Cyberdog

Cyberdog was an OpenDoc-based Internet suite of applications, developed by Apple Computer for the Mac OS line of operating systems.

Overview

Cyberdog is a breakthrough approach to the Internet that provides easy and intuitive access to all the Internet resources that you use most. With Cyberdog you can browse the World Wide Web, read and write email, follow usenet newsgroup discussions, utilize file transfer services to share files, explore gopher-space, and remotely login to computers via telnet. In addition, Cyberdog also incorporates the ability to view text, movies, sounds, pictures, and QuickTime VR files on the Internet without the need for helper applications.

Cyberdog also provides you with a common infrastructure which helps integrate all of these parts into one very useful set. Cyberdog has a Notebook and Log to store the Web sites which you visit the most. Its more than a bookmark file of Web addresses though. With the Notebook you can also store email addresses, newsgroups, references to FTP and gopher sites, telnet sessions, references to pictures, movies, text documents, and sound files on the Internet. The Log gives you three powerful ways to view a history of your Internet activities.

Because Cyberdog uses OpenDoc component technology, it's completely integrated into the operating system and can be extended with other OpenDoc components. This integration allows you to drag and drop files from the Internet right to your desktop, copy URLs to your desktop to revisit them or embed them into email, and much more. Using Cyberdog's DocBuilder you can create your own custom applications to access the Internet. When you create these CyberDocuments, you can place buttons to take you to anyplace on the Internet, embed live views of Web sites or data on the Internet or read your favorite newsgroups.

Cyberdog Components

World Wide Web Browsing

• Supports HTML 2.0 specifications including in-line graphics, formats, tables, backgrounds and client-side maps
• Display graphics from Web pages, FTP and Gopher sites without the need for additional applications
• Import your Netscape Navigator bookmarks
• A powerful Log retains the sites you've visited and gives you three viewing formats
• Notebooks provide a more sensible approach to organizing your favorite locations and addresses into one or many notebooks.
• Support of Netscape Navigator 2.0 plug-ins

Email

• Fully stylized text, multimedia, graphics, and live URL links can be included in email
• Mail handlers automatically sort and organize incoming email into mail trays you create
• Sophisticated search engine allows full text search over email
• Handle multiple email accounts
• Import your current mail and addresses from other packages such as Eudora

FTP, Gopher and AppleTalk networks

• Access FTP, Gopher and AppleTalk networks with a consistent and intuitive interface
• Drag and drop to copy files from the Internet right to your desktop
• View files on FTP and Gopher sites without the need for additional helper applications

Newsreader

• File and sort newsgroups into multiple trays automatically
• Fast indexed searching over the full news text returning relevancy ranked results

DocBuilder

• Create your own "CyberDocuments" that give you customized access to the Internet
• Embed information from multiple Internet sources
• Create buttons to have single-click access to mail, newsgroups or Web pages
• Provide live views of Internet sites
• Support for Internet standards

Protocols Supported

• HTTP
• HTML 2.0, tables and background images and colors
• FTP
• Gopher
• POP3/SMTP
• NNTP
• MIME 1.0
• Telnet
• AppleTalk

Data Viewers Supported

• Text
• PICT picture files
• JPEG picture files
• GIF picture files
• TIFF picture files
• QuickTime movie files
• QuickTime VR movie files
• AU sound files
• WAV sound files
• AIFF sound files
• Navigator 2.0 plug-ins
• Support for Java with Macintosh Runtime for Java

World Wide Web Browser

The Cyberdog web browser fully exploits the drag-and-drop capabilities of OpenDoc. To save any Internet site you are currently viewing just drag the "Me" icon to the Notebook or to the Finder. You can even include it in a letter by dragging it into the message content area. Double-click any time, and Cyberdog takes you right back to that place. You can also drag one of these icons, called "Cyberitems", into an open navigation window and the contents of the location it represents will be displayed there.

"History" (the places you've been in this browser window) is a popup menu right on the window, for quick returns to previous places.

Status information about connecting, downloading, and page formatting appear in the status banner at the bottom of the window, along with byte count and a progress bar where applicable. And if you want to stop the process, just click the running dog!

In Cyberdog, it's easy to browse in multiple windows at the same time. Just turn off the "Browse in place" option in the Navigation menu and a new window will open every time you follow a link. You can also hold down the option key when you click on a link. The windows are independent, with their own histories and their own status information. And they run concurrently, which means that a slow network need never slow you down.

Integrated Mail and News

Cyberdog provides advanced support for reading and sending electronic mail as well as participating in on-line discussions. Cyberdog provides some advantages over many other systems:

• Letters can contain pictures and text in any font, size, style, or color.
• Files or folders can be enclosed by just dragging them into the message.
• Mail and news are completely integrated, so you can forward a news item to an individual or send messages to newsgroups and individuals at the same time.
• You can create "folders" to store mail and establish rules to automatically sort mail into those folders.
• Mail that you have stored in folders can be found quickly through indexed searches based on words or phrases in the letter or envelope.
• E-Mail templates with which include text or graphics, standard subject text, and pre-addressed lists of recipients can be created and saved as "letterhead"

Cyberdog messages contain the feature rich content you would expect to have on the Macintosh.

The message editor takes full advantage of drag and drop capabilities. You can:

• drag an address from your notebook or a Web page into one of the address fields
• drag a picture or text clipping into the messages
• drag a Cyberitem from any Cyberdog window, or URL from another browser, into the message content area
• drag a file from the Finder into the content to enclose it

Cyberdog allows you to have mail accounts on multiple systems and also to create your own "mail folders" to store mail on your own computer.

You can drag messages between mail trays or to any folder or the desktop in the Finder.

You can also create "Mail Handlers"--rules which allow you to automatically sort your mail as it is downloaded or at other times you may choose.

You'll never lose your mail once it is stored in a mail tray no matter how many messages there are since Cyberdog automatically indexes all of the words in all of the messages and gives you quick search capabilities:

Cyberdog's mail and news capabilities are fully integrated, so you can read and send messages to people or newsgroups in exactly the same way. You can also connect to as many news servers as you wish, so you can discuss global issues on Usenet on one news server and have local discussions with members of your workgroup on another news server.

See Also

• Apple Computer
• OpenDoc

File Transfer Protocol

HyperText Markup Language

HyperText Transfer Protocol

Simple Mail Transfer Protocol