ANT Internet Suite - Chapter 7

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7. World Wide Web: Fresco

THIS chapter describes the World Wide Web and the component of the ANT Internet Suite, Fresco®, which enables you to browse it.

7.1 About the World Wide Web

The World Wide Web is a widely-used feature of the Internet. Computers linked to the Internet (Web sites) hold collections of hypertext pages, each containing links to other page of related information on other servers. Pages can contain text and graphics, links to other pages, and also links to other Internet facilities including email addresses, newsgroups and FTP sites.

Who is on the Web?

There are sites for all kinds of places, institutions, organisations and companies across the Web.

As with email, a printed Web directory book or magazine will contain the addresses of some sites to try out, but exploring for yourself is a good way to find new sites. There are other sources of Web addresses:

How the Web works

When you click on a link, the address it contains (known as a uniform resource locator or URL) is triggered, and your computer connects to the requested address and downloads the page, including text and graphics, from the web server at that address.

Moving from page to page, and site to site, in this way is called browsing and so programs like Fresco are known as Web browsers.

You can also access other Internet facilities such as mail, FTP and Gopher searches using Fresco.

7.2 Browsing with Fresco

To start up Fresco, double-click on the Web icon in the Internet panel, then click Select on the Fresco icon on the icon bar.

All work with Fresco takes place inside the Fresco window, which displays Web pages and includes buttons and other controls. The first time you start Fresco, it loads a welcome page from the disc, including a link to the ANT web site. Follow this link and you will be able to register your software online.


The Fresco window

Jumping from link to link

Links are usually shown as different coloured, or underlined, text. Graphics can also be links: if a graphic is a link it may have a border the same colour as the colour used for text links, and you will see an address at the bottom of the window when you point to it.

To jump to the page shown by a link:

1 Point to the link text or graphic.

The URL contained in the link will appear at the bottom of the Fresco window, for example:

Link to http://www.riscos.com/

The pointer will change shape to a pointing hand whenever the it is over any clickable objects such as links on a page.

2 Click on the link text or graphic in the Fresco window.

Fresco will attempt to contact that computer and retrieve and display the page.

3 The globe icon will revolve and a series of messages will appear at the bottom of the window:

Connecting to remote host

Waiting for response from remote host

Receiving data from the remote host

Image fetching complete

4 As these messages appear, the page will be displayed. You can usually monitor progress by checking how many bytes have been downloaded and how large the page is in total.

Returning to pages viewed in a session

As you move from page to page, Fresco stores details of the pages accessed in a History list. You can use this to:

Adjust-click the Back button to return to the first page you displayed in the window.

You can set the home page, the page loaded when you first click on the Fresco icon, in the Files dialogue box accessed from the Choices menu.

Abandoning a fetch

If it seems that a page has stopped fetching, or there is no progress, or a page is larger than you expected and you don't want to wait for it to download, you can stop a fetch.

To stop a page from being fetched:

  1. Click on the revolving globe icon.
  2. If the new page has started to be fetched, click the Back button to go back to the previous page, or the Home button to return to your home page.

Opening a named location

You may want to move directly to a particular web page, rather than simply browsing through the web. To do this:

1 Place the caret in the URL line and press Ctrl-U to clear its contents.

2 Type in the URL you want to open, for example:

http://www.riscos.com/

You can use shortcuts to enter some of the address:

3 Press Return. Fresco will attempt to load the page.

Reloading a page

Sometimes a page may fail to load, or the transfer become interrupted. If activity appears to have stalled it is worth clicking the Reload button to start loading the page again.

Reload is also useful to fetch a fresh version of a page which is stored in your cache, for example a news service which is regularly updated

To reload the page you are looking at:

Accessing authenticated sites

Some Web pages require you to create and enter a user ID and password in order to access them. If you return to such a site, a dialogue will be displayed:

Fresco can remember and store these IDs and passwords for you, if you wish.

Viewing images

Most Web pages contain images in a variety of formats. Fresco includes the software needed to display images in most formats in common use, including GIF, JPEG and PNG. Some images are stored in special `progressive' formats so that they can be displayed as they are being loaded: Fresco supports these versions too.

Displaying images can be slow if you have a slow Internet connection. You can choose not to display all images automatically (see Setting display options on page 20-144).

To find out more about any image you see on a web site, such as what format the original file was, and its size:

  1. Point to the image and click Menu.
  2. Slide off the Image option in the Fresco menu to display the Image menu.
  3. Choose Info from the Image menu.
  4. An information box describing the image will be displayed:
  5. Click anywhere outside the box to close it.

Searching text within a page

Fresco contains a search facility which enables you to search for text within the page you are currently displaying. This is particularly useful for searching long documents such as FAQs and gopher pages.

To search for text:

  1. Choose Find- from the Page menu or press F4.
  2. The Text search dialogue box will be displayed:
  3. Enter the search term.
  4. Tick Case sensitive to find only occurrences of the term which match the case in which you entered it.
  5. Tick Reverse direction to search backwards through the document.
  6. Click Search to search the document.
  7. Fresco will scroll the display so that the next occurrence of the search term is at the top line of the browser display.

7.3 Accessing favourite sites

You can use the Hotlist facility to access favourite sites.

There will be many sites you want to visit often. You can create a hotlist of these sites so that you can load their URL by clicking on their entry in the list.

To add a site to the hotlist:

  1. Load the page you want.
  2. Click Select on the Add to hotlist button.
  3. The page will be added to your favourites list.

To view the hotlist:

To go to a page in the hotlist:

  1. Click Select on the Hotlist button.
  2. Point to the link for the page you want and click Select.

You can also access pages directly from the !Hotlist utility. Click on the entry in the Hotlist and the pages will be loaded by Fresco. See Using Hotlist  for details.

7.4 Controlling access to sites

If you are using Fresco in a school setting or at home you may wish to restrict access to some sites, or only to allow access to certain authorised sites.

Fresco contains some access control features which enable you to allow or deny access to named sites. If a user attempts to access a URL which is not permitted, a warning message will tell them that they may not access that site.

This feature works by embedding a list of authorised or banned sites in Fresco's config file.

Editing the config file

To set up your list:

  1. Run Fresco as normal and choose Choices from the icon bar menu, then Save in the dialogue box. This ensures that Fresco generates a config file.
  2. Open the Apps directory contained in the Internet suite directory.
  3. Shift-click !Fresco. You will see the config text file in the directory which opens.
  4. Open the config file using any text editor.

You are now ready to add the names of sites to include or exclude to the config file.

Allowing access to named sites

This is the more powerful of the two options though it will severely limit Fresco's capacity for browsing. Only those sites specifically named in Fresco's config file may be accessed. Attempts to access any other URL will be denied.

To set up the file:

  1. Open a new document using a text editor.
  2. Enter the names of the sites you want to allow access to. Put each name on a new line and leave out the initial http://, for example:
    www.sitename.co.uk
    web.newsite.org
    web15.bigsite.com
  3. Save the file in the required location: a read-only partition is recommended.

To add the file to the Configuration details:

  1. Scroll down the config file to the section which begins
    # Hotlist file
  2. A few lines further down are the lines:
    # If given, only allow access to sites listed in this file.
    files.allow:
  3. Enter the path and name of the file listing allowed sites. If you store the file in the !Fresco directory you should enter:
    <Fresco$Dir>.filename
    but if you are storing the file outside the Fresco directory you should enter its full pathname.
  4. Pressing F3 or choose Save from the menu and OK from the Save dialog. It is recommended that you keep the config file and Fresco on a read-only partition to make the best use of this feature.

The next time you restart Fresco only the nominated sites will be accessible to users.

Denying access to named sites

This is the less powerful of the two options. Access will only be denied to those sites specifically named in Fresco's config file. Attempts to access any other URL will be allowed.

To set up the file:

  1. Open a new document using a text editor.
  2. Enter the names of the sites to which you want to deny access. Put each name on a new line and leave out the initial http://, for example:
    www.sitename.co.uk
    web.newsite.org
    web15.bigsite.com
  3. Save the file in the required location: a read-only partition is recommended.

To add the file to the Configuration details:

  1. 1 Scroll down the config file to the section which begins
    # Hotlist file
  2. A few lines further down are the lines:
    # If given, don't allow access to sites listed in this file.
    files.deny:
  3. Enter the path and name of the file listing denied sites. If you store the file in the !Fresco directory you should enter:
    <Fresco$Dir>.filename
    but if you are storing the file outside the Fresco directory you should enter its full pathname.
  4. Pressing F3 or choose Save from the menu and OK from the Save dialog. It is recommended that you keep the config file and Fresco on a read-only partition to make the best use of this feature.

The next time you restart Fresco only the nominated sites will be accessible to users.

7.5 Exporting information from Fresco

You can export information from Fresco in a variety of formats by saving pages as files. You can also save images separately from the pages on which they are stored.

Note that because Web pages have many possible components it is not always possible to save everything.

Saving pages

You can save a copy of the page, either their text contents or their HTML source, on your computer.

You can save pages in four formats:

To save a page:

To save in other formats you will need to:

  1. Click Menu inside the Fresco window.
  2. Display the Save as menu.
  3. Choose the file format you want and slide the pointer to the right to display the Save as dialogue box. You will see that the appropriate file icon is used:
  4. Type in a name for the file.
  5. Drag the file icon to a suitable filer window.

Saving images

You may save images from Web pages either in their original formats or converted into sprites.

To save an image:

  1. Point to the image and click Menu.
  2. Slide off the Image option in the Fresco menu to display the Image menu.
  3. To save the image in the original format, choose Save original from the Image menu. The image's original name is displayed in the Save dialogue:
    To save the image as a sprite, choose Save sprite from the Image menu. A sprite icon will be shown in the Save dialogue which appears:
  4. Drag the file icon to a directory to save it.

7.6 Printing pages

You can print pages directly from Fresco. Printing a page preserves the formatting and graphics.

To print a page:

  1. Make sure your printer is ready, its driver loaded and the page you want is loaded.
  2. Click the Print button or choose Print from the Misc menu.
  3. The Print dialogue box will be displayed:
     Enter the number of copies you want.
     Enter the size you want as a percentage of the true size.
     Click the Upright or Sideways button to set the orientation of the pages.
  4. For further printing options, click Setup. This displays additional options for customising the printout. The settings displayed here by default are those set in the Printer Choices dialogue box.
  5. Select the printing options you required and click Print.
  6. The page will be printed. If it contains a lot of graphics this will take some time.

7.7 Customising your Fresco setup

There are several ways you can customise Fresco to suit your requirements, changing the colours used, the parts of the window displayed, the fonts used, and so forth. You can also change the way Fresco operates by setting up disc caches to store pages locally, or using a proxy server to fetch pages for you.

You can change the configuration options permanently, or just for the current session. So, for example, if you have proxy servers set, you can turn them off for a session but revert to your original settings next time you load the software.

Working with Fresco configuration

To change Fresco configurations on a temporary or permanent basis:

  1. Click menu on the Fresco icon bar menu.
  2. Choose Choices.
  3. The Fresco configuration panel will open:
  4. Click the options you need and alter settings, then click Set in each subsidiary dialogue box.
  5. Click Save in the main Fresco configuration panel to change your settings permanently.

Click OK to make a temporary change which will remain in force for this session only.

Click Reload to reload the original settings.

Setting display options

You can change the way Fresco displays pages using the Display choices dialogue from the Choices option on the icon bar. This changes your default settings for the display of pages and the images they contain.

The Use more colours option enables Fresco to display JPEG and other image formats in greater colour depths (that is, at 16 or 24-bits per pixel), but requires more memory. You should only choose this option if you have a fast computer with plenty of memory and which is capable of displaying 16-bit colour images.

To set your default display choices:

1 Choose Choices... from the Fresco icon menu.

2 Click Display options.

The Display options dialogue will be displayed:

3 Tick the boxes for the default settings you want in the Display options section:

It is recommended that you leave these options switched on.

4 Tick the box to Use more colours to use 16-bit colour for image display where appropriate.

5 Tick Automatically fetch images to download images on a page automatically.

6 Enter the maximum number of image fetches to allow at once.

7 Click Set to save your options.

Fonts

You can choose which fonts you use to display the text on Web pages. You can choose two fonts, the standard font used for most text and headings, and a fixed width (typewriter style) font used by some paragraph and character tags. You can also set the font sizes used to display text.

  1. Click the Fonts option in the Fresco configuration dialogue.
  2. The Font choices dialogue box will open:
  3. Click the button to the right of each entry to display a list of available fonts, and choose the font you want for each option.
  4. Enter the sizes you want to be used for text display.
    Size 3 is the standard size used for text display.
    Sizes 5, 6 and 7 are used for heading display.
    To change all sizes at one click the up or down arrows to Change all. This changes sizes 1-4 by one point and sizes 5-7 by two points.
  5. Click Set to confirm your choices and close the dialogue.

Colours

You can set the colours used to display each part of web pages, including colours for text, links and page backgrounds, and for rules and parts of forms.

  1. Click the Colours option in the Fresco configuration dialogue.
  2. The Colour choices dialogue box will open:
  3. Click on the colour button for any colour you wish to change. A colour picker dialogue will open:
  4. Select the colour you want from this dialogue, then click OK. You will return to the Colour choices dialogue.
  5. Do this for each option in the Colour choices dialogue that you wish to change.

    6. When you have set all the colours you want, click Set to return to the Fresco configuration panel.

Files and cache

You can choose any page you like to act as your home page, the page which is displayed when you load Fresco, by entering its URL as your Welcome page.

You can also choose:

The Cache size options limits the amount of hard disc space used by Fresco. Fresco stores copies of web pages you access on your hard disc, and caches them so that next time in a session you look at them it can fetch them from your disc rather than their original site.

To set file and cache options:

  1. Choose Files and Cache from the Fresco Choices dialogue.
  2. The Files and cache dialogue box will be displayed:
  3. Enter the URL of your chosen Welcome page, files you want to be your Hotlist file and Passwords file, or drag their icons into the relevant part of the box.
  4. Choose the Store passwords scrambled option to scramble passwords if required: note that this is not a secure form of encryption.
  5. Enter the maximum size (in kilobytes) of disc space you want to allow Fresco to use. If you specify 0, Fresco will use unlimited disc space.
  6. Enter the maximum number of cache files you want Fresco to store.
  7. Tick the box to Keep cached files on exit. This will permit Fresco to use cached pages and images in subsequent sessions rather than fetching them again.
  8. Click Set to return to the main Fresco configuration panel.

Printing options

You can choose several options to customise the way Web pages are printed.

  1. Choose Printing setup from the Fresco Choices dialogue box:
  2. Tick Print images to include any graphics when printing.
  3. Tick Print background to include background images.
  4. Tick Use colours to print all text in the colour used in the page rather than black.
  5. Tick Underline links to underline links when printed.
  6. Tick Collate pages to collate multiple copies of the printed document.
  7. Tick Reverse page order to print the pages last page first.
  8. Enter a percentage scale value to increase or decrease the size of the pages printed.
  9. Click Set to return to the main Fresco configuration panel.

Proxy options

Proxies tells Fresco to use copies of pages stored on servers close to you, and to use the requested servers to fetch pages for you. The advantages of doing this are that the server may already have a copy of the requested page in its cache, and be able to deliver it to you directly, and that the server may be able to access a higher bandwidth route to distant servers and thus fetch the page more quickly.

You can set proxy options separately for HTTP, FTP and Gopher fetches, and turn proxying on and off. You can also exclude certain domains from proxy service, if you know that you can fetch them more efficiently than your chosen proxy server can, such as your pages in own local domain.

For details of suitable proxy servers for you to use, and domains to exclude, contact Technical Support at your service provider.

To set proxy options:

  1. Choose Proxies from the Fresco Choices dialogue box.
  2. The Proxy Choices dialogue box will be displayed:
  3. Tick the boxes for each type of service you wish to use a proxy server for.
  4. Enter the address of the proxy server you wish to use, including the port number if required, in the format:
    server.company.co.uk:portnumber
  5. Enter any domains you wish to exclude from proxy service, separated by commas, for example:
    riscos.com, demon.net
  6. Turn off proxying for any type of service by clicking in the tick box.
  7. Click Set to return to the main Fresco configuration panel.

7.8 Changing settings for a single session

Display settings

You can also change the way Fresco works for the duration of a session using the Display menu. Click Menu inside the Fresco window and choose Display:

7.9 Mail from Fresco

You can send mail directly from Fresco. Many pages contain mailto URLs, which contain email addresses. For example, the manager of a Web site may invite your comments and include a mailto address for you to write to.

If you see a mailto URL link and want to send a message:

  1. Click on the link just like any other link.
  2. A Marcel window will appear with the address you clicked on entered in the To: line.
  3. Enter a subject and any other recipients.
  4. Click Editor to get an editing window and write your message.
  5. When you have finished editing, save your edited text and then click Send. The mail message will be added to your out-going mail.

7.10 FTP from Fresco

Web pages can contain links to FTP sites. You can recognise them by their FTP URLs, in the form:

ftp://ftp.demon.net/pub

Downloading files

To download an FTP file:

  1. Click on an FTP link.
  2. You may be taken to a web page showing the directory structure as pages and files of the FTP site as links, or the file may simply start downloading:
  3. Navigate to the directory and file which you want, and click on the link for the file you want.
  4. The requested file will be downloaded. When it has finished downloading, a file icon will be displayed.
  5. Drag the file icon to a directory window to save it.

Entering account names and passwords

If you are downloading files from systems where you have an account or where there is no public access, you will need to enter an account name and password in order to be able to download any files.

Where this is the case, Fresco will display a dialogue for you to enter the required information before you download the file.

7.11 Gopher from Fresco

You can perform gopher searches direct from Fresco.

What is Gopher?

Gopher is in some ways a predecessor of the Web. It is an index of documents stored on special servers called Gopher servers which can be accessed via the Internet. You can search using keywords or by burrowing through the hierarchy of directories in which the documents are stored.

Using Gopher

Gopher capability is built into Fresco. To access a Gopher site, you simply click on a link. You can recognise Gopher links because they take the form:

gopher://gopher.micro.umn.edu:70/1

Once you reach a gopher site, you can either:

7.12 Troubleshooting/hints and tips

While the World Wide Web is one of the easiest ways to use the Internet, you may occasionally encounter problems accessing a particular page. This section lists some problems and suggests solutions. 

A link didn't work or took me to the wrong place

Sometimes links are entered incorrectly by the authors of the web page, so you don't get the results expected. Link addresses may change without the page containing them being updated, so that the link is broken.

I know I've got the address right, but I can't access the page

The server holding the page may be busy, or off-line. Try again later, trying to avoid the peak times for that server, especially busy US sites.

Some servers do go off-line at night. Try again at a different time, after a week day.

It's very slow fetching pages

There are several reasons why pages fetch slowly. Some solutions are:

Fresco didn't fetch all the graphics

Sometimes part of a file, such as a graphics file, may fail to load, or load incorrectly. To solve this, click the Reload button. The page will be fetched again from the Server (not reloaded from the cache).

What does the error message `No data could be fetched for this URL' mean?

Any of the following:

Test your connection by trying other sites.

Some pictures do not display properly or are only partially displayed.

When trying to access a URL, I get the message `404 File not found'.

The server exists but the file which you requested is not valid. This could be because the file was moved somewhere else, was removed or that you entered the URL incorrectly.

When trying to access a URL, I get a message saying that this page can only be viewed with Netscape x.xx or higher.

The author of the web page(s) assumes that only Netscape can be used to view these pages. There is nothing you can do about this other than to complain to the site's web master. As more web browsers are made available this is likely to occur less and less. The faking facilities available as part of the ANTUtils may resolve these type of problems.

Pictures are not saved when I save a page as HTML.

An HTML document only contains links to images rather than the images themselves. The images are always separate files which are stored on the server. Saving the page as a Draw file will save both text and images as a single file: see 7.5 Exporting information from Fresco.

`Transport for this URL is not supported'. What does this mean?

Fresco can handle various types of transport such as http://, ftp://, gopher:// etc.. If an attempt is made to visit a URL which has a transport type that is not supported by Fresco, this error will be generated e.g. https:// which is the secure http protocol.

How can I prevent children from accessing unsuitable sites?

Fresco lets you restrict the Web sites that can be accessed. See section 7.4, Controlling access to sites.

`The access control list denies access to the requested site.' What does this mean?

See section 7.4, Controlling access to sites.

How do I reset my configuration?

If your configuration options become corrupted or damaged or you simply want to return to the defaults, delete the file !Fresco.Config. Next time you run Fresco a new file will be created if you choose Save from the Choices dialogue box.

Some pages look different when viewed with other Web browsers.

A lot of the HTML specification is left open to interpretation by web browser authors, this usually accounts for slightly different appearances of web pages when viewed with different browsers.

In some cases, the HTML itself may be badly written but happens to look okay on the browser used by the page author.

When I try to download a file from a Web site, the page is filled with garbage and no save window appears when the transfer is complete.

This happens because the server is not telling Fresco that the file is a binary/archive and not a HTML page. Try clicking once on the Reload button.

If Fresco thinks that it is an HTML page, it will try to display it. The file can still be saved in the normal fashion by clicking on the disc icon but you must ensure that you set the filetype correctly when it is saved. In most cases, this will be an Archive file.

Sometimes when I download a file from a web site, the Save window appears but the disappears. Does this mean that I have to start the download again?

If this happens, simply click on the link again, the file will be held on disc and will not need to be transferred from the server again.

When I click on a link to a movie, sound file or PDF, Fresco opens a save window. Why is this?

Fresco cannot deal directly with these files. Instead, you must save the file to disc and then give it to an appropriate application.