README

ViolaWWW, Version 3.3 Beta				April 10 1995
==========================

ViolaWWW is an extensible World Wide Web hypermedia browser. A new
release is hereby announced. 

Based on and drawing from the Viola scripting language and toolkit, 
ViolaWWW provides a way to build relatively complex hypermedia applications
that are beyond the provisions of the current HTML standard.

Background information: Viola is a toolkit for hypermedia development, 
publishing, and browsing. It is basically a toolkit consisting of a
scripting language, a graphical user interface, and an object-oriented 
data storage system. ViolaWWW is an application of the Viola toolkit.

For more information>> http://berkeley.ora.com/proj/viola/violaHome.html


Notable features in the new ViolaWWW
------------------------------------

* Fundamentally HTML 3.0 (ie: highly container based), plus many extensions
  for richer formatting capabilities. Extensions such as for multiple 
  columns formatting, document insertion (client side), and dynamically 
  collapsable/expandable list. 

* Sidebar panel: for displaying "meta" information, or for intra document
  navigational links, etc. The panel is engaged and disengaged by the 
  presence of the document that is associated with the sidebar document. 

* Dynamic toolbar: document engaged tool applets (ie: navigational aids). 

* Rudimentary stylesheet mechanism for attaching styling information to
  a document. For changing document's fonts, color information, alignments.

* A scripting language that is accessible from the HTML, such that an HTML
  document can embbed highly interactive scripts/applets. 

* Miscellaneous niceties: hotlist facility; shows HTTP loading progress
  in a pie chart (when it has the information). 

* An experimental platform. It's source available, even most of the 
  browser is constructed in a highlevel scripting language; and is very 
  customizable to someone who understands the scripting language. 

* Motif front-end. The X11 (non Motif) version is also available.

* Self contained single binary for easy installation, unlike the old 
  ViolaWWW which required setup of various viola application files.


Availability
------------

Source and binary can be found in ftp://ftp.ora.com/pub/www/viola.
Platform: Unix/XWindows. Sparc binary is supplied. 



				Pei Wei (wei@ora.com)
				O'Reilly & Associates, Inc.


PS
--
See README_SETUP_3.3 for notes on compilation, installation, and 
running ViolaWWW.