FreeWeb 0.08

It should support the following...

• HTTP fetches directly.
• FTP, GOPHER and WAIS fetches via a proxy.
• POSTing of Forms.
• Authentication. (usernames and passwords for access to protected areas)
• The Extended URL protocol.
• Decoding of HTML and TEXT as they are received. (This requires messages that at the moment are not part of the Standard Fetchers protocol).
• Should work with any other WebBrowser, although I have only tested it with Webster.
• Requests jpeg images rather than gif images if the server has them. These are usually smaller than the equivalent gif.

• It is not guaranteed with anyother TCP/IP stack except FreeNet as this is the only one that has been tested.
• It's fairly simple at the moment, only supporting HTTP fetches, POSTing, Authentication, Fetching everything else via a proxy.
• The current version loads any form data for the POST request into memory. So if you want to send large amounts of data on a form I suggest you ensure there is lots of memory available.
• POSTing of forms has not been tested. It should work though as it's a simple extension of the code that sends the mime headers.

Setting up

The values in the file are as follows.

SUPPORTED

A | (vertical line) separated list of the methods supported (in one way or another) by this fetcher.

QUITWITHBROWSER

A flag with a value of either 0 or 1.

0

means the fetcher will not quit when the Browser does.

1

means it will.

ICONBAR

A flag with a value of either 0 or 1.

0

Don't Create an iconbar icon, You should also set QUITWITHBROWSER to 1.

1

Create an iconbar.

CONNECTIONS

Maximum number of connections supported at one time. Other fetch requests will be queued and acted upon when possible.

HTTP, GOPHER, FTP and WAIS

More flags, this time with three possible values, 0, 1, and 2.

0

means the fetcher will ignore this method.

1

that this fetcher can fetch it directly.

2

that this fetcher knows a proxy that can fetch it. (More on proxies below)

Using the Fetcher

1. Open Webster's Choices window from Webster's iconbar menu.
2. Swich to the Fetchers subsection of the Choices windows
3. Select the HTTP method from the menu.
4. Select the Call Standard Fetcher (Extended URL) option for this method.
5. Click on the Save button.

1. Open Webster's Choices window from Webster's iconbar menu.
2. Swich to the Fetchers subsection of the Choices windows
3. Select the HTTP method from the menu.
4. Select the On Fails, Call Command Delow & ReTry button.
5. In the Text field below put the following text
   <Webster$Fetch>.!freeWeb
6. Click on the Save button.

Proxies

Using a proxy may be faster that going direct as many Proxies also Cache pages and files (This is often their main purpose). Proxies may also allow FTP, WAIS and Gopher connections without requireing a specific fetcher. This is because the data returned from proxies for directories and gopher menus for example, is already in HTML format.

If your Internet provider has a proxy for any protocol (even http), then you should use it, as it should make your fetches faster and it also simplifies the job your machine has to do.