DOSLYNX V0.8 ALPHA RELEASE INFORMATION
Contents:
Introduction
System Requirements
Obtaining DosLynx
Required Files
Installing DosLynx
Installing DosLynx with SLIP/PPP
Configuring DosLynx
Command Line Options
Using DosLynx
Special Notes on Usage
New DosLynx Features
Distributing DosLynx
Credits
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 v0.8a.
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 source and binary forms.
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.
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
a TCP/IP network. 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.
Obtaining DosLynx
DosLynx v0.8a is available via binary anonymous FTP at ftp2.cc.ukans.edu
in the pub/WWW/DosLynx directory. DosLynx version 0.8 alpha will be the
file named DLX0_8A.EXE which is a self-extracting archive.
URL notation is ftp://ftp2.cc.ukans.edu/pub/WWW/DosLynx/DLX0_8A.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 0.8 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 v0.8a executable.
DOSLYNX.CFG
The DosLynx v0.8a 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
0.8 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_8A" from your DOS prompt in the directory which
you placed the DosLynx v0.8a archive.
The required files should be written by the self-extracting archive into
the directory. You may now remove the DLX0_8A.EXE from the directory if
you wish by entering the command "del DLX0_8A.EXE".
DosLynx comes with a built-in TCP/IP stack (Waterloo TCP/IP). So 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.
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 driver emulator available for your particular workstation
configuration. For those systems using a ODI driver (eg. Novell's LAN
Workplace), the packet driver emulator is ODIPKT, which can be found at
ftp://ftp2.cc.ukans.edu/pub/WWW/DosLynx/support. Download net.cfg,
odipkt.doc and odipkt.com files. And those using NDIS driver (eg. PC-NFS,
BANYAN VINES) the packet driver emulator is DIS-PKT9, which can be found
at ftp://ftp2.cc.ukans.edu/pub/WWW/DosLynx/support/dis_pkt9.zip. DON'T
forget to unload any TCP/IP stack already installed on your system before
running DosLynx.
A collection of packet drivers can be found at Crynwr Software
(http://www.crynwr.com/crynwr/).
If you want to know more about packet drivers and packet driver emulators,
read the FAQ at
ftp://rtfm.mit.edu/pub/usenet-by-group/comp.os.ms-windows.networking.tcp-ip
Installing DosLynx with SLIP/PPP
To setup DosLynx with a SLIP/PPP connection you need a dial-in program
and a SLIP/PPP driver. You can download the dial-in program called kermit
from ftp://ftp2.cc.ukans.edu/pub/WWW/DosLynx/support/kerm311.zip, SLIP
driver called SLIPPER from ftp://ftp2.cc.ukans.edu/pub/WWW/DosLynx
/support/slippr15.zip and PPP driver called etherppp from
ftp://ftp2.cc.ukans.edu/pub/WWW/DosLynx/support/etherppp.zip.
Note: DosLynx works only with etherppp driver for PPP connections.
1. Edit doslynx.cfg file. There are two ways of allocating an IP # to
your computer.
(i) Statically: An IP # is given to your computer when you get a
SLIP/PPP account. This number is fixed, it doesn't change. In
this case set "my_ip" variable in doslynx.cfg file to the
IP # given to you.
(ii) Dynamically: An IP # is allocated to your computer whenever
you dial-in. If your terminal server uses BOOTP server to
allocate IP #s (ask your network provider about this) then
set "my_ip" variable to "BOOTP". If the terminal server is
using any other server than BOOTP, then DosLynx can't grab
the IP # automatically, you need to edit doslynx.cfg file
with the new IP # every time you make a SLIP/PPP connection.
2. Dial-in to the terminal server using the dial-in program.
3. Enter SLIP/PPP mode. How to enter? Well, it depends on your terminal
server. Ask your network provider.
4. Come out of the dial-in program without breaking the connection. In
the case of kermit dial-in program the command to do this is "ALT x"
(press ALT and x keys simultaneosly).
5. Load the SLIP/PPP driver.
6. Now you are ready to use DosLynx.
Configuring DosLynx
Edit the DosLynx v0.8a 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.
/B This option will hide the clock, socket activity, free
free temporary disk space, free heap space, and message window
for the duration of the current DosLynx session. This option
was added to not clutter the screen for blind users as this
causes some problems with screen readers, but makes for an
all around cleaner display for all users if you wish to use /B.
/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.
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
as the arrow keys are reserved for scrolling only.
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. A special case arises when attempting to select an inline
image which also is has a destination; see the Special Notes section.
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 v0.8a release, only the following URL types are
supported:
file
ftp
gopher
http
news
wais
If you notice extremely poor system performace, such as the hard drive
being continually accessed, install a disk cache such as SMARTDRV.
When attempting to select an inline image with a mouse, it may not work
as you expect. Some inline images also have destinations, in which case
you will be taken to that destination. Use the keyboard to specifically
select an inline image which also has a destination.
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; a
filename is now suggested by DosLynx. 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. If you are prompted
to save a file that is already on your hard drive (such as a local
image) do not use the same name in the same directory. This option is
being left in since some users may wish to use DosLynx on a LAN and copy
the selected files to their workstation's hard drive.
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. They can be turned
off with the /B command line option.
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@lark.cc.ukans.edu
New DosLynx Features
The following new features were added in this release of DosLynx:
Inline Images
DosLynx can now download any inline image and
display inline GIFs.
Blind Support
The /B command line option was implemented to
aid blind users using DosLynx with a screen reader.
Mail Developer
The mail developer command now takes much less
time to send the message you enter, and no longer hangs your
computer.
Local GIFs
Local GIFs will now load correctly.
Suggested Filenames
DosLynx will now suggest a
filename when prompting the user to save a file.
Distributing DosLynx
You may distribute DosLynx version 0.8 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. | */
/* +-------------------------------------------------------------------+ */
We are sorry to say that we are unable to support this software due
to lack of funds for this project.
Last Modified: 04-07-96 by Ravi Kolli <doslynx@lark.cc.ukans.edu>