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Date:      Fri, 8 Aug 1997 02:58:50 -0600 (MDT)
From:      bruce@gtcs.com
To:        FreeBSD-gnats-submit@FreeBSD.ORG
Subject:   ports/4248: Port submission: Chimera 2.0a2
Message-ID:  <199708080858.CAA03903@home.gtcs.com>
Resent-Message-ID: <199708080910.CAA04855@hub.freebsd.org>

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>Number:         4248
>Category:       ports
>Synopsis:       Port submission of Chimera 2.0a2 X-WWW Browser
>Confidential:   no
>Severity:       non-critical
>Priority:       low
>Responsible:    freebsd-ports
>State:          open
>Class:          change-request
>Submitter-Id:   current-users
>Arrival-Date:   Fri Aug  8 02:10:01 PDT 1997
>Last-Modified:
>Originator:     Bruce Gingery
>Organization:
Advanced Integrators, LC
>Release:        FreeBSD 2.2.1-RELEASE i386
>Environment:
Suggested collections www and x11

>Description:

   Chimera 2.0 (alpha 2) adds full Wilbur (html 3.2) support, and in
this port the optional dependancies on jpeg and png support is enabled
and works (at least for me).  This *is* Alpha software, but about on
a par with many Betas.  It dies occasionally, and I've not gotten the
bookmarks to work, but it's an Athena based http:+file:+ftp: scheme
supporting GUI browser with a fairly low memory requirement.  MOST of
the code is GNU Public License or GNU Library license, and all of it
liberally licensed (e.g. BSD license).  

   In use, it's very much like an Athena Widgets based Mosaic.  
(Mosaic is Motif based and makes TERRIBLY with Lestif at least for me).

   Of course on today's web, you find many sites that tell you to go
away and install MSIE (vaporware) so you can see their ``frames''. As
distributed, it doesn't handle mailto: URLs, Java, JavaScript, ActiveX
or even Safe-Tcl - but it's under continuing development, and just a
few months after wilbur was codified, it's out and compliant.  Not bad
for what seems to be essentially a one person project at unlv.edu

   It seems to be QUITE standards compliant.  Pages with bad HTML
around the web come up blank on occasion - as is to be expected for
unterminated quotes, tags and tables.
 
   External files from Chimera v1 are no longer used.

   It's Imake based, and the patches are VERY minor at this point.
   
   As submitted, the port unpacks to `chimera2/'.  Since it's alpha
software, it's entirely possible that a person would want to have both
1.65 and 2.0a2 on the same machine.  Install WILL however, overwrite
an installed /usr/X11R6/bin/chimera without warning.
>How-To-Repeat:

fetch ftp://ftp.freebsd.org/pub/FreeBSD/incoming/chimera-2.0a2.port.tgz
tar -xvzf chimera-2.0a2.port.tgz
cd chimera2/
make install

>Fix:

 Some quick guesses on how to fix what's wrong in the browser, include:

1. Find out why the Bookmarks button is dead.  It seems to be identical
   to that in version 1.65 already in the ports collection which works
   quite well.  Any patches sould also be sent to the author.

1.a.  Once the bookmarks are working, I'd set some ``defaults'' to include
   standard path to the FreeBSD Handbook :)

2. Harden some threads or get them notified when the user gets impatient
   and goes on to another web page.  That (like Netscape) seems to be when
   it's most fragile.

3. Add at least the capacity to install an EXTERNAL handler (say Pine or
   xterm -e /bin/Mail  or something) for mailto:'s.  It seems to handle
   forms rather well, and does quite tolerably on tables.  External
   handlers for gopher: and wais: would be a good idea too, and the same
   functionality could spawn an X-Term based telnet for telnet: and 
   somewhat recognized rlogin: scheme URLs too.

4. Add the additional Cougar glyphs.  &nbsp; is getting VERY common, and
   I'm not sure (last time using both v1.65 and v2.0a2 in parallel) that
   this new version translates it into a non-breaking space.

5. A little more difficult would be to use some kind of scrolling canvas
   as the backing page, with placed scrollbars for internal and other
   frames.

6. And even more difficult, likely, support background images.  This
   version ignores all colors, and quite properly ignores tags it
   does not understand.

7. And finally - add stylesheet and at least safe-tcl... probably will
   off in the next version, if Microsoft doesn't BUY unlv.edu  
>Audit-Trail:
>Unformatted:



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