Mosaic v2.0alpha5 Release

tmclaren@ncsa.uiuc.edu (Terrence M. McLaren)
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Date: Sat, 18 Jun 1994 00:27:21 +0200
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From: tmclaren@ncsa.uiuc.edu (Terrence M. McLaren)
To: Multiple recipients of list <www-talk@www0.cern.ch>
Subject: Mosaic v2.0alpha5 Release
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We are happy to announce the release of  NCSA Mosaic for Microsoft Windows
Version 2.0alpha5.  NCSA Mosaic is a network navigational tool that will
allow you to easily access networked information with the click of a button.
Mosaic is capable of accessing data via protocols such as HTTP, Gopher, FTP 
and NNTP (Usenet News) natively, and other data services such as Archie, WAIS, 
and Veronica through gateways.  NCSA Mosaic was designed to provide its user 
transparent and seamless access to these information sources and services. 
There are two flavors of Mosaic:

	wmos20a5.zip  -> Win3.1, WWG & NT (iX86 processor)  
	decmosA5.zip  -> NT on the DECpc (alpha processor)

As many of you know, the initial developers on the Mosaic for Microsoft
Windows project have left NCSA to pursue careers in the commercial
world.  Chris Wilson has joined Spry Inc. based in Seattle, Washington,
and Jon Mittelhauser has joined Mosaic Communications Corporation
(MCC) in Mountain View, CA.  We wish Chris and Jon the best in their
commercial endeavors.

In the mean time, NCSA has increased it's level of support for the Mosaic
for MS Windows project by providing the funding to hire three full-time
developers for the MS Windows platform. Among the most recent
additions to the Mosaic team are Briand Sanderson, who has been with
NCSA's HDF group for almost 2 years, Ryan Grant from  the PC Telnet
project, and Darian Woodford from the Windows Telnet project. There are
many planned enhancements for Mosaic in the future, and NCSA is
continuing to look for more excellent programmers for the Mosaic project.
[See the URL: http://www.ncsa.uiuc.edu/General/Jobs/4121.html]

We've spent these last two months getting a new development team together and 
addressing some of the bugs that were introduced in the previous versions of 
Mosaic.  Here's what we've done:

 Bugs Fixed
-----------
   o There were two large memory leaks which occurred whenever an
     inline image was decoded and displayed. These leaks were approx. 
     1,000 bytes each.
   o The document view window was being drawn incorrectly whenever the user was
     at the bottom of a document, and Mosaic was re-sized. 
   o XBM images are now properly read and do not result in an ERROR graphic.
   o XBM images used to require a LARGE amount of time to decode. The
     code was re-written and now .xbm's decode approximately 100 times faster.
   o The Printing bugs; large files, images, bold text, .txt files.
   o Some minor problems with dialog boxes were fixed.
   o The CRASH caused by incorrect HTML, <dt><dd> tags without the <dl> tag,
     was corrected. Mosaic is a little more forgiving, but not much.  ;^)
   o The navigate back should now take you back to the last document viewed. 
     Previously, Mosaic did not update the history when users accessed 
     documents that were cached.
 

 Enhancements
--------------
   o It is now possible to edit the Document URL line directly to enter a URL.
     Enter the URL and Press return will open the edited URL.
   o The Vertical Scroll Bar is currently a permanent fixture on the
     document view window. This eliminates an extra screen redraw which would 
     occur whenever the user went from a short document (less than one screenful) 
     to a long document or vice versa. Ideally we'd like the vertical scroll bar
     to be dynamic without the extra redraws, but this will improve things for now.
   o The buttons on the button bar are now in color.
   o The "FIND" button was redrawn with a more intuitive picture. It used to
     look like a thermometer and may have lead people to believe it was for
     the hotlist.


Version 2.0alpha5 is available through our home page,

	http://www.ncsa.uiuc.edu/SDG/Software/WinMosaic/HomePage.html

or from our anonymous FTP server, "ftp.ncsa.uiuc.edu" (141.142.20.50).  You can find
Mosaic, wmos20a5.zip, in the /PC/Mosaic directory.  You can also find Mosaic on
the anonymous ftp server ftp.cica.indiana.edu in the pub/pc/win3/winsock directory.


We hope you enjoy this latest version,


Terry Mclaren		(Technical Support Lead)
Briand Sanderson	(Acting Lead Developer)
Ryan Grant		(Student Developer) 
Darian Woodford		(Student Developer)

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

			    GENERAL INFORMATION
			    ===================

- NCSA Mosaic for Microsoft Windows is a WinSock client program.  It requires
network (TCP/IP) access through the WinSock DLL interface.  If you are using
Windows NT, this is built in. If you are using Windows 3.1, you need to
obtain a WinSock and install it on your system.  If you are running a
commercial TCP/IP stack, such as FTP Software, Novell, PCNFS, etc., you
will need to obtain that vendors winsock.dll.  If you need a winsock.dll and
you would like to obtain a shareware product called the "Trumpet Software 
International Winsock", you can find the latest version at ftp site, 
ftp.utas.edu.au.  The file winsock.zip is in the pc/trumpet/winsock directory.



- Version 2.0alpha5 is also a 32-bit application and it requires the win32s
software.  Win32s allows you to run 32-bit Windows applications, which do
not use Windows NT-specific features, under Windows 3.1 and Windows for
Workgroups.  Win32s was developed by Microsoft and it is freely distributed
to licensed users of Windows 3.1 or Windows for Workgroups.  This software is 
currently under development at Microsoft and their latest release is version 
1.1.5.  If you don't have it, GET IT.  If you are using an earlier version of 
Win32s, this latest release will improve both the speed and stability of your 
32-bit applications.  We strongly recommend you upgrade to this latest release.  
The Win32s software is freely available to licensed Windows users from the
anonymous ftp.microsoft.com.   You can find the file win32s115.zip in the 
/developer/devtools/win32sdk directory.  For the convenience of our users we 
mirror a copy of this software on our ftp site, ftp.ncsa.uiuc.edu.  However, we 
have added a readme file and we've re-zipped it into a file called win32s.zip.  
You can find win32s.zip in the /PC/Mosaic/ directory of our anonymous ftp server.  

       *******  WIN32S MUST BE INSTALLED BEFORE YOU RUN MOSAIC  *******



- Your comments on NCSA Mosaic are important; user feedback is an
integral part of the Software Development Group's (SDG's) planning
activities.  Bug reports are particularly valuable because SDG's tests
cannot duplicate all user environments and equipment configurations.
Bug reports should include enough information to enable SDG developers 
to reproduce the problem.  Please specify any information given by Mosaic, 
and give us a URL so we can try to reproduce the problem.  However, before 
you send any bug reports, comments, or suggestions, please check our on line 
information to ensure your information has not already been reported.  This 
will be very helpful to us because we are swamped with email.  You can find
on line information about known bugs, enhancement requests, FAQ's, viewers,
etc. from our home page.

    http://www.ncsa.uiuc.edu/SDG/Software/WinMosaic/HomePage.html
                                                                     
If the answer to your question is not included in the above sources of
information, then please email us at mosaic-w@ncsa.uiuc.edu and we will reply 
as quickly as we can.  Please remember we are supporting NCSA Mosaic and we
can not provide information about the location of specific resources on the net.  


Questions/comments/suggestions?  Send'em to mosaic-w@ncsa.uiuc.edu