 
Welcome to version 2 of the Pipeline's Internaut software for Windows.

We've added many new features. The software should look completely 
familiar, but you'll quickly see there's much more available. The most 
important--the one you've probably been waiting for--is our browser for 
the World Wide Web.

There's an extensive new help file, well worth looking through. And there
will be other documentation available shortly. In the meantime, here are
the highlights: 

-- World Wide Web browser. For those of you who have been hearing about
Mosaic and wondering how you could use it, this is our Mosaic equivalent.
It's a graphical browser for WWW resources. You can start it up in many
ways. The easiest is just to look for Web resources in our menus--they're
identified by the blue web icon--and click on them. In the usual Pipeline
spirit, our Web windows are independent and multitasking. So you don't
need to wait for one thing to arrive before you start working in another
window--a huge advantage, we feel, over Mosaic itself (Mosaic being a
well-known public-domain Web browser). 
   As for what it is--the World Wide Web is a collection of resources much
like Gopher resources but in pages--with different layouts of type,
hypertext links to other resources, embedded pictures, and even sound
files. Our browser supports all of these. Pictures arrive as swiftly or as
sluggishly as your modem speed permits; when they're embedded in a page,
you will see them expanding as they reach your PC. Optionally, you can
choose to turn off the automatic expansion of embedded pictures, in which
case clicking on the asterisks will retrieve them one by one. Sound files
are even slower (that is, larger), but if you have a sound card, you'll
probably want to try these, at least. 
 
-- Mail and News. These features are totally overhauled since version
1.4x. They are much, much improved--stabler, quicker, easier to use. There
are many new features, some of which you'll discover only gradually as you
become comfortable with the new style. 
   One major change is that you can arrange things so that every letter
does NOT automatically come to your PC the moment you log in. Only the
Table of Contents arrives; to get the letters, you must double-click. (A
single-click will let you see the SIZE and other information--this means
that you no longer get hung up downloading huge unwanted mail.)
   Those of you who are very comfortable with the old mail and news style
may be disconcerted at first, but we're quite sure now that we've improved
things dramatically for both experts and neophytes. Here are some things
you couldn't do before: 
   * Compose one or more messages while reading one or more messages in
other windows. 
   * Instantly begin a new letter from the main screen (without having to
open your Inbox first). 
   * Page through all your mail or news in order by pressing one key ("n"
or spacebar). Similarly, "p" backs up, and there are arrow-button
equivalents for the mouse. 
   * Create folders and groups of folders for Mail or News and organize
these in a tree structure, with folders in categories. 
   * Sort a mail or news folder according to Date, Subject, or Sender. In
the latter cases, we use a tree-style display, like the Windows file
manager, so that all items on a given subject or from a given sender and in
their own folder--this is a great convenience. 
   * Select many items at once and move them to a new folder (or delete
them). 
   * Retrieve old news items by date. 
   * Retrieve news items in a given thread (on a given subject). 
   * and too many more to list here. We encourage you (gradually) to look
at the various Actions and Options available under mail and news. It won't
be obvious at first glance what they all do (the manual IS on its way), but
you'll figure it out, and then you'll wonder how you lived without them. 
   One more major new feature here: Filter Rules (on the File menu of any
mail or news window). Again, full explanations will wait till later, but if
you are adventurous, you'll find that you can (among many other things): 
   * Set up a folder to automatically receive mail from a particular
mailing list or person or on a particular subject. 
   * Kill (unseen) all mail from someone (use this cautiously!!). 
   * Automatically retrieve all or some articles (in case you preferred the
old style of NOT having to double-click the ones you want to download). You
can even set it to automatically retrieve all articles below a certain
size. 
 
-- Drag and drop. In the mail and news trees, you can now reorganize your
folders simply by dragging and dropping. Same with Bookmarks. 
 
-- Options and Preferences. These are now (mostly) consolidated in a new
window using the tab-folder style. You'll find it easy to use. The
connection and modem options are much simplified--you can (and must) simply
edit the phone number you dial to reach us, in case you need special
prefixes and suffixes.  
   A few options that you need instant access to from a given mail or news
folder are still there on the Options menu for that window. 
 
-- Bookmarks. 
   These, too, are now organized in the tree structure (the same as mail
and news). Let's say you're gophering along, clicking deeper and deeper
into the Internet. Now you can save not just one but many bookmark
items--select one or more and click on the Bookmark! menu item. You can use
the toolbar buttons to create new headings; to move items up or down the
tree; or even to add or edit the raw address information manually, if
you're the sort of advanced user who likes to play with such things. 
   The point is, you can now create your own guide to the entire Internet,
organizing it and reorganizing it as you see fit. 
   Another important feature: your Bookmarks can include Web pages along 
with everything else. If you find a Web resource you like, just choose 
Add Bookmark.
 
-- Self-refreshing windows. 
   In keeping with the new spirit of the software, windows have much more
stability and power. One important feature is a Refresh! menu item. This
re-retrieves whatever information filled the window in the first place. For
many resources, this won't mean much. For some, however--for example, the
new stock-quote feature--it's exceedingly useful. 
   Even more powerful is the Autorefresh option, under Advanced. You can
choose a time interval, and the window will refresh itself automatically
all the time you're online. Use this with your stock portfolio--you'll see
the prices updating themselves minute by minute. 
 
There's more, as you'll discover. Check out the new graphical interface 
for IRC (Internet chat) . . . and so on . . .

 
    
   

