MOTHRA(1) MOTHRA(1)
NAME
mothra - retrieve World-Wide Web files
SYNOPSIS
mothra [ url ]
DESCRIPTION
Mothra retrieves and displays files from the World-Wide Web,
by name or through hypertext links. Web names, called URLs,
have a peculiar syntax:
http://netlib.att.com/netlib/1127/www/1127.html
http://akebono.stanford.edu:80/yahoo/
http://www.teleport.com/~crowell/
file:/sys/lib/mothra/help.html
file:html2.elements.html#ADDRESS
ftp://ftp.gmd.de/music/scores/harrington/Harrington.readme
gopher://gopher.bev.net/11/BevBus/King.Video
The part up to the first colon gives the protocol for
retrieving the file. http:, Hyper-Text Transfer Protocol,
is the usual way of accessing web files. file: names a file
in the local file system. ftp: and gopher: are standard
Internet services.
// begins the Internet address of the server where the file
resides. The address may contain a colon and a TCP port
number, which overrides the default port number for the ser-
vice. Next comes a file name. Finally, the file name may
be followed by # and a string giving a label within the file
where the display should begin.
Mothra starts with the url given on the command line,
defaulting to the environment variable $url, and finally to
file:/sys/lib/mothra/start.html.
The display contains the last message from mothra, a box
where typed commands appear, a scrollable list of previously
visited files, the title and URL of the current file, and
the scrollable text of the current file.
Button 1 selects and displays a file, either from the list
of previously visited pages or from a link (indicated by
underlined text or a boxed image) in the current file. But-
ton 2 shows the URL of a file, but does not retrieve or dis-
play it. Button 3 pops up a menu of commands:
save back Place a link to the current file in a `back list'
for future reference.
get back Retrieve and display the back list.
MOTHRA(1) MOTHRA(1)
fix cmap Adjust the display's color map so that images
will have correct colors.
exit Ask for confirmation and quit.
The typed commands are:
g url Get the page with the given URL.
s file Save the current file in the given file.
q Quit.
?
h Get help.
When mothra retrieves a file that is not an HTML document
(for example a GIF or JPEG image), it will start up an
appropriate viewer, for example fb/9v (see 9v(9.1)) for
image files.
FILES
/sys/lib/mothra/*
$home/lib/mothra/back.html the back list
$home/lib/mothra/mothra.url log of visited URLs
$home/lib/mothra/mothra.err log of error messages, including
HTML syntax errors
SOURCE
/sys/src/cmd/mothra
BUGS
ftp: URLs are not supported.
Files are saved in the form received, not in the form sug-
gested by the name in an s command.
Mothra is distributed in a preliminary state; it has more
than its share of bugs.