If you have a RiscPC or A7000/RiscStation/Mico class machine, and are not running Termite, a security module will be loaded, allowing access to secure web sites, such as online shopping pages. Both 40 and 128 bit security levels are supported, although you will need a fair bit of RAM (16Mb or more) to make best use of this. There may also be a speed penalty on slower machines.
JavaScript, developed by Netscape, is a programming language similar to C or C++ which can be included within an HTML web page. Designers use JavaScript to implement "interactive" pages, with common uses being to change the appearance of images as you move your mouse pointer over them, or to print useful status information in the status bar when you hover over a link or image.
On a deeper level, JavaScript can be started by changing form gadgets, such as selecting an option from a menu, or can provide triggers for timed events. The variety is endless, with complete pages written in JavaScript!
You can enable JavaScript support from the Script choices window in WebsterXL. As JavaScript is interpreted in real time (try and imagine running a C program without it being compiled first!) and is so complex, you may find it slow on non-StrongArm machines, and we cannot claim the JavaScript interpreter to be "perfect", so if you see messages saying "JavaScript is Stuck in a Loop" just stop the script and continue. As time goes by and new versions appear, the JavaScript interpreter will support increasingly more esoteric scripts.
Developed by Sun, Java is in no way related to JavaScript, although from the names, you would be forgiven for thinking otherwise. Java Applets (as they're known) tend to be more complete "applications" which run in a fixed area of the screen or web page. Imagine an image in the page - a fixed area - but one in which an interactive application or game can run.
The main difference between Java and JavaScript is that Java cannot interact with the web page or browser that triggered it. Java applets are therefore self-contained, whereas JavaScript can affect almost any aspect of the browser or page.
To run Java applets with WebsterXL, you will need Acorn's Java plugin, which comes on their RisCafé CD disc. This is available from all good Acorn dealers. Once this is installed, you need to enable plugin support from the Decoding section of the WebsterXL choices window.
You can now download versions of the various fonts used by many sites (and given as examples above) from Harry Decker's Font Emporium, care of The Iconbar. We strongly recommend making some or all of these fonts available on your system to improve your web viewing experience.
WebsterXL supports the use of the <font face=""> notation for changing font typeface. The browser automatically maps common PC/Mac/Unix fonts to RiscOS equivalents.
For example, if we use <font face="Arial"> we get a sans-serif font like this. Arial is normally mapped to the Homerton Acorn font . </font> OK, we're back to normal now.
Other fonts supported include Courier, Helvetica, Times New Roman, Arial Black, BrushScript MT, Garamond and more.
The font conversion will also map unavailable fonts down to their nearest "standard" RiscOS font. For example, the following MicroSoft fonts may not be available on your machine: Comic Sans MS, Impact, Trebuchet MS or Verdana.
Finally, there are several fonts which, whilst being of a similar nature, may not be identical,
such as:
WingDings <−> Selwyn: WingDings
Symbol <−> Sidney: Symbol
And other Dingbat fonts.
To edit the font mappings, you should open the !WebsterXL.FontMap textfile, and change as necessary. The file format is very simple:
WebsterXL supports the <BGSound> background sound and music playback system, as used by Microsoft Internet Explorer. A special version of !Player is included on the WebsterXL disc which supports WAV sound samples and MIDI music files, and can be triggered by WebsterXL when necessary. Please note that you will need some kind of MIDI Synthesizer (hardware or software) in your machine to hear MIDI files played back.
The Search Web button on the WebsterXL toolbar is a very useful starting point if you need to find information rapidly. It takes you to the Yahoo UK search engine, which we have found to be consistently the most *useful* of the internet search engines, in that it tends to find the pages we want within the first couple of finds at the top of the results list. The search engine will automatically link into the well known AltaVista search engine, too, if it's own searching is found to be deficient!
WebsterXL is tightly integrated with R-Comp's leading HTMLEdit Studio web authoring software, and users of that suite will find WebsterXL the ideal browser for running alongside. Not only will clicking on the "View Source" option on the toolbar or main window menu open the page in HTMLEdit, but as you make changes to your pages in the software, the browser will automatically update them on-screen as you go. The browser will also deal intelligently with frames, updating an individual frame when it changes, so that the look of the page is still retained.