WWW INTRODUCTION January 1995
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PART 17: Customizing WWW
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This is the seventeenth part of a series of postings describing the concept
of the World-Wide Web and guiding anyone who is interested in obtaining and
setting up the software required to access the Web.
WWW browsers come with an address of a document to start with, a so-called
Home Page. Usually, this document does not include pointers to the WWW
sites you are interested in. Accessing information by following the
hyperlinks provided may therefore take some time. A quicker and more
convenient route to the World-Wide Web is to use your own Home Page, a WWW
starting point tailor-made for your special needs. This will speed up data
access as the browser then starts with a local file instead of going out on
the network and lets you work much more efficiently since you can include
pointers to your favorite WWW sites.
Like any WWW document, Home Pages are written in HTML. See the previous
part of this introduction if you don't know what HTML is. The language
elements described therein are sufficient for a simple HTML document. So,
go ahead and create your own Home Page. Specify the title and heading of
the document and include a list of hyperlinks to sites that provide the
information you want to access often. (Some links that might be of interest
for biologists have been provided in part 15 of this series of postings.)
Save your document as "text only", then open it with your WWW browser and
re-edit the source, if required. How to start WWW with your own Home Page
depends on the browser software and operation system installed on your
machine. The following descriptions apply to some of those browsers for
which installation has been described in previous parts of this
introduction:
*Lynx and NCSA Mosaic for X
On UNIX use the shell variable WWW_HOME to specify the URL of your Home
Page. Add a line to the appropriate start-up file:
when running ksh: export WWW_HOME=URL
when running csh: setenv WWW_HOME URL
On VMS use the logical name WWW_HOME to specify the URL of your Home Page.
Add a line to the startup file or to the command file that invokes WWW:
$ define "WWW_HOME" "URL"
*MacWeb
Start MacWeb. Select "Preferences..." from the "File" menu. Replace the URL
of the default Home Page by the URL of your Home Page.
*NCSA Mosaic for the Macintosh
Start Mosaic. Select "Preferences..." from the "Options" menu. Then select
"Misc" and replace the URL of the default Home Page by the URL of your Home
Page.
*NCSA Mosaic for Windows
Quit Mosaic. Open the file "mosaic.ini" in the Windows directory. Replace
the URL of the default Home Page by the URL of your Home Page.
*WinWeb
Quit WinWeb. Open the file "winweb.ini" in the Windows directory. Replace
the URL of the default Home Page by the URL of your Home Page.
The WWW browser can handle only a restricted range of file types, but those
files that cannot be handled internally are processed by so-called external
viewers. The mapping of MIME types and file extensions to external viewers
is configurable. MS-Windows browsers let you specify MIME types and file
extensions in the appropriate "*.ini" file in the Windows directory. Using
Lynx, the settings can be configured in the file "lynx.cfg" . MacWeb users
can configure their browser by selecting the "Helpers..." and "Suffixes..."
options in the "Edit" menu.
Most WWW browser provide various other parameters that can be configured.
To change the default settings of these parameters:
* Lynx: type "o"
* MacWeb: select "Preferences" in the "File" menu.
* MacMosaic: select "Preferences..." in the "Options" menu.
* MS-Windows browsers: edit the "*.ini" file in the Windows directory.
* Mosaic for X: select the "Options" menu.
Go ahead and make changes according to your preferences.
Florian Eggenberger
EMBnet Switzerland
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+------------------------------+--------------------------------+
| F. Eggenberger, Ph.D. | eggenber at comp.bioz.unibas.ch |
| Biocomputing | eggenberger1 at ubaclu.unibas.ch |
| University of Basel | Fax +41 / 61 267 20 78 |
| Switzerland | Tel +41 / 61 267 22 47 |
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