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Background on Netscape Authoring


Starting with version three of their popular browser line, Netscape has offered an authoring environment that has been geared to work seamlessly with their server solutions. For version three it was called Netscape Gold. For version four it was renamed Netscape Composer.

Since Netscape has traditionally dominated the market for browsers, many sites have tailored their HTML for Netscape. Thus, who better to provide an authoring tool than the company that provides the browsing tool?

With this in mind, Netscape designed their authoring tool as a WYSIWYG environment. Authors did not need to type in HTML, they would only had to point-and-click, seeing the actual, rendered HTML as they went. Thus, the authoring environment was aimed at the less-technical market.

Not only did Netscape provide a tool to create HTML files, they also provided an environment for getting that HTML file, all related graphics files, and all other HTML files onto the Web. This environment contained two mechanisms. The first involved using FTP for older-style transfer of files. The second and more advanced involved communicating with a Netscape Web server and transferring the files using a native Web protocol called PUT.

This is advantageous for several reasons. First, FTP usually requires an account in the operating system of the website, whereas Web protocols are more flexible and can be (using SSL) much more secure. Secondly, FTP requires more systems resources than using Web protocols. Most importantly, perhaps, it provided a tie-in to Netscape's server line, since they were the first to implement the Web protocols necessary.

In summary, Netscape publishing provides two things of interest to Zope: a graphical environment for authoring and a mechanism for publishing multiple files using native Web protocols.

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