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On Sat, 15 Apr 1995, Cliff Allen wrote:

> sjones@pop.adn.com (Stan Jones) writes:
> 
> > I believe it. We haven't succeeded in moving an image file by email yet.
> > We're wondering if it would be possible to send the email edition with
> > links back to *images* on our web server, which readers could then retrieve
> > if they considered it worth the trouble. Anybody know if this is possible?
It is possible.  You might want to just let them pull the index as well.  
What's the point of sending me and 25 other people at my company your 
"email" index when we can just cut/paste the home-page URL to our 
web-browser's "goto" line.  If it's a good publication I might put it on 
my browser's home-page, or even on my hot-list.

What is great is to sent me "highlights" in plain text, so I know what 
your latest issue emphasizes, and then give me the home page URL.

> > In case it hasn't been clear from previous posts, our goal here is to find
> > some way to move graphical documents to subscribers in a way that exploits
> > the most basic and universal capabilities of the Internet infrastructure
> > (i.e., email) and can exist independently of the server approach.

The problem with e-mail, especially mailing lists, is that they have to 
be stored Somewhere.  I have had to deal with more than one admin who had 
to deal with 25 users who were reading the same 200 posting/day mailing 
list.

> Given the desire to e-mail an initial batch of news (possibly just a set of
> long headlines), and allow the user to acquire a more complete and/or more
> graphical version, it can be done today using the WebLink connection between
> Netscape (viewing HTML) and Adobe Exchange (viewing PDF), with links pointing
> back and forth between documents.

One of the benifits when you are using "Open Systems Standards" like HTML 
is that you can reach many people who have many different platforms, 
operating systems, hardware, and user interfaces.  Vendors, in the 
interest of adding value and convenience, often provide extensionsions for
which they are unwilling or unable to provide source code.  For internal 
use, where a corporation has negotiated a "site license", this is very 
practical.  When your goal is to reach 1% of those 3-5 million people 
with Web Browsers, publishing "browser breakers" such as PDF or HTML-3
tags or embedded Jpegs and other NetScape Specific features produces 
interesting results when the Web Browser is Lynx or WinWEB or Mosaic.

When Prodigy, Spry, Chameleon, or Mosaic users (about 2 million) hit
your "cute" posting, they will give up and browse your competition.
When a Netscape user (another 2 million?) hasn't registered his software 
and doesn't have exchange, he will also hit your PDF and "shop elsewhere".

You may want to put up two separate servers or pages.  One with the 
"bells and whistles" for those who have them, and one with the "no 
frills" basics using only GPL "Open Systems Standards".  Often new 
products like Web Browsers are put up in Athena format (can run on 
anything but really boring as a GUI) and in Motif format (realy "glitzy" 
but costs extra).

The "loser" of competing standards often puts his product into GPL which
turns the tide.  Sun wasn't able to dominate the market with OLIT and Xview
so that PCs can be made to "look like a Sun".  Sun just put CORBA into GPL in
hopes of making some of their CORBA products more palatable) CORBA is a 
competitor to OLE that (thanks to the availability of source code) can 
be run on almost any multitasking platform that support the GNU C++ 
compiler (almost anything but MS-Windows 3.X). 

> The headlines (in HTML) could be e-mailed (or made available on a Web server).
> Links in the HTML document could cause Netscape to connect and download one or
> more Acrobat PDF files.  Links in the Acrobat file could point back to the
> HTML file, or to other Acrobat files on the Web server (e.g., other sections,
> ads, inserts with coupons, etc.).

You may also want to see if you can put a MIME header to indicate that 
this is HTML instead of text.  Some MIME E-Mail readers will actually 
feed the attachement directly to the Web Browser.

> I used the WebLink software in a seminar to link from small GIFs to complete
> versions of documents in PDF files, then link back to the HTML files.  (We'll
> be loading these files on our Web pages within two weeks -- let me know if you
> want to be notified when you can try it.)

Can you tell me where I can get either:
	A.  Precise specification of PDF - comparable to the PostScript Book?
	B.  PDF viewers for Mosaic on Ultrix (4.1-4.3), Linux, AND all 
	    versions of Windows (3.0 to 9? and NT) AND OS/2, for modest fees.
	C.  Source Code in portable C or C++ with compiler flags for the various
	    flavors of UNIX, and OS/2 (windows is optional) under GPL?
AND:
	D.  A SGML -> PS -> PDF generator that can work on VMS, OSF, or Unix
	    and produce 3000 pages (charts, tables, fonts...)/day.  This is
	    urgent, 3 NTs chugging away is producing about 300/week.
	D.  A GPL implementation of Secure Sockets or an equivalent.
	E.  GPL source to RSA encryption (C, C++, Perl).
	F.  Licensing rates for all of the above in quantity 1, 10, 100, 
	    1000, 10,000 and 100,000 (in case we have to license all 
	    subscribers).
	G.  An "acrobat accelerator" that lets me page through at 10 
	    pages/minute or faster.
	H.  A "PDF to FAX" converter.
	I.  A "PDF to GIF/JPEG" converter (All Platforms).
	J.  A "PDF Validator" (Am I sending out garbage or is my link fuzzy)?
	K.  Support by an engineer familiar with the source code 24/7?
	    (8-5 in SF, NY, London, Australia, NewZealand, Japan, and India).

These are the issues that come up in the "big league" of on-line 
publishing.

> Since Netscape will soon be incorporating PDF support, the WebLink connection
> is only a temporary -- but working -- way to link HTML and PDF documents.

Unfortunately, I won't be able to view it.

> Cliff
>                           http://www.allen.com/allen.html

Can I read this one?

From rballard@cnj.digex.net Wed Apr 26 23:15:59 1995
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