FURL Contents

What is FURL?

FURL stands for Find Universal Resource Locaters.  A Universal Resource Locater (URL) is the most popular way to find things on the Internet.  But FURL can be used to store all sorts of addresses, including Compuserve, America On Line and Prodigy accounts.  Instead of having to remember cryptic names or numbers, the information can be saved using your own description.

Using Furl

These buttons appear on the toolbar at the top of the screen.  Click on them here for more information.

   World Wide Web

   E-Mail

   Gopher

   News Groups

   FTP (File Transfer Protocol)

   Set Up Your Internet Software

   This Help File


World Wide Web

The World Wide Web is the multimedia portion of the Internet.  It is the most popular way to get around the Net.  Surfing the Web is a lot of fun, and can be quite addictive in its own way.  Use FURL to store the cryptic, complicated Web URL's and call them up by their name, or the description you've assigned to them.


E-Mail

Regardless of the type of E-Mail program you are using, you can select all your stored addresses using this button.  As in all the other areas of the program, the addresses can be sorted by description (the default), by number of times visited, by favorite places, alphabetically, in reverse alphabetical order and from the most frequently to the least frequently used.

Remember, FURL can keep Compuserve ID numbers, AOL screen names and any other sort of user addresses.


Gopher

Gopher is a database search engine commonly used across the Internet.  With a gopher client you can typically enter a search string and the gopher engine will search gopherspace for all documents with such a reference.  For example, entering "FURL" as a search string will return all the gopher servers where the newest copy of FURL is available for downloading.  The file can be retrieved through your gopher server as well.


News Groups

News Groups are the thousands of discussion forums set up by Internet citizens on every conceivable topic imaginable.  And if there's a topic that's not under discussion, give it a day or so-- it will be.


FTP

FTP (File Transfer Protocol) is an Internet method of transferring binary data in a fast and efficient manner.  Files are kept in FTP sites where, with the proper access, you can download and upload files to and from your local computer.  Please see your FTP client documentation for more information about anonymous logins and passwords.


Setting Up Your Internet Software

Setting up your software involves clicking on the flashlight button, which invokes the find dialog box.  If the application has not been set up, the appropriate radio button will be disabled.  Clicking on the Find button will call a file dialog box.  Select the directory and name of the file you wish to use.     The path name of the file is now selected.  When you start the Internet File Cabinet, it will check to insure that the path names you have selected are all still valid.  If not, the appropriate push buttons will be disabled until you call the find procedure to install new copies of your Internet software.


Help With The Internet File Cabinet

This is the help file!


Favorite Places

By default, an address is called a favorite place if you use it more than 10 times.  While this should be satisfactory for most users, the FURL allows you to set this number yourself.   Use the application setup icon to change this number.


How To Select An Address

From the list box, either double click the left mouse button on the address you wish to select.  The address is now copied to the Windows clipboard.  If you wish to use the address immediately, use the Alt + Tab keys to switch through the active applications, or select and click the Call button, then from the ensuing dialog box, the application you wish to run.


Starting Internet Applications

FURL allows you to specify an E-mail, Web Browser, News Reader, FTP Client and Gopher Client.  You can start up your software from within Furl by selecting the proper radio button and clicking the Switch key.


Adding Addresses

Use this dialog to add, edit, update or delete addresses.

To Enter a New Address:

Select the appropriate type radio button (i.e. World Wide Web)

Select Your Type Description by moving the cursor to the selection in the list box.

You can add another Type on the fly by clicking the button with the "+" symbol.

Type in the address or copy and paste it.

Type in the description, i.e. "My friend's email".

Click on the "Add" button.

To Change (Update) An Address:

Find the description in the list box and double click to enter it into the edit controls.

Make your changes.

If you want to change the type (i.e. from Gopher to FTP) select the proper radio button.

Same thing for your own description.

Click on the "Update" button.

To Delete An Address:

Same procedure as update.

Click on the "Delete" button.

Click on "Yes" to delete, "No" to cancel.


Using FURL

Although it is enormously useful, FURL is a very simple utility to use.  At the top of the screen are buttons for the five Internet types FURL covers:

World Wide Web

E-Mail

Gopher

FTP

Usenet News Groups

The other two buttons are for setting up your applications, and calling this help file.

Pressing a button fills the list box with the descriptions associated with these addresses.  The title bar will always indicate which category is in the list box.

As you scroll through the list box the Internet address will appear in the edit control below the list box.  So to send a message to the author of Furl, it's not necessary to remember his address is stvsloan@longbow.com.  Just double click on Steve Sloan in the list box.

Now, the address is stored in the Windows clipboard.  From there, it can be pasted into any edit control belonging to a Windows program.  So to send Steve Sloan an e-mail message, you can switch to your mail client, and press CTRL-V (the Windows Paste shortcut) to paste the correct address into the message header.

Once an internet type has been selected and the list box is populated, the data in the list box can be sorted five ways:

Most recently visited

Most frequently visited

Favorite Places

Alphabetical Order

Reverse Alpha

Also, by double clicking on the Descriptions list box, you can get only those items which match your criteria.  For example, if you've decided to create a description called Real Cool Places for WWW sites you especially like, double clicking on that entry while WWW sites are in the list box will show only those WWW sites which match the description.  If there are none that match, a message will appear notifying you of that fact.


Ordering FURL

From the Help/About Dialog box, you can print out an order form.  Mail it with a check to Longbow, or use your credit card and order through North Star.


Registration

FURL is shareware.  About 5% of the people using FURL will ultimately send in the registration fee.  As a reward for registering, you will get free upgrades sent to you as they become available, and unlimited technical support via e-mail.  Additionally, you are eligible for a discount on future shareware products produced by Longbow International Corp.


Longbow International Corp.

We are a New York based software development and consulting firm, specializing in World Wide Web programming and client/server applications.  We also develop useful Windows utilities (such as FURL) which we sell as shareware.

We can be reached by e-mail at info@longbow.com and our Web home page is at http://www.panix.com/~longbow/.  Please check it out!