The document provides specifications for the preferences window of a Mosaic web browser. It describes the different pages and groups within the preferences window, including Styles, Directories/Applications/News, Cache/Images, Mail/Proxies, and Helper Applications. It provides details on the user interface elements for each group, preferred default settings, and how the buttons and selections should function. The specifications include errors in the original interface design that require corrections.

1. Preferences Specification
History:
Published Friday, July 29.
Updated Monday, August 1: changed possible reactions on Help Applications window
Major revision completed Thursday, August 25.
Update on Friday, August 26.
Removed: Disk cache (number of kbytes)
Removed: Cache directory (text) & Browse... button (file dialog)
Changed Proxys to Proxies!
Specification
Window is a modeless (modal on Motif), movable dialog with a close box. The window should not
resize.
Window title is "Mosaic: Preferences" on Motif. "Preferences" on Macintosh and Windows.
This window has a drop down list at the top that allows the user to select from five different pages. The
items in the list are (in order):
Styles
Directories, Applications, News
Cache and Images
Mail and Proxies
Helper Applications
There should be a horizontal line below the drop down list and a second line above the Defaults/Help
buttons. These areas remain the same as pages are turned.
We have the following preferences, arranged in groups as pages on a window.
Styles (page)
Window Styles (group)
Show Toolbar as: (choice: pictures, text, pictures and text)
Start with: (choice: blank page, Home page URL -- text)
Font Style: (choice: small, medium, large)
Link Styles (group)
Underline links (choice: yes/no)
Unfollowed link color & Choose... button (color)
Followed link color & Choose... button (color)
Followed links expire [now] [never] after [n] days
Directories, Applications, News (page)
Directories/File storage (group)
Temporary directory (text) & Browse... button (file dialog)
Download directory (text) & Browse... button (file dialog)
Supporting applications (group)
Telnet application (text) & Browse... button (file dialog)

2. View Source application (text) & Browse... button (file dialog)
TN3270 application (text) & Browse... button (file dialog)
News (group)
News host (text)
News RC file & Browse... button (file dialog)
Show newsgroup descriptions (fancy news display)
Mail and Proxies (page)
Mail (group)
Your name (text)
Your email (text)
sntp (mail) server
Proxies (group)
HTTP proxy (text) and port (number)
FTP proxy (text) and port (number)
Gopher proxy (text) and port (number)
News proxy (text) and port (number)
Wais proxy (text) and port (number)
No proxy (list of text:port number)
Cache and Images (page)
Cache (group)
Memory cache (number of kbytes)
Images (group)
Dither images to the same color cube vs. use closest match
Display images while loading vs. Display images after loaded
Helper Applications (page)
List of mime types & subtypes (list of text)
Mime type & subtype (text)
Action:New subtype
Extensions (text field)
Action: (choice of save to download directory, use Mosaic as Viewer, and Use Application (text)
& Browse... button (file dialog))
Buttons
The Ok button will apply all changes made to any page and dismiss the window. The user may change
pages without pressing ok.
The Cancel button will cancel all changes made to any page (since the last time Ok was pressed).
The Defaults button causes all of the fields on the current page to change to our factory default settings.
The Help button figures in to our online help, however it works.
Preferences: Styles

3. Specification
Window Styles (group)
Show Toolbar as: (choice: pictures, text, pictures and text). Defaults to Pictures.
Start with: (choice: blank page, Home page URL -- text). Default value is Home Page URL and
our Mosaic home page (HTTP unknown!) If "Blank Page" is selected, the text field below is
greyed out.
Font Style: (choice: small, medium, large). Defaults to Medium.
Link Styles (group)
Underline links (choice: yes/no). Defaults to yes.
Unfollowed link color & Choose... button (color). Defaults to blue. The color square (should be
to the left of the text, but isn't there) should be a button that brings up the chosen color. Or you
could use a Choose... button if that's the platform standard.
Followed link color & Choose... button (color). Defaults to purple.
Followed links expire [now] [never] after [n] days. If Never is selected, the text field and the
Days label are greyed out. Pressing Now clears the links now (doesn't wait for ok/cancel).
Default is Never.
Preferences: Directories, Applications, News

4. Specification
Directories, Applications, News (page)
Directories/File storage (group)
Temporary directory (text) & Browse... button (file dialog). Use the default that makes sense on
your platform.
Download directory (text) & Browse... button (file dialog). Use the default that makes sense on
your platform.
Supporting applications (group)
Telnet application (text) & Browse... button (file dialog). Use the default that makes sense on
your platform.
View Source application (text) & Browse... button (file dialog). Use the default that makes sense
on your platform.
TN3270 application (text) & Browse... button (file dialog). Use the default that makes sense on
your platform.
News (group)
News host (text)
News RC file & Browse... button (file dialog). Use the default that makes sense on your
platform.
Show newsgroup descriptions (fancy news display). Default is yes.

5. Preferences: Cache and Images
Please note that the GUI has
Proxies spelled incorrectly.
Specification
Cache (group)
Memory cache (number of kbytes). Should have a slider with a number to the right that shows
nnnn Kbytes. The maximum value on the slider should be the available space. Use the default
that makes sense on your platform.
Images (group)
Dither images to the same color cube vs. use closest match. Defaults to Dither to color cube.
Display images while loading vs. Display images after loaded. Defaults to While Loading.
Preferences: Mail and Proxies

6. Specification
Mail (group)
sntp (mail) server. If there is a default available on your platform, use the one that makes sense.
Your name (text).
Your email (text). Default to username@host, if you can, or just username.
Proxies (group). No defaults for proxies.
HTTP proxy (text) and port (number)
FTP proxy (text) and port (number)
Gopher proxy (text) and port (number)
News proxy (text) and port (number)
Wais proxy (text) and port (number)
No proxy (list of text:port number)
Preferences: Helper Applications

7. Please note, this image is older. There are several
errors on it. The following text corrects those errors:
Prompt should be "Load into Mosaic" and is only available for the MIME types that we can load (GIF,
TEXT, HTML...).
The buttons on the bottom are wrong: there should be an OK and a Cancel button.
Things are a little different in the Mac world for this window. Aleks and I have sorted it out. Drop by to see
him or me if you'd like to know the differences in the design.
Specification
List of mime types & subtypes (list of text). The list would show data of this form:
Col1 Col2 Col3 Col4 Col5
----- ------- ------ ----------- --------------
Image gif [icon] xv *.gif, *.giff
Image jpeg Save *.jpeg, *.jpg
Image raster Save *.rs, *.ras
Image tiff [icon] xv *.tif, *.tiff
There are 5 columns. Column one is the mime type. Column 2 is the mime subtype. Column 3 is the
application icon. Column 4 is the application name (the basename, not the full pathname). Column 5 is
the list of extensions. It will probably be necessary to show horizontal scrollbars, in addition to vertical
The list will contain all of the mime types that there are. For each platform we should attempt to build a
correct mime type table: at least providing extensions, if not applications wherever possible. The list is

8. sorted on Mime types with a secondary sort on Mime subtypes.
Mime type & subtype (text). Selecting an item in the list will update the text fields below to show the
mime type and subtype.
Action:New. Pressing the New... button brings up a window that will have two text fields, an OK
button and a Cancel button. The text fields will be Mime type: and Mime subtype:. The user must
provide data in both fields. When the user clicks Ok the data is verified. If the type already exists, an
alert informs the user of this and the New window is kept open. If the type is valid, the new type is
added to the list, sorted to the correct location, and selected.
Extensions (text field). The extensions text field shows a list of file extensions that correspond to the
Mime type. No one file extension can map to more than one Mime type, so some verification will have
to be done before new data is accepted. The field should accept data of the following form:
gif, giff comma separator, extension shown alone
gif giff space separator
.gif, .giff extension shown with period
.gif .giff
*.gif, *.giff extension shown with wildcard
*.gif *.giff
When the data is validated it should be converted to the form: *.gif, *.giff (shows wildcard and uses
comma separator). The data should be updated in the list above once it's validated.
If an extension already exists then an alert must come up informing the user that this is the case and
telling the user which Mime type uses the extension. The extension is left in the textfield, however.
Action: (choice of save to download directory, use Mosaic as Viewer, and Use Application (text) &
Browse... button (file dialog)). Save means that a file save dialog will appear when the file is
downloaded. The dialog will default to the user's download directory and have a default filename for
the file. Use application means that this application will be launched with the downloaded file as an
argument.
The Browse... button brings up a load dialog and allows the user to navigate to the application he
wishes to use.
The icon shown would be replaced with the application icon for the selected application. This helps the
user recognize & verify the application.
The text field is a read/write text field in which the user can specify the application and any arguments
to be passed to the application. When the textfield is verified, the application should be checked to
exist. If it doesn't exist, or if the field is empty, the user will be warned, but the field will be unchanged.