Difference between revisions of "web.ui"

Latest revision as of 08:04, 8 October 2015

Similar in scope to the Mozilla Chromeless project (formerly Prism), this software was created to allow web-based services and applications like webBooks to have their own interface free from the clutter and distractions from the other tabs in your web browser. This can also help protect each of these web-based instances from the effects of the overall browser such as unexpected crashes from a website in one of the tabs causing the loss of any unsaved data. Mainly used by the web-based XiniX operating system as a way to provide the traditional functionality of an OS for its users, however, any OS can take advantage of this great software!

License

This projects' codebase is licensed under the CPLv2 unless a valid CPLv1 license has been purchased. More information about both of these licenses can be found under the "Our Licenses" link of our homepage.

Installation

No matter which method of installation you choose below, web.ui does not require a lot of complication to get running on your device. The 'Package Management' option will be the easiest since someone will have taken the compilation steps for you, but even if you have to perform the building of the executable on your own, there are only a handful of dependencies required - most of which are already installed on your computer!

Package Management

As noted above, this will be the easiest method of installation for this software. We will expand the below list to include as many mainstream Linux distros as possible when submissions are made to our staff for inclusion.

Debian and derivatives (Ubuntu, Linux Mint, Knoppix, )

$ sudo apt-get install web.ui

TinyCore and derivatives

tce-load -iw web.ui.tcz

Compiling from Source

This will the most difficult method of installation, but our staff has tried to make this as painless as possible. Currently only a handful of tools need to be installed along with a few simple commands and the build process will be completed. The below list will outline what you need to have pre-installed:

o Standard tools such as find, grep, cut, etc

o Bash

o a c/c++ compiler such as gcc/g++

o FLTK 1.3 dev package for your distro

After making sure that above requirements are met, we can proceed with building the binary for this web-base user interface. For this example, we will be using GNU's gcc compiler and assumed that the source was downloaded into the /tmp directory.

$ tar zxf /tmp/web.ui_x.x.x.x.soft
$ cd /tmp
$ ./make install

It should be noted that if you are a package maintainer, you can optionally include a 'PREFIX=/staging/dir/prefix' to the 'make' call to have the software install to a staging area where you can package the software for your distro. If you are uncertain what a package maintainer is, then you should not use the 'PREFIX' switch!

Post Install To use web.ui after either of the above installation routines have occurred, you simply need to call the binary with the proper command line parameters. There is no configuration file or other complicated setup involved! We will cover all the available switches below.

Getting Started

Now that we have a working binary installed in your operating system, we need to discuss the various ways this software to your liking. As stated above, the only configuration presently available is through the user of command line parameters, of which there is only a few. The syntax of the program is as follows:

web.ui [OPTION] [URI]

Switches

As a way to provide additional functionality, web.ui can also accept several command line switches. An expanded description of each will be covered below.

Operational switches

• -d[ownload]

This switch enables web.ui to download files through its interface.

• -e[xecute]

In some instances, a local web-based application might require some other software to load while running. It is important to remember that this call is NOT backgrounded so if you require control to return, you will need to append the ampersand '&' character to the end of the call.

• -g[eometry] WxH+X+Y

When this option has been passed, FXwm will act as though the screen is only as large as the values specified by 'W' and 'H' (in pixels), and will constrain windows within this area. The 'X' and 'Y' values correspond to the offset from the upper left-hand corner of the screen designating the top and left boundries where the it begins. Using the -l or -o switches, you can further restrict the size and placement of application windows within the geometry specified. Starting FXwm without this switch will cause it to use the entire screen.

• -h[elp]

Shows the help screen and exits the program.

• -i[con] FILE

Sets the application icon contained in the titlebar for the web-based service or application to a local graphic.

• -s[torage] DIR

Sets the storage directory for system files like 'cookies.dat', browsing cache, and more.

• -t[itle] STRING

Used to set the title of the window.

Emergency Browser

In some emergency situations you may need to use a very simplistic web browser to gather information or obtain some type of file. Although not designed as a web browser, web.ui can work in a pinch. To navigate to the proper site, you would need to call the binary in a fashion like:

web.ui -d http://www.domain.com

This will enable downloading files over the Internet and will bring up the site located at 'www.domain.com' in this example.