Jump to SlipKnot WEB features

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SlipKnot Terminal features

  1. Getting and sending files. You can upload or download files to/from your UNIX service provider using the commands in the Communications menu.
  2. telnet, gopher, mailto are services sometimes referred to in World Wide Web documents. While SlipKnot WEB does not (currently) support these services, you can perform any of these operations at any time through SlipKnot Terminal using your host's services.

SlipKnot WEB features

  1. Background document retrieval allows you to look at other documents while SlipKnot communicates.
  2. Save your documents in folders. SlipKnot is the only WWW browser (at this time) that allows you to save entire documents (including embedded graphics) for later viewing. Create your own named folders (press the Documents/Folders menu item or the Folder icon), and save any document by selecting the File/Save menu item in the document's window.
  3. Bookmarks allow you to save just the addresses of documents you have retrieved, and then retrieve them again when desired.
  4. Comments: whenever you save a document or a bookmark to a document, SlipKnot will prompt you to save a comment along with it, so that you can selected the document by browsing through your own commentary.
  5. Print your documents from the File/Print menu item in the document window.
  6. The "Retrieve embedded graphics?" option (under the Configure menu), tells SlipKnot whether or not to get the pictures inside your documents. Turning this option off often significantly speeds up retrieval because the embedded pictures are not retrieved. Hint: if you are doing quick browsing, turn this option off. Then if there is a document whose pictures you want to get, turn the option on, and then press the "Retrieve again!" menu item in the document window.
  7. Queueing up retrieval jobs. You don't have to wait for a document to come in before requesting another. Your requests are queued, and when one has been satisfied, the next requested is automatically started (as long as there is another window to put it in). If you've run out of windows (maximum of 5), when you close one, the next queued request will start up automatically.
  8. Minimizing windows. 5 screen documents can clutter up your screen quickly. Press the minimize button on the upper-right of a document window and the document will disappear and be replaced by a numbered button at the top of the screen. Press the button, and the document will reappear (try this now).
  9. One document hidden behind another? Press the right-arrow icon (under the "Navigate" menu item) to cycle through your windows, bringing each, in turn, to the front.
  10. Display up to 5 documents at once. Not enough? SlipKnot keeps an unlimited history (limited only by disk space) of all of the documents displayed in the current session. Press the menu item: Documents/History to redisplay any document (or press the circular arrow icon). All such unsaved documents will be erased when next you start SlipKnot.
  11. Use SlipKnot to display your saved documents without logging in -- for instance, for offline Demos. You do not have to log in to your UNIX host to start SlipKnot WEB! Just press the "to World Wide Web" button in SlipKnot Terminal. There, you can display previously retrieved documents, or ones that you have created. And it will follow links embedded in these documents (even search your folders for the appropriate document to satisfy a link).
  12. Use SlipKnot to develop your own documents. You will need to learn HTML (Hypertext Markup Language). After you've gotten the hang of HTML, create an HTML document in a file with the .HTM suffix. In SlipKnot, press the "Navigate/Display Local HTML File" menu item to display the current state of your document. If there are problems, don't close the document -- simply go back to your text editor, make changes, save the file, go back to SlipKnot and press the "Retrieve Again!" menu item and SlipKnot will show the newly updated document. That is how we created and edited this SlipKnot Features document.
  13. Use SlipKnot to retrieve anonymous FTP files. No need to run anonymous FTP from UNIX: simply press "Navigate/Get document from the Internet" and type in the URL (Universal Resource Locator) for any Internet file you want to retrieve. The file does not have to be a displayable document -- it can be any file anywhere that you are allowed to retrieve via anonymous FTP. Here's how you use this feature. Suppose you want to get a file called a.zip in a directory called /public/programs at a location called ftp.majorsite.org. After pressing the menu item above, type in the location as: ftp://ftp.majorsite.org/public/programs/a.zip and SlipKnot will then download the file to your SlipKnot download directory.

How SlipKnot works (what's behind the curtain)

First of all, SlipKnot is actually two, independent cooperating programs: SlipKnot Terminal and SlipKnot WEB.

The Terminal is what you see when you first execute SlipKnot. It provides you with an ordinary terminal session into your service provider's UNIX system.

The WEB renderer (SlipKnot WEB) is a different program that is launched by the Terminal when you want to browse the World Wide Web. It paints and prints the documents, manages folders, keeps the retrieval job queues, etc. (You are now using the WEB renderer.)

Here's what happens when you request a document to be retrieved, either by pressing on an underlined link or typing in the name explicitly:

  1. The WEB renderer sends your request to the Terminal (which is still active but invisible).
  2. The Terminal sends the request to your service provider's UNIX system. In effect, it executes a standard UNIX command to retrieve the document or file from the remote internet computer.
  3. The Terminal checks the status of this UNIX request periodically, and if it fails for any reason, it tries again.
  4. When the file has been retrieved from the remote machine, it is placed by your UNIX system inside your personal directory on your UNIX system.
  5. The Terminal then starts downloading that file to your PC.
  6. When Terminal is finished, it sends a message to the WEB renderer indicating that the requested file is now available on your PC.
  7. The WEB renderer scans the file, looking for references to any pictures that must be included in the document when it is displayed (the pictures are inside separate files on the remote computer).
  8. If the WEB finds that there are pictures to be retrieved, it sends these requests to the Terminal, which retrieves them one by one.
  9. When all of the necessary files have come in, the WEB renderer converts the images, and then "plots" the document (does the layout according to the typefaces you've specified in your Configure options). Then the document appears.

The separation of these two functions (communications by the Terminal, display by the WEB renderer) allows retrieval to be done in the background, while you are scrolling and reading documents in the foreground.

Design note: SlipKnot was specifically designed for modem users. Unlike other World Wide Web browsers, SlipKnot understands that its users will have to wait a while for each document to be retrieved from the internet. Therefore, we included many features to allow multiple documents to be seen, stored, and printed to prevent you from having to retrieve documents unnecessarily.