ArcWeb User Manual

This document constitutes a brief user manual for ArcWeb. It assumes that you have read the instructions file supplied and the Problems file for troubleshooting etc. When reporting bugs to me, please read the bug report instructions.

These instructions will help you get more out of ArcWeb, as they explain features which may not be mentioned elsewhere. You should have read the ReadMe file and the Instruct file that came with ArcWeb.

You can configure the various aspects of ArcWeb's configuration at run-time by using the Configure menu on the ArcWeb icon bar menu. When you make these changes, they last for that session only and you need to choose Save options in order to make the changes permanent. The only exception is the Font configuration, and those changes only take effect after a save, and reloading the browser.

Blocking sites from being accessed

ArcWeb will allow you to set up simple blocks on specific sites so that people using it cannot access these. The access controls are specified by two files, one called Block and one called Allow. These can be found inside the !ArcWeb directory. These files use the same format as each other, which is: a # signifies the start of a comment which lasts under the end of the line; comments, lines containing only whitespace and blank lines are ignored; all other lines contain either a single asterix (*) character, or a domain name with no wildcards in it. domains are matched as end matched substrings, so if there is a line in the file:sex.orgthen this would match any URL with a hostname ending in sex.org eg. www.sex.org sex.org ftp.sex.org would all be covered by this, but sex.org.uk wouldn't, because it doesn't end with the match string. NOTE that the example given would also block www.essex.org because of the match. To defeat this, you need to give the separator too, ie..sex.org which will be the same except it won't trap essex.org ORsex.org itself. A line containing a single asterix character will match anything, thus a Block file containing a line with a * on it will not allow through anything. This would be useless, except that the Allow file overrides the Block file. So, you can block everything, and then list the exceptions to that in the Allow file. Since it is the target site which is matched, you don't have to allow access to the proxy (since access to that is assumed) which means that requests cannot be bounced off the proxy indirectly.

This is not a totally secure way of doing things. For example, the files can be edited (changes don't take affect until ArcWeb is reloaded), but it is better than nothing.

NOTE: the Allow file overrides the Block file so if you use an Allow file containing the single asterix wildcard, then no block entries will be used.

Aborting a fetch or render

You may abort a document fetch, image fetch or document render at any time by double-clicking the left mouse button on the web icon at the top of the page. The response may not be immediate for several reasons, but you should regain control fairly quickly. Note that all ArcWeb does, is to abort the render and broadcast a message to all applications that current fetches should be aborted and no completion messages sent.

Sending URLs from external applications

There are several ways of entering URLs into ArcWeb's dialogue boxes or windows:
  1. On the icon bar menu, use the Open dialogue to type in a URL, and then press RETURN or click on the button to open the URL.
  2. Use the same dialogue box on the page menus on the menu as Navigate-->Open.
  3. Drag a text file from a Filer window and drop it on the icon bar icon or on the URL icon at the top of a page.
  4. Use a Save or Save Selection dialogue box from another application and drag the text file to the icon bar icon or on to the URL icon at the top of a page.
Note that this does mean that you cannot drag text files to the icon bar icon to have them rendered by ArcWeb. Any text file which doesn't look as if it contains a URL will be ignored. There must be no leading spaces.

User Authentication

Some pages you attempt to access may be protected by password. For more information on how this is done and how it is handled by ArcWeb, look at the explanation of authentication which was posted to demon.ip.support.archimedes by me on July 13th 1995.

Usage with KA9Q (!TCPIP)

Usage over KA9Q is not supported in this version of ArcWeb, although it may work. I cannot provide any support for this type of usage.
Stewart Brodie
20th February 1996