspector. Fill in the address in
the "Other document" panel, and click
"open".
New file...This creates a new hypertext file.
A panel appears to prompt you for
a filename.
When you have created a new file,
you should make links from existing
files to it so that you can later
reach it by browsing. See also the
"Link to New" menu item which makes
a link at the same time.
The file is generated from a master
blank file. If you have a "blank.html"
in the WWW subdirectory of your home
directory, that will be used: otherwise,
a copy will be taken of the file
"/usr/local/lib/WWW/blank.html".
Therefore, you can customise the
blank file.
DiagnosticsYou don't have to use these: they
are for debugging the software. They
will (typically) dump a load of information
onto the standard output device,
which will be the system console.
These functions are not guarranteed.
SaveWhen a file is editable, this allows
it to be saved back. Until this is
used, your changes are not safe.
This condidtion is indicated by the
close button (X) in the top right
of the document window becoming a
broken cross.
Save a copy inThis option allows documents to be
saved as a file, whether or not they
were originally loaded from a file.
Note that the window will continue
to be associated with the original
(network) document (This is different
from some other NeXT applications'
"sav as".). If you want to open the
new file for editing, you must use
the Open command. Before you get
a save panel, a submenu is presented
which allows you to select the format:
- HyperText Markup Language
- This is
the normal storage format for WWW
files. It includes the style and
anchor information. The file extension
is mandatory and is ".html". You
can use the copy as the basis for
a new document by later open ing
it.
- Rich Text Format
- This is a transfer
format allowing you to export WWW
files to other word processors such
as Microsoft Word, WriteNow, etc.
Beware that the copy saved in rtf,
although it is formatted, has no
style name or anchor information
left. The file extension is mandatory
and is ".rtf".
- Plain Text
- This is plain ASCII text,
without formatting except for line
breaks to mark paragraph ends. Normally,
your style sheet specifies some white
space between paragraphs so the plain
text version has more than one line
feed character. This format may be
suitable for mailing, for example
- though you may want to chop the
long lines. The file extension is
mandatory and is ".txt".
Save all edited windowsThis perfoms a Save operation on
all windows which have been edited
since they were last saved. This
is a wise thing to do from time to
time, and certainly before you quit.
InspectThis brings up the document inspector.
MiniaturizeThis will shrink the current window
down to a miniature window. The text
in the window will still be loaded.
Clicking on the miniature window,
or following a link which leads to
that document, will bring it back
up immediately.
Open Master templateThis allows you to edit the template
file which is used as a basis whenever
you use " New " or " Link to new
" commands.
Close other windowsThe number of windows can rapidly
become very large when one follows
links through the web. This command
(also key Cmd/W) allows all windows
to be closed except for the main
window and any windows which have
been modified but not yet saved.
CloseThis closes the current window. The
contents are removed from memory.
WorldWideWeb remebers that you had
been there, so (unless you have already
backtracked over it) you will be
able to find it by backtracking with
BackUp . When you reaccess the document,
it is reloaded from the server or
file. This is therefore a way of
picking up changed information. If
you don't want to have to wait for
this (if it a slow server for example),
you could always Miniturize the window
instead.
This menu is the standard NeXTStep
edit menu, allowing you to cut, copy
and paste text to and from hypertext
documents. You can also select the
whole document. (Not all hypertext
documents are writeable, so paste
won't always work).
BUG: IF YOU CUT AND PASTE LINKED
TEXT, THE LINK WILL BE LOST.
This brings up the print panel, which
allows you to print the current window.
You can also preview what it will
look like printed, and you can save
an image of the document in the window
in postscript format.
See also the Page Layout panel. You
may also want to load a different
style sheet for printing.
This brings up a panel for choosing
the size and orientation of the paper
you may want to print on.
The paper type you select is remebered
between invokations of WorldWideWeb.
The other parameters revert to their
default values when you start WorldWideWeb.
They are not stored in documents.
The margins which you can specify
in this panel are the regions of
white paper around the edge of each
page on which nothing is printed.
What you see on the screen window
is the area between the margins.
Note that when a window is created,
it is generally made wide enough
to contain a document. This means
that the paper type and left and
right margins you select will affect
the size of new windows.
This item brings up the Style submenu
for changing the formatting of characters
in the text. There is a menu item
for each of teh commonly used styles;
Normal, Headings 1 to 4, Address,
List, Glossary and Example.
(More on Styles)
Copy styleThe style of the currently selected
text is picked up for later use in
"Apply style"
Apply styleThe style previously picked up with
"copy style" is applied to the paragraph
or paragraphs which include the selected
text.
PanelThis brings up the style editor panel.
(More on styles.) The style editor
allows you to format your document
using styles, edit the format represented
by each style, and load and save
style sheets. Clicking on the >>
buttons allows you to scroll through
the available styles.
The buttons " Load " and "Save" allow
you to load and save the entire set
of styles (" stylesheet ") you are
using. When loading a style sheet,
any styles which were originally
present but do not exist in the new
style sheet remain defined, while
those which do exist in the new sheet
are redefined.
Style of selectionThis button sets the style editor
to the style of the text which has
been selected in the main window
(if any).
Apply style to selectionThis applies the style in the style
editor to the currently selected
text. If the style is a paragraph
style, it will be applied to all
paragraphs which contain any selected
text
(or the caret is the selection is
of zero length).
Two buttons are provided to help
in converting existing unstyles documents
into HTML:-
Find unstyled textThis will highlight the first peice
of text inthe document which has
not been given a style.
Apply style to all similar textThis will apply the selected style
to not only the selected text, but
also all that text which has the
same paragraph layout (indents, etc)
and font. If you have a document
which is formatted in rtf, but not
styled, you maybe able to pick up
all the headings, for example, in
this way.
Editing of styles is not currently
supported (Nov 1990).
This jumps to the WorldWideWeb documentation.
If it doesn't work, then see your
system manager to ensure that the
application is properly installed
with its documentation.
This hides the application as is
usual on the NeXT. The state of it
is unchanged. Double-click on the
application's icon to bring it back.
This quits the application as is
usual on the NeXT, except that currently
(Nov90) it DOES NOT CHECK FOR UNSAVED
WINDOWS. It is wise to " save all
edited " before using "quit".