NETSCAPE HISTORY
version 2.0.1

General Informations
Use
How to Report Errors, Bugs, Suggestions, etc.
Meaning of Error Messages
What Has Changed From Previous Versions
Frequently Asked Questions (and their Answers)
How to Pay the Shareware Fee
Why to Pay the Shareware Fee?
Miscellaneous

General Informations

What is in the archive:
You should have received three items together:

The "Netscape History" 2.0.1 application
This "Readme" file
The "Register" application to register and pay the shareware fee.

you are encouraged to distribute "Netscape History" provided that you keep these three items together and do not charge for it more than the usual cost of distribution.

"Netscape History" is an utility for users of the Macintosh version of Netscape (and now Microsoft Internet Explorer!) that lets them browse off-line (not connected to the Internet) the last Web pages visited with their browser. Images will be correctly shown, if they were loaded when the page was read from the net.

This program obviously will be particularly useful to those that have a SLIP or PPP dial-up connection but can be used by those having other kinds of Internet connections (I saw dedicated connections MUCH slower than dial-up connections!).

It works with (the Macintosh version of) Netscape 1.0, 1.1, 1.12, 2.0 and Microsoft Internet Explorer 2.0b1(but read here). It requires System 7.0 or later and 300 KByte of RAM. As it must create copies of many HTML files (in an 'History f' folder), it will need a certain amount of space on your disk: how much depends on several things; as a rule of thumb, it will need from a third to half the space occupied by the browser disk cache.

Currently is available only a 68K version (not PowerMac native). However it works fine with all PowerMacs.

"Netscape History" is distributed as shareware. You can try it for a reasonable period and then, if you decide that you want to continue to use it, you have to pay a shareware fee of $8.
For information on how to pay the shareware fee, read here

Use of "Netscape History"

I think that a program should have as few commands as possible: users should USE the program, not spend time filling check boxes, selecting options and so on.
I've made "Netscape History" following this line: it has no user interface at all! (well, almost)

You use it this way:
When you want to browse again through all those beautiful pages you have seen on the Web, you just double-click on "Netscape History" (I keep it on the desktop side by side with Netscape). You don't have to turn on the modem or open InterSLIP or MacPPP or whatever you use.
You will see a dialog telling you to wait some moments, and at the end your browser will be automatically started, showing a document (Last Visited Pages) that contains a list of these pages, ordered by time (most recent first).

In this document, for each page there is a line like this:

Great Things on Internet Gio, 28 dic 1995 22:37 (3Kb) Real Link

Where "Great Things on Internet" will be the title of the page.
Selecting this link, the copy on your disk will be loaded (with the corresponding images, if you loaded them the first time)
The link labelled "Real Link" will take you to the real page in Internet (in this case obviously you need to connect first).

As you can see, creation date and time are also shown, together with page size in Kb (excluding images).

You can select any link while looking at the pages, keeping in mind this:
if the link refers to one of the page on the disk, this will be immediatly loaded, otherwise the browser will try to load it from the net, trying to connect, if you are not already connected.
By the way, you can check if a link refers to something in your disk or on the net by looking at what appears at the bottom of Netscape window when you move the mouse over the link (without pressing the button): this is the URL; if it starts with 'file://.." then it is on your disk, otherwise is on the net).

The very first time you run "Netscape History", it will ask you to specify two things, using two dialogs very similar to the standard ones you normally use to save or open files from an application. Each one has a check box to configure a special option. These two dialogs aks you:

Where is your browser (Netscape or Microsoft Internet Explorer) and if you want to start it automatically after creating the list (default=yes).
Where and with which name you want to put the folder (the "History folder") that will contain the local copies of the pages and the document Last Visited Pages.
You will also be asked if you want to keep this folder to minimum size (default=yes)

Please notice that this version (2.0.1) asks you for this two item in the reverse order with respect to version 2.0. I hope that this will not annoy you.

If you are not sure about the meaning of the check boxes, leave them as they are; this is the explanation of what their use is:

If you uncheck the box "Automatically launch the browser", each time you run "Netscape History", it will just update the files on disk and create the document Last Visited Pages ; the latter is a normal HTML file and you can open it from Finder or from the browser itself.
If you uncheck the box "Keep history folder to minimum size" than "Netscape History" will copy ALL the files found in the cache into the History folder. This will increase A LOT the size of the History folder. but is necessary if you want to make a copy of it to use later, or to copy it to another computer

All these settings will be stored in "Netscape History" preference file and will be used when you will launch it again.
If you later will change them, you simply have to launch the program while keeping pressed the space bar.

How many are these 'last' pages?
In the current version (but read here) of the program, the 'History f' folder mirrors exactly what is in the 'Cache' folder of the browser.
The size of this 'Cache' folder is set from within the browserand is the maximum total size of pages+images that will be available.
When the 'Cache' folder is full and you read new pages with the browser, the oldest are deleted.
Moreover if you clear the 'Cache' folder (using the browser command or from Finder), the next time you will use "Netscape History", it will clear also the 'History f'.
In this case, if you want to save the pages you can make a copy of the 'History f'.

For those who care, notes on the inner workings of the program
"Netscape History" uses the browser 'cache' mechanism. The browser itself stores the most recently visited pages in a 'Cache' folder (by default is in 'System Folder:Preferences').
This is done so that when you are connected and ask the browser to show a page, the browser looks in the cache to see if the page is there. If it is, it ask the Internet host if the page has changed; if it has not changed, it will load the page from disk instead from the Internet, which is obviously much quicker.

When you discover this, you immediatly think: "all I need to do is open the file corresponding to the page I want to look at!".
The problem is that the pages have name like 'cache541@%!9-8' and so is not easy to find which is the one you want.
Moreover you wont'be able to see the images in the page, even if you loaded them together with it.

So "Netscape History" copies the pages from 'Cache' folder to 'History f', modifying the image links in the copies so that they can be correctly shown and at last it creates the file Last Visited Pages.

How to Report Errors, Bugs, Suggestions, etc.

You can contact me at one of these email addresses:

cpotenza@kagi.com
mc4924@mclink.it

If you want to report a bug or ask something about the program use, please remember to specify the version of the program you have, plus, in case you have seen some of the error messages reported below, the error message exactly as it appears.

Meaning of Error Messages

These are the error messages you can see when something goes wrong using "Netscape History". Some inform you about a problem that you can correct; other catch some unexpected situations.
Many of them show, in addition to the message itself, a string and a number. These are codes to let me understand where and why the problem is located. Please, if you report to me of some error, cite the error message exactly as it appears, together with these two codes.

There is no more memory: increase the memory assigned to "Netscape History" (using 'Get Info' command in the Finder) and try again: This message should be quite self-explantory: it should appear only if you have a very big cache folder, with hundreds, if not thousands, of files.
I cannot continue because a resource is missing
I'm sorry but "Netscape History" cannot continue because of an error.: These message probably means that the application file is corrupted. Substitute it with a new copy. If the error continue to show, please contact me, it could be a program error.
I cannot open the browser because there is not enough free memory: close one or more open applications and try again.: This appears when "Netscape History" has built the Last Visited Pages and tries to launch the browser. Simply quit some of the open applications and launch again "Netscape History" (or you can directly open the file Last Visited Pages).
It is impossible to continue because I cannot find 'Netscape f' folder.: This should appear only if you have copied Netscape on your hard disk, instead of installing it, and have never run it.

What Has Changed From Previous Versions

From 2.0 to 2.0.1

There are no new feature in this version: I just added some improvements:

If you usually make a copy of the History folder for later use or for copying it to another computer, then you must uncheck the check box "Keep history folder to minimum size" in the dialog that asks you for the location of the History folder, shown the first time you run "Netscape History" or when you launch it with the space bar pressed.
This is because by default image files will NOT be copied from the 'Cache' folder to the 'History f' to make your 'History f' smaller.
It works also with Microsoft Internet Explorer.
Now you can move the 'Netscape f' folder, that Netscape puts by default in 'System Folder:Prefrences', and "Netscape History" will still work.
"FRAME" tag is now understood, as is the "LOWSRC" field in the "IMG" tag.
I corrected a minor bug in the "wait" dialog of the program: sometimes the top row was garbage: now it correctly shows the version string.
Users with a french or german system on their Mac had the dates of the files listed in "Last Visited Pages" displayed incorrectly.
Other minor corrections and speed improvements.
You can now launch "Netscape History" by double clicking on its preference file: this allow you to use more than one browser without reconfiguring each time.

From 1.1 to 2.0

This version works very differently from the previous one: pages are copied, and the copies are modified, in a new folder ('History f').
This has been necessary to make it work with Netscape 2.0x but has some inconveniences: I had to rewrite the core of the program (this is way it took so long); sometimes the time needed to scan the pages is greater; pages must be copied and occupy as much space as the Netscape 'Cache f'.

Riassuming:

It works also with Netscape 2.0x.
Pages are copied in 'History f'.
"Netscape History" now quits after launching Netscape instead of continuing together with it.
(This one had been strongly requested by users ) In the previous version, the file Last Visted Pages listed both the pages and the files of the images and backgrounds in the pages, cluttering the list. In this version only pages are listed.
The previous version was not able to launch Netscape when there was less free memory than specified as 'assigned' to Netscape.
You don't have to worry about Netscape option Check Documents as in the previous version.
Preferences are stored in a file named 'Netscape History Prefs' inside 'System Folder:Preferences' and not inside the program file.
Now errors are handled better and some error messages are clearer.

Frequently Asked Questions (and their Answers)

PROBLEM:
The file Last Visted Pages does not list any page!
SOLUTION:
"Netscape History" needs something in Netscape 'Cache f' to work. Check inside Netscape that the box 'Options/Network/Preferences/Cache_And_Network/Cache_size' shows a value greater then 0.

PROBLEM:
Some of the pages I've seen are not in the list!
SOLUTION:
Netscape version 1.xx does not stores all the visited pages in the 'cache' (those relative to FTP and also many HTTP pages).
Netscape 2.0 stores all the pages but if the program hangs or crashes the last pages probaly wil not be stored correctly.
This pages are unrecoverable by "Netscape History".

QUESTION:
If I clear Netscape cache all the pages in the History folder will be cleared too when I will subsequently launch "Netscape History": can I save them elsewhere?
ANSWER:
Certainly: you can make a copy of the whole 'History f' folder and then if you open the document Last Visited Pages contained in the copy of the folder you will be able to look at the pages.
To do this you must have unchecked the check box "Keep 'History f' to minimum size" shown in the dialog you see when you launch netscape history for the first time, otherwise you will lose the images when the browser will clear the cache or if you move the folder to another computer.

QUESTION:
I have a copy of Netscape 1.12 and one of Netscape 2.0. How can I use "Netscape History with both?
ANSWER:
Launch "Netscape History" and select as your browser Netscape 1.12. Then grab the file 'Netscape History prefs', created in "System folder:Preferences": rename it and/or move elsewhere.
Launch "Netscape History" again and select as browser netscape 2.0 (specifing another 'History f' folder). Grab the new file 'Netscape History prefs' created in "System folder:Preferences": rename it and/or move elsewhere.
Double clicking one of the two renamed 'Netscape History prefs' file will now launch the program with the desired browser.

PROBLEM:
While looking at the pages Netscape (or the computer) hangs!
SOLUTION:
While browsing off-line, you can select any link to a page that is saved on the disk and it will be loaded. But if you select a link to a page not on the disk (also for example clicking on the 'Home Page' button), Netscape will try to load it from the net. If you use a dial-up connection, the system will try to call your provider using the modem, and depending on the type and the settings of the SLIP or PPP software, it could freeze until a long timeout expires, before realizing that the modem is off.

PROBLEM:
I think that "Netscape History" is really a disgusting program: I want back my shareware fee and I want to completely erase it from my computer!
SOLUTION:
For the first part of this question, I'm sorry, but the shareware fee is not reimbursable (shareware="try before you buy"). The second part instead is very easy to accomplish; you just have to erase: 1) the program file; 2) the file 'Netscape History Prefs' inside 'System Folder:Preferences' and 3) the 'History f' (you know where you put it).

How to Pay the Shareware Fee

The fee for a single user license is $8. This entitles you to all future upgrades of the program.
You can pay in a number of ways: cash, check, credit card...
To simplify payment processing, I use a shareware payment service called 'Kagi Shareware'. Basically, users send the money to Kagi shareware, which send them back e-mail receipts, collects all the payments and send them to me in batches.

If you are an organization, you can buy a Site License, that costs $200 and covers all locations for your organization within a 160 kilometer radius of your site (100 miles). One big advantage of a Site License is that you do not need to keep track of how many people at your site are using the software.
There is also a World-Wide License, that costs $800 and covers all locations for your organization on the planet earth.

How to pay online through email

If you are one of those people that can never be moved away from their computer screen, now you can pay online!
You can do it only using credit card (Visa, MasterCard, American Express) or First Virtual.

Run the 'Register' application (the one with the big dollar sign that comes together with "Netscape History")

Fill the fields:

your email address and name (optional),
your postal address (optional)
Enter 1 in the field next to Netscape History (for 1 license).

For Credit Card payment:

Select preferred card (Visa, Mastercard, American Express)
Enter your name exactly as it appears on the card
Enter your card number (you can just enter the string of digits without dashes or spaces, just one continuous string)
Enter the month, a slash, and the two digit year for the expiration date of your card. Do not enter the day if your card shows an expiration day.

For First Virtual Payment: Select "First Virtual" and enter your First Virtual ID.

Press the Copy button. This will put the data needed for the registration in the clipboard.

Open your email program

Make a new email message with the address as: shareware@kagi.com
Select the body of the message and paste. It will paste the output that was copied from 'Register' into the email message.
Send the message
The credit card data is encoded with a simple algorithm, not with a high security one (But then, also fax and postal mail can be easily intercepted!).
Payments sent via email are processed within 3 to 4 days. You will receive an email acknowledgement when it is processed. Payments sent via fax take up to 10 days and if you provide a correct internet email address you will receive an email acknowledgement.

How to pay through postal mail:
You can pay using cash, check, credit card. You can pay with a wide variety of cash from different countries but at present if you pay via check, it must be a check drawn in US Dollar.
1. Run the 'Register' application (the one with the big dollar sign that comes together with "Netscape History")
2. Fill the fields:
  - your email address and name (optional),
  - your postal address (optional)
  - Enter 1 in the field next to Netscape History (for 1 license).
3. Select the form of payament you prefer; if you select credit card fill the required fields as explained in previous paragraph.
4. Press the Print button. This will print a form containing all data needed for registration.
5. Send the form to the address shown on the form, which is:
  Kagi Shareware
  1442-A Walnut Street #392-CP
  Berkeley, California 94709-1405
  USA
  for cash or check, put it in the envelope inside the folded paper so that it is not visible. If you are an organization and have a purchasing department that handles payments, you can enter all the data into the Register program and then select Invoice as your payment method. Print three copies of the form and send it to your accounts payable people. You might want to highlight the line that mentions that they must include a copy of the form with their payment.
  Kagi Shareware can not invoice your company, you need to act on my behalf and generate the invoice and handle all the paperwork on your end. Please do not fax or email payment forms that indicate Cash, Check or Invoice as the payment method. As far as we know, there is still no technology to transfer physical objects via fax or email and without the payment, the form cannot be processed.
  Payments send via postal mail take time to reach Kagi Shareware and then up to 10 days for processing. Again, if you include a correct email address, you will hear from Kagi Shareware when the form is processed.
  
  Note for italian users
  Sto lavorando alla traduzione italiana di questa versione del programma. Se vi interssa contattatemi (cpotenza@kagi.com)
  Il metodo di pagamento preferito è tramite Kagi Shareware (vedi sopra) ed è anche l'unico per pagare con la carta di credito.
  Comunque gli utenti italiani che vogliano pagare tramite vaglia o in banconote possono anche inviare la registrazione direttamente a me.
  In questo caso la registrazione shareware è fissata in 12000 Lire (l'eventuale differenza con la registrazione di 8$ è dovuta al fluttare del cambio).
  Prima di inviarmi denaro, per favore contattatemi tramite e-mail (cpotenza@kagi.com): potrei avere cambiato indirizzo!
  1. Scrivete su di un foglio: nome e versione del programma, il vostro nome, cognome, indirizzo e-mail e quant'altro la vostra fantasia vi suggerisca; poi prendete una banconota da 10000 e una da 2000 lire (meglio così che 12 banconote da 1000 o peggio 24 monete da 500!) infilatele dentro il foglio piegato in maniera che non si vedano controluce e spedite il tutto all'indirizzo sotto indicato.
  2. Inviate un vaglia per lo stesso importo allo stesso indirizzo indicando nella causale gli stessi dati.
  indirizzo:
  
  Claudio Potenza via Gobetti 14 57121 Livorno
  So che molte persone pensano che non sia molto sicuro spedire denaro mediante la posta ma in realtà per una banconota o due, se infilate dentro un foglio, non c'è nessun problema (il vaglia comunque dà più sicurezza).
  
  Why to Pay the Shareware Fee?
  "Shareware" is a way of distributing software in which distribution costs are practically zero, the user can really try the product before buying and the cost of the product is generally very low.
  If the shareware system wil continue to grow, users will be happy because they could have quality software at low price, software auhors will be happy too because they could simplify distribution.
  If every user would pay his shareware fee, costs could be even lower!
  Moreover, I want to add new features to the program: obviously if I will get many registrations, I will be happier to make them quickly!
  If you register for version 2.0.1 you will be entitled to use all future version.
  Registered users will have quicker assistance in case of problems (Claudio Potenza cpotenza@kagi.com). However I will try to answer to all bug report.
  New Feature Planned in Next Version
  Miscellaneous
  The program is set with a memory partition on 300 Kb. If you have a very big cache and depending on the contents of the pages, this may not be enough.
  In this case "Netscape History" will show you an error message and you will have to increase it.
  Sometimes you will see listed in the file Last Visited Pages some images that were in a page: this happens when in the page some of the images change.
  This is a minor inconvenience however: the reverse (non showing some pages) never happens.
  With Netscape 2.0, if you do an "Open Location" of the 'address' <about:cache> you will get a document that lists all files present in the cache, with some info for each file.
  Please note that this document can be quite big: on a slow mac the computer could seem to hang for some instants while opening it. Moreover I have noticed some inconsistences in the info.
  (Thanks to Alberto Berretti of Mc-Link for this hint)
  A Note on the version of Netscape you can use
  "Netscape History" 2.0.1 works with Netscape 1.0, 1.1, 1.12, 2.0 and with Microsoft Internet Explorer 2.0b1.
  Netscape 2 however is best: it correctly stores all the pages in the cache (the others leave out many of them). Beside this, Netscape 2 seems much more stable (at least on my Mac) and much faster.
  And now the standard legalese:
  DISCLAIMER OF WARRANTY:
  In using this software, you understand and agree that this software is provided "as is" without warranty of any kind. The entire risk as to the results and performance of using this software lies entirely with you, the user. The author does not make any warranties, either expressed or implied, including but not limited to implied warranties of merchantability and fitness for a particular purpose, with respect to this software.
  In no event shall the author be liable for any consequential, incidental, or special damages whatsoever (including without limitation damages for loss of critical data, loss of profits, interruption of business, and the like) arising out of the use or inability to use this software.
  Although the author would appreciate any feedback and bug reports, the author shall not be responsible for correcting any problems which you discover or otherwise help you maintain and use this software. Furthermore, the author may at any time replace, modify, alter, improve, enhance or change this software.
  
  last modified: 5 march 1996 - Copyright © 1996 Claudio Potenza

NETSCAPE HISTORY version 2.0.1

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