How local Links are followed and created

Obviously any decent HTML viewer has to follow links, even ones into the local filesystem.

Due to a fault in the First Specification of HTML the file method is also often, mistakenly, used in place of the ftp method for accessing remote ftp sites. For this reason file URL's that do not have a host name of localhost (e.g. file://ftp.demon.co.uk/) are translated into ftp URL's before passing to the Fetchers.

Following Links

Webster is designed to follow links in pages transfered from the Internet onto the Local machine, without having to change any of the links. This causes problems on RISC OS machines as they are limited to 10 character filenames and standard URLs (What links are specified in) are unix format directory and filenames, where many more characters are allowed.

There are two ways to fix this problem on RISC OS...

Get hold of the !LongFiles application by Jason Tribbeck of 7th ARM Systems. (See the Sources file for where to obtain this)
Translate the filenames as Webster does if it can't find the full name.

Local links

Absolute Links in the local filesystem always start with file://localhost/, this is based on the Unix standard. After the file://localhost/ can be one of several things..

A Unix format Path and Filename which will be Translated when it is followed.
A RISC OS System variable name surrounded by %3c and %3e, followed by a partial path and filename. (e.g. file://localhost/%3cWebster$Dir%3e/Help.html Takes you to Webster's !Help file where ever it's located)
A Valid Pseudo Filesystem name, followed by a partial path and filename. (e.g. file://localhost/Webster:!Help.html)

Remember that / is used to separate directory and filenames within links rather than a dot, which is used to indicate where the files type extension starts (usually).