About the World Wide Web

    1. What is the World Wide Web?
    2. Hints on using Netscape and Mosaic
    3. How does the World Wide Web work?
    4. Hints on starting your own Webserver

    What is the World Wide Web?

    The World Wide Web is a kind of super-Gopher system, with all the features of the Gopher and more. Hypertext links, live querying of ACEDB databases, and interconnections between heterogeneous databases are among its greatest strengths. Those who have direct access (TCP or SLIP) to the Internet can connect to the WWW by using the "Netscape" or "Mosaic" software, which can be obtained by anonymous ftp from ftp.mcom.com or ftp.ncsa.uiuc.edu, respectively. Those who have lower-speed access via a Unix host can use the Unix WWW client program "lynx".

    Hints on using Netscape and Mosaic

    Here are some useful hints if you are just starting to use the World Wide Web and you happen to be using a Netscape or Mosaic browser.

    Netscape

    1. Bookmarks:

      Whenever you've accessed a page that you would like to return to later, you can save its location in your bookmark list by clicking on the "Bookmarks" menu item at the top of the page and then selecting "Add Bookmarks".

    2. Font Size:

      If you would like to change the font size of the text displayed in your browser, click on the "Options" menu item at the top of the page. Then select "Preferences...". A window will pop up and somewhere in this window (it varies, depending upon whether you are using Windows, Unix, Mac) will be the place where you can set your desired font size.

    3. Source Code:

      If you would like to get an idea of how html documents are formatted, you can view the html source code for the page that is currently displayed in your browser by clicking on "View", and then selecting "Source...". A window will pop up showing you the actual html source code of the current web page.

    4. Highligting and Underlining Links:

      If you would like to remove the underlining of the hyperlinks in your Netscape browser, click on "Options" at the top of the page, then "Preferences...". Uncheck the box for "Underline Links" in the bottom half of the window. In the same window, you can make all of your previously visited links become highlighted again by clicking the "Now" box after "Followed Links Expire:". Alternately, you can set your visited links to become rehighlighted after a certain number of days by filling in the "After:[ ]Days" box.


    Mosaic

    1. Hotlist:

      You can save the equivalent of a Netscape bookmark in Mosaic by "adding to your hotlist". Just click on "Navigate" at the top of the page and select "Add Current To Hotlist".

    2. Font Size:

      In Mosaic, you change the font size by clicking on "Options" at the top of the page and then selecting "Fonts".

    3. Source Code:

      The source code for the current html-formatted page displayed in your Mosaic browser can be viewed by clicking on "File", then "View Source...".

    4. Stopping:

      Have you noticed there is no stop button to interrupt an attempted connection in Mosaic? In fact, there is -- clicking on the revolving globe will interrupt and stop those annoying long connection attempts.

    How does the World Wide Web work?

    If you can read and understand this, you will have a basic understanding of how the World Wide Web works!

    This is an explanation of how GrainGenes information is presented to you, the user, as you merrily click away on the hypertext links that take you from page to page via the GrainGenes Webserver.

    In other words, this document will explain to you where the information you are seeing comes from and how it is shown to you!

    First you must understand the relationship between your WWW browser (like Netscape and Mosaic) and the different sites that you connect to using your browser. Your browser allows your computer to access and display information stored at sites which run servers, predominantly Webservers. Servers allow a computer to disseminate and put out information (as opposed to merely accessing and displaying information, which is what your browser does).

    So you use your browser to connect to sites which run servers.

    As you are viewing this document, you are using your browser to connect to the GrainGenes Webserver. In the course of using the GrainGenes Webserver, you will connect to other sites running servers, primarily 1 of 3 different sites: Beltsville, Maryland; Cornell University in Ithaca, New York; or Albany, California.

    That is, whenever you click on a hypertext link to view GrainGenes-related information, you will see data that is actually stored at and disseminated through servers at either Beltsville, Cornell, or Albany.

    This is because the official ACEDB version of the database is stored at Beltsville; the official Gopher version of the database is stored at Cornell; and the Webserver which handles all of the hypertext jumping between different pages of information is stored at Albany. Conversion of the native ACEDB form of GrainGenes data to WWW form occurs at Beltsville. Conversion of the Gopher form of GrainGenes data to WWW form occurs at Cornell. Most of the static text and graphic files you will see relating to GrainGenes reside on the Webserver at Albany.

    So, whenever you view GrainGenes data or GrainGenes-related information, you will be jumping back and forth between WWW-formatted pages generated or stored at either Beltsville, Cornell, or Albany.

    You can always tell where you are by looking at the http address of the current page you have accessed. The http address is always near the top of the WWW browser interface, above the current WWW page you are looking at (in some WWW browsers, the displaying of the http address is an option which you can turn "on" and "off"; you might have to turn this option on if no http address is displayed on your browser).

    If you have accessed Beltsville, the http address will start out "http://probe.nalusda.gov". If you have accessed Cornell, the http address will start out "gopher://greengenes.cit.cornell.edu". If you have accessed Albany, the http address will start out "http://wheat.pw.usda.gov".

    There! You now have a basic understanding of what is going on when you use your World Wide Web browser to access information. Congratulations if you bothered to read this far!

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