WebExplorer History...

WebExplorer History

The following features were introduced in Version 1.03 of WebExplorer:

Newsgroup manager
Support for centered text
Support for rules
Table support
Background definition
Color support

Need to go further back in time? See Release 1.02 features.

Newsgroup manager

WebExplorer now provides a full-function Newsgroup Manager. This feature allows you to list the USENET newsgroups provided by your news server and to subscribe to your favorite groups. The Newsgroup Manager monitors your subscriptions and reports the number of unread articles since your last session or update. You can add or delete subscriptions at any time.

After selecting a newsgroup from the subscription list, you can load and browse a portion of the articles available or see all articles at once.The Next Thread and Previous Thread navigation options allow you to move forward and backward through the list of posted articles. The Up Thread and Down Thread options allow you to follow a specific conversation thread. Recognized protocols within the text are displayed as links, so you can go directly to them. You also can send a response to a specific article in a newsgroup, as well as post your own articles.

For more information on using Newsgroup Manager, see your help file!

Centered text

<CENTER> centers text on a line. </CENTER> is the closing tag.

New rule attributes

<HR>	SIZE=	Specifies the vertical thickness of a horizontal rule (in pixels).
	WIDTH=	Specifies the page width of a rule. Define an exact number of pixels or a percentage of the page width (for example, 25%, 50%, and so on).
	ALIGN=	Aligns a rule to the left, right, or center.

Table support

Table 1. Table of Table Tags
*(demonstrating caption attribute!)*
<TABLE>		Marks the start of a table. </TABLE> is the closing tag.
	BORDER=	Generates a table border and divides columns and rows with horizontal and vertical rules. Specify the vertical thickness of the border in pixels.
<CAPTION>		Creates a table caption outside of the table. </CAPTION> is the closing tag.
<TH>		Defines a cell in the table heading.
	COLSPAN=	Specifies the number of columns a cell spans.
	ROWSPAN=	Specifies the number of rows a cell spans.
	ALIGN=	Aligns the text in a cell (right, center, or left).
	NOWRAP	Keeps all cell text on one line. Use <BR> tags within the text to force link breaks.
<TR>		Marks the start of a table row (no closing tag).
<TD>		Marks the start of a table cell (table data). </TD> is the closing tag.
	COLSPAN=	Specifies the number of columns a cell spans.
	ROWSPAN=	Specifies the number of rows a cell spans.
	ALIGN=	Aligns the text in a cell (right, center, or left).
	NOWRAP	Keeps all cell text on one line.

Backgrounds

<BODY>
	BACKGROUND=	Points to a .gif image to use for the document background.

Colors

<BODY>
	BGCOLOR=	Specifies the background color of the document, using a six-digit hexadecimal string. The string represents a mixture of red, green, and blue colors. (The first pair of digits represents red, the second pair green, and the third pair blue). A string in the form "#000000" generates a black background. You can view different color mixtures using the Color Palette editor in OS/2 Warp. This tag overrides the default settings in WebExplorer.
	TEXT=	Specifies the color of the document text, using a six-digit hexadecimal string. For example, the string "#CACA03" generates yellow text. This tag overrides the default settings in WebExplorer.
	LINK=	Specifies the color of links in the document, using a six-digit hexadecimal string. For example, the string "#FF0000" displays red document links. This tag overrides the default settings in WebExplorer.
	VLINK=	Specifies the color of visited links in the document, using a six-digit hexadecimal string. This tag overrides the default settings in WebExplorer.

Release 1.02 and back...

Drag and Drop

You can drag and drop URL objects as well as HTML files and images that appear in a document. To drag a URL object, move the cursor onto the document and select the right mouse button. You can drop the object onto a file folder or to the OS/2 Warp desktop. Then, when you want to view the URL again, just drag the object back onto WebExplorer. Create HTML opbjects by pressing down the CTRL key while dragging. To drag and drop an image, just place your cursor over the image you want, press down the right mouse button, and drop it onto the desired location.

Customized Animations

Here's something fun to do. The little animated icon in top right corner can be changed. When you first start up WebExplorer, your icon is a computer and with a grid that moves while a page is being transferred. You will need to have Customized animations checked in the Options pull-down menu. This change is temporary. It will only last as long as WebExplorer is up. When you bring WebExplorer down and start it up again you will have your computer and the grid back.

To start changing your animated icon you will need to create images or grab images from someplace. These images should be 50x50 pixels and in the OS/2 bitmap or GIF format (GIF is better). Typical animations may be four to eight images but we have seen as many as 50 frames used for animation.

Your HTML document should contain the following lines right after the </HEAD> tag. (This is assuming that your bitmaps are in the current directory.)

If you'd like, you can put a different animation on each page that you own and serve. Remember though that this will slow down serving your page.

For an archive of cool animations, visit Austria and the folks that make up Team OS/2.

Fast-Loading Documents

Text and graphics are now displayed as soon as they are received from the network. Placeholders for graphics stream in along the text. The display reformats as the graphics come in to fit within the graphic spaces. If the graphics were created with height and width tags, WebExplorer will automatically display the correct amount of space for them.

By default, WebExplorer will start up with fast load and streaming turned on. To change these settings, select Loading from the Configure menu pull-down.

Mailto Support

Support was added for mailto tags. When selected, a form will come up, which allows you to enter a short message that is then mailed via SMTP to the recipient specified in the mailto tag.

Hierarchical Display of NewsReader Articles

Newsreader articles are displayed as a hierarchical tree of conversations. For example, one person posts an article, then someone replies, then someone replies to them, and so on. This function is available to WebExplorer only when the news server supports it.

News Posting support

The newspost tag is imbedded in the news function. You can post to a newsgroup by selecting the appropriate anchor while viewing articles.

Disable/Enable Proxy and Socks Servers Configuration

If you need to disable your proxy or socks server configuration to communicate to a specific server, you can use check boxes so that you do not have to re-type the name of the proxy or socks server to re-enable it.

Internal Viewer

By default, WebExplorer will show images by using its own internal mechanisms for handling GIF, JPEG, XBM, TIFF, and OS/2 BMP graphics. If you want to use your own program to view images, select Internal Viewer from the Options pull-down to toggle this feature on or off. WebExplorer supports true-color displays--those with 65,000 or 1.67 million colors.

Advanced Viewer Configuration

The list of viewers that can be configured has been increased. If, however, you find that you need to configure a viewing program for file types that are not listed, you can modify the {advanced} stanza of the EXPLORE.INI file to associate a file type with a mime type and to assign a viewing program for the mime type.