Re: WWW summaries

[LaVonna Funkhouser <lffunkhouser -at- HALNET -dot- COM>]

summary 1

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From: ddriskel%cs -dot- utexas -dot- edu -at- internet (Dianne Driskell)
Date: Wed, 6 Jul 1994 13:46:19 -0500
X-Mailer: Mail User's Shell (7.2.5 10/14/92)
To: LaVonna Funkhouser <hsll05>
Subject: Re: How do You use the WWW?

I currently use it to distribute copies of our annual report and newsletters.
Also as a pathway to get to our technical reports which are in postscript, our
academic bulletins and blurbs on student organizations in the department.

Dianne Driskell
Publications
Dept. of CS
The University of Texas at Austin
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Date: Wed, 6 Jul 94 15:36:05 -0400
From: balbes%osiris -dot- rti -dot- org -at- internet (Lisa Balbes)
Message-Id: <9407061936 -dot- AA18268 -at- osiris -dot- rti -dot- org>
To: hsll05
Subject: www

I use www as a way to easily search the internet for useful
information.  For instance, I recently needed the IRS's 20
questions, and was able to find an entire legal library on-line.
There are so many lists of useful places to start,
it's easy to quickly get to what you want.  And much
faster than searching FAQs!

Both DEC and Silicon graphics have web sites, with
help information and sales info.  There is a geat
article in the latest Internet World about this.

Also, O'Reilly Publishers has GNN, a web navigator
packed with interesting info and paid for by
advertising from other companies.  You might check that
out for ideas.

Lisa

PS  And yes, I also get source code for my web viewer
from the web.
==================================================
From: Glen Accardo <glen%softint -dot- com -at- internet>
Message-Id: <199407061941 -dot- OAA23882 -at- mars -dot- softint -dot- com>
Subject: Re: How do You use the WWW?
To: hsll05
Date: Wed, 6 Jul 94 14:41:39 CDT
Cc: TECHWR-L%VM1 -dot- ucc -dot- okstate -dot- edu -at- internet (techwr)

> So, if you currently make use of WWW, please briefly state
> the way you use it and why you find it beneficial (if you do).

We considered using WWW as a help viewer.  Since it is available on pretty
much every platform, has nice hypertext facilities, graphics, etc., it
would do fairly well.  Since you also have the option of having your
distributed help file link to a WWW server at your home site, you could
use WWW to do lots of neat stuff like automatic updates, etc.

Despite the advantages of such a model for distributing updates and such,
we chose not to use WWW as part of our product.  Primarily, Windows people
want help that looks like Windows help, Mac people want MacHelp stuff,
X people like HyperHelp, etc.  That is, native help platforms seem
to "look better" to people who use only a single platform.

Also note that WWW viewers (to my knowledge) are not commercial products.
If you include a WWW viewer as part of your product, YOU inherit all its
bugs and short comings.

glen accardo                         glen -at- softint -dot- com
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Date:         Wed, 6 Jul 1994 13:28:46 +0800
From: Laura Lemay <lemay%DEATH -dot- KALEIDA -dot- COM -at- internet>

And about the WWW question:

I've been looking into WWW (World Wide Web) and its various browsers,
just for fun, and come up with the following thoughts:


- Distributing documents over the net makes updates trivial; update the
  file, and its done.  The next time your customers view the document,
  they get the update.

- Distributing documents over the net, however, also means that you have
  no control over someone copying your docs, modifying them, and distributing
  them elsewhere.

- WWW documents can be viewed cross-platform -- Mac, Windows, X, at least.
  There are also text-only versions for people without direct net connections,
  and rumored ports of browsers to the Amiga and NeXT.

- Although WWW documents can be stored and viewed in a non-net way, say,
  on CD, the Mosaic application cannot be licensed for distribution.
  The app itself is free and you can tell your customers where to get
  it, but you cannot distribute it yourself.  This may have changed in
  recent months -- please let me know if you know otherwise.  This little
  catch makes Mosaic less than useful for distributong online help than,
  say, MS Windows Help.

- HTML, the language WWW documents are written in, is a markup
  language and is difficult to author by people who are used to WYSIWYG
  tools.  There are conversion programs from various packages (WP, MS Word,
  FrameMaker), but in order to take advantage of HTML properly you cannot
  be afraid of doing a little programming.

- HTML, as a markup language, is quite limited.  You are restricted in
  layout, design, and document structure.  You have one font (with
  bold and italic variations), and few to no special symbols.  Multimedia
  capabilities (graphics, sound, movies) are available, but formats are
  limited (I'm not as familiar with this as I'd like to be).


Personally, I find WWW incredibly cool and fun to work with for my
personal documents and amusement.  I'm not convinced it will work as a
distribution medium for online documentation without more freedom
of structure and more control over document contents.

Hope this helps; I'm also interested in other people's experiences with
WWW and HTML, so please do post to the list.

Laura
netweenie
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Date:         Wed, 6 Jul 1994 16:02:37 CDT
From: Glen Accardo <glen%softint -dot- com -at- internet>

>   The app itself is free and you can tell your customers where to get
>   it, but you cannot distribute it yourself.  This may have changed in
>   recent months -- please let me know if you know otherwise.  This little
>   catch makes Mosaic less than useful for distributong online help than,
>   say, MS Windows Help.

Last I looked (and I only looked at an X viewer), it was free, but you could
distribute it if you payed some money, signed some papers, made some promises,
etc.  It was all very vague, but sounded as if it could be done.  Of course,
I was looking at distributing a version compiled and linked with our
application, so your mileage may vary.

------------
glen accardo                         glen -at- softint -dot- com
=========================================================
Date:         Wed, 6 Jul 1994 16:45:48 EDT
From: Kelly Hoffman <kelly%nashua -dot- hp -dot- com -at- internet>

Laura Lemay <lemay -at- DEATH -dot- KALEIDA -dot- COM> writes:

> - Although WWW documents can be stored and viewed in a non-net way, say,
>   on CD, the Mosaic application cannot be licensed for distribution.

This is no longer the case (if it ever was).

DEC (aka Digital :-), for example, has announced that they will be
shipping Mosaic with every system they sell (VMS, OSF/1, or Windows/
Windows NT).  I believe they have licensed the product through a
third-party commercial concern (Spry?) that NCSA has, in turn,
cut a deal with to handle this sort of stuff.

Regards,

Kelly K. Hoffman                             kelly -at- nashua -dot- hp -dot- com
===================================================================

Date:         Wed, 6 Jul 1994 20:55:49 -0400
From: Linda Stewart <BLONDBOMB%DELPHI -dot- COM -at- internet>
Subject:      How do You us the WWW?

On July 6, 1994, LaVonna Funkhouser wrote:
> So, if you currently make use of WWW, please briefly state
> the way you use it and why you find it beneficial (if you do).

I work with the Instrument Approach Procedures Automation team
at the FAA in OKC.  We are presently converting all hardcopy
documentation to online hypertext using HTML and Mosaic on an SGI
Indigo2 network.  We also converted all our local man pages to
HTML and wrote a script that converts all the SGI man pages to
HTML on the fly to display in Mosaic.  These are easily accessible
from the customizable documents pull-down menu in Mosaic.

All our in-house developer and procedural documents are now written
and maintained in HTML as well as all help files and tutorials
accessible from newly developed applications.

Future plans include converting the TERPS (Terminal Procedures) .19,
and .32 manual into HTML.  These manuals are used by airport
procedure specialists all over the world.

In April, Robert Cailliau from CERN (HTML's birthplace) came to
the FAA to speak.  Well over 10 major divisions were represented
in that meeting and subsequent follow-up meetings ensued with
plans to use this technology in other groups.  It's easy to
maintain, provides great flexibility for the user and for us, the
price was right.  We will have approximately 128 users on this
system when complete.

>Also note that WWW viewers (to my knowledge) are not commercial
>products. If you include a WWW viewer as part of your product,
>YOU inherit all its bugs and short comings.

NCSA licensed Mosaic to a private company who will soon produce
a commercial product.  I know of several other commercial products
who support SGML that are adapting for the HTML DTD.

>- Distributing documents over the net makes updates trivial; update the
>  file, and its done.  The next time your customer views the document,
>  the get the update.

Absolutely.

>- Distributing documents over the net, however, also means that you
>have no control over someone copying your docs, modifying them, and
>distributing them elsewhere.

True.  There are security measures, however.  You must decide what
you want to *give* the world.

>  and rumored ports of browsers to the Amiga and NeXT.

I'm not sure about Amiga, but the original HTML browser and WYSIWYG
editor was on the NeXT.

>but in order to take advantage of HTML
>properly you cannot be afraid of doing a little programming.

The markup is not difficult at all.  I am working with the UNIX
version of WordPerfect 5.0 (I know, gag me, too...) but I've written
a series of macros that operate like any other attributes.  I've
marked up 16 chapters this month by hand using no conversions.

>- HTML, as a markup language, is quite limited.  You are restricted in
>  layout, design, and document structure.  You have one font (with
>  bold and italic variations), and few to no special symbols.

Special symbols are limited to "keep it simple" for the line mode
browsers.  As for fonts, the browser determines how the tags are
parsed.

>  Multimedia capabilities (graphics, sound, movies) are available, but
>formats are limited (I'm not as familiar with this as I'd like to be).

They are limited only to what will run on your platform.  You simply
tell the browser what application to invoke when it encounters
specified extensions.

>I'm not convinced it will work as a
>distribution medium for online documentation without more freedom
>of structure and more control over document contents.

That's the beauty of it.  The *USER* gets to determine how they
want your document to look.  HTML, like SGML is logical markup.
Granted, the logical entities are limited, but I wrote a documentation
style guide to promote consistency which will give us the power to
effectively use search engines to automate indexing.

>DEC (aka Digital :-), for example, has announced that they will be
>shipping Mosaic with every system they sell (VMS, OSF/1, or Windows/
>Windows NT).
The public domain version of Mosaic is available for free distribution.

Linda Stewart
blondbomb -at- delphi -dot- com
============================================================
Date:         Thu, 7 Jul 1994 05:43:59 GMT
From: Jonathan Lavigne <jpl%LYRA -dot- STANFORD -dot- EDU -at- internet>
Subject:      Re: How do You use the WWW?

LaVonna Funkhouser <lffunkhouser -at- halnet -dot- com> writes:

>So, if you currently make use of WWW, please briefly state
>the way you use it and why you find it beneficial (if you do).

Right now, we're using the Web mostly for descriptions of our products and
for other kind of things that are usually read just once, rather than
referred to again and again. For an Internet application I'm working on now,
I'm also looking to put up something akin to the Microsoft "knowledgebases"
you find on CompuServe and in stand-alone help files -- a database of
specific questions and answers that might be too detailed, or
hardware-specific, or otherwise ephemeral to go into printed docs or even help
files that are distributed with a product. I think the Web is great for that
kind of publication. I'm less sure that's it viable at the moment for
documentation that people need to refer to frequently. I would think users
would have an easier time using a Windows help file, for example, than trying
to depend on Mosaic for Windows over an uncertain network connection.

Incidentally, I set up several different kinds of search interfaces to our
Web pages and gathered a few informal notes (including hypertext links of
course) about the sources I used. The notes are not as complete as I'd like,
especially on security issues, which I'm told can be a problem, but some of
you might find them a useful starting point if you're running the NCSA server
(or maybe CERN's too) and want to give search access to your Web pages. The
URL is http://www-rlg.stanford.edu/home/jpl/websearch.html.

Jonathan Lavigne                                BL -dot- JPL -at- RLG -dot- STANFORD -dot- EDU
Research Libraries Group/Stanford University
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Date: Thu, 7 Jul 1994 08:36:59 -0600
To: hsll05
From: dcamp%cs -dot- rice -dot- edu -at- internet (Debbie Campbell)
Subject: We <little heart goes here> World Wide Web!

The Good News
The Web is great! From anywhere in the world, your customers can read,
download, or print any document, graphic, audio, or video that you choose
to make available. That is, you can control who sees what. Also, Web pages
are incredibly easy to create.

In my area, when we have a new employee, we just point them at our internal
Web pages, which they can peruse at their leisure. So, we use the Web as
central repository for both internal and external information.

The Bad News
Your customers must have the technology to access all this wonderful stuff.

Hope it helps,

Debbie

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