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UdiWWW HTML3 Web Browser
Original author(s)Bernd Richter
Initial release1995; 29 years ago (1995)
Final release
1.2.000 / April 9, 1996; 28 years ago (1996-04-09)
Written inC/C++
Operating systemWindows 3.1 / 3.11 / NT / 95[1]
Size1.7 MB (32-bit)[2]
570 KB (16-bit)[2]
Available inEnglish, German
TypeWeb browser
LicensePublic domain[1]
Websitewww.uni-ulm.de/~richter/udiwww/index.htm at the Wayback Machine (archived July 24, 1997)

UdiWWW is an early, now discontinued freeware graphical HTML 3.2 web browser for 16-bit and 32-bit Microsoft Windows. It was written and developed by Bernd Richter in C/C++ from 1995 to 1996. Following the release of version 1.2 in April 1996, Richter ceased development, stating "let Microsoft with the ActiveX Development Kit do the rest."[2][3][4]

UdiWWW was among the first web browsers to support the then proposed HTML 3.0 standard.[5][6][7] In doing so, it was also among the first browsers to support the specifications html math, html figures, and the PNG image format,[7] which other leading browsers at the time such as Netscape and Internet Explorer 2.0 did not.[8] The browser gained some popularity during 1996, but after development was abandoned, the browser fell out of favor.[9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16]

The browser is no longer available from its original homepage. However, it (and its source) can still be downloaded from mirror sites.[17][18]

History

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UdiWWW was created for the UDINE Projekt (Universal Document Information and Navigation Environment). UDINE was started in 1992 and the goal was to "create a flexible, multimedia information system that is able to show different files (text, picture, audio, and video) with a similar user interface on different systems."[19][20][21] To be able to read "web information" the UDINE project was expanded by a web browser. It was not able to integrate common browsers like the NCSA Mosaic because of the client-server architecture without modification. The source code of Mosaic was not available at that time, so the university started their own project. UDINE-WWW-Viewer was created and had most features of HTML 3 integrated.[7][22][23]

Features

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UdiWWW has the following features as of Version 1.2:[24][25][26]

  • HTML 3 support[1]
  • HTTP 1.0/FTP/Gopher/proxy support
  • Plain text support
  • Mailto support
  • Graphics supported: GIF89a, X Window-XBM, Progressive JPEG, JPEG, and PNG[27][28]
  • Bookmarks
  • Browsing and document history
  • Page text search
  • Page magnification
  • Table support
  • Icon entity support
  • Link support[29]
  • Figures support[30]
  • Math support[1][31]
  • Print/Print Preview
  • Save web page as .txt, .htm, or .udi
  • Stop, refresh, reopen, or go back
  • Open .html, .htm, and .ht3 files
  • Caching of documents and images
  • View page source
  • View header response in "Document Information"
  • Modify header sent in "HTTP Interactive"
  • Netscape extension support
  • Anchor highlighting[32]

It also features a clock in the lower right hand corner that tells how long the browser has been up.

There is no official help file; rather, in the included .hlp file, Bernd Richter stated, "This help file was automatically created by the developing environment and is quite useless. As you know, UdiWWW is a 'One Man Show' and the author could not find time for writing help files."[33]

Criticism

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UdiWWW was criticized for lacking many advanced features like news, FTP, HTML4, Dynamic HTML, support for targeted windows, a "new window" command for launching multiple sessions, client side image mapping, and security. It was also seen to be slow.[34]

Further reading

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  • von Wolfgang, Nefzger; Andreas F Golla (September 1998). Web Publishing (in German). Franzis Verlag GmbH. ISBN 978-3-7723-8112-6.

References

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  1. ^ a b c d Graham, Ian; Michael Lee. "PC WWW BROWSERS". WWW Software for Windows PCs. University of Toronto. Retrieved March 13, 2010.
  2. ^ a b c Bernd Richter (May 26, 1997). "UdiWWW". University of Ulm. Archived from the original on July 24, 1997. Retrieved March 13, 2010.
  3. ^ Richter, Bernd (September 4, 1996). "UdiWWW: Coming soon". University of Ulm. Archived from the original on July 9, 1997. Retrieved March 16, 2010.
  4. ^ "The 'link'-Element in (X)HTML". subotnik.net. March 30, 2004. Retrieved March 14, 2010.
  5. ^ "WORLD WIDE WEB FAQ". 1996. Retrieved March 16, 2010.
  6. ^ "Microsoft Windows browsers". World Wide Web FAQ. Retrieved March 16, 2010.
  7. ^ a b c Großmann, Prof. Dr. Hans Peter. "Department of Information Resource Management". University of Ulm. Archived from the original on June 4, 2011. Retrieved March 22, 2010.
  8. ^ Stauffer, Todd (June 1996). "Chapter 18". Html by Example. Que. ISBN 978-0-7897-0812-0.
  9. ^ Stroud, Forrest. "UdiWWW Introduction". Software Reviews. Internet.com. Retrieved March 14, 2010.
  10. ^ Stroud, Forrest. "UdiWWW No Longer a Serious Contender". Software Reviews. Internet.com. Retrieved March 14, 2010.
  11. ^ Ornstein, David (November 20, 1995). "Latest browser rankings from BrowserCaps (UdiWWW is currently #1)". Webhistory. Retrieved March 14, 2010.
  12. ^ Brown, Mark (1996). "Chapter 2 How Web Browsers and Servers Work Together". Que Corporation. Retrieved March 14, 2010.
  13. ^ Ornstein, David (November 20, 1995). "Latest browser rankings from BrowserCaps (UdiWWW is currently #1)". World Wide Web Consortium. Retrieved March 14, 2010.
  14. ^ Gayle V. Davidson-Shivers; Karen L. Rasmussen (2006). Web-based learning: design, implementation, and evaluation. Pearson/Merrill/Prentice Hall. p. 378. ISBN 978-0-13-081425-8. Retrieved March 16, 2010.
  15. ^ B. Ram (2000). Computer fundamentals: architecture and organization. New Age International. p. 1.32. ISBN 978-81-224-1267-3. Retrieved March 16, 2010.
  16. ^ Mark Surfas; Mark Brown (November 1996). Using Intranet HTML. Que. p. 88. ISBN 978-0-7897-0852-6. Retrieved March 16, 2010.
  17. ^ Its original homepage at "Archived copy". Archived from the original on July 24, 1997. Retrieved March 13, 2010.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link) is no longer up. The original ftp page at ftp://ftp.rz.uni-ulm.de/pub/infosystems/UdiWWW/ is no longer up.
  18. ^ "LEO – /pub/comp/general/infosys/www/browsers/UdiWWW/". Leo. December 6, 2004. Archived from the original on December 6, 2004. Retrieved March 22, 2010.
  19. ^ Herrmann, B. (January 1998). "BelWü Spots" (PDF) (in German). BelWü (Baden-Württembergs extended LAN). Retrieved March 22, 2010.
  20. ^ Müller, Paul; Hans Peter Großmann (June 10, 2003). "UDINE a universal document information and navigation entry". Computer Networks and ISDN Systems. 26: S29–S38. doi:10.1016/0169-7552(94)90096-5.
  21. ^ "abgeschlossene Projekte". UDINE (in German). Ulm University. Retrieved March 24, 2010.
  22. ^ "abgeschlossene Projekte". Forschung (in German). Ulm University. Retrieved March 24, 2010.
  23. ^ Prof. Dr. H. P. Großmann. "Überblick über die Aufgaben des Universitätsrechenzentrums". Universitätsrechenzentrum (in German). Ulm University. Retrieved March 24, 2010.
  24. ^ Bernd Richter (April 4, 1996). "New Features in UdiWWW". University of Ulm. Archived from the original on July 9, 1997. Retrieved March 16, 2010.
  25. ^ "UdiWWW Test Verzeichnis". University of Ulm. July 9, 1997. Archived from the original on July 9, 1997. Retrieved March 22, 2010.
  26. ^ Steel, Warren (May 17, 1996). "Proposal: List attributes". W3C. Retrieved March 24, 2010.
  27. ^ Richter, Bernd (April 9, 1996). "Properties of UdiWWW". readme file. University of Ulm department of information research management. Archived from the original on July 9, 1997. Retrieved March 14, 2010.
  28. ^ Roelofs, Greg (February 23, 2000). "Browsers with PNG Support". Archived from the original on March 3, 2000. Retrieved March 14, 2010.
  29. ^ Gutfeldt, Matthias (February 23, 2004). "Browsers with LINK support". Retrieved March 14, 2010.
  30. ^ "Advanced HTML Taking Your Pages to the Next Level". TallTech. Retrieved March 14, 2010.
  31. ^ "Chapter 18 – Other HTML 3.0 Proposals". Docs.rinet.ru. Retrieved March 22, 2010.
  32. ^ Weinreich, Harald; Hartmut Obendorf, Winfried Lamersdorf (2001). "The look of the link - concepts for the user interface of extended hyperlinks". Proceedings of the twelfth ACM conference on Hypertext and Hypermedia - HYPERTEXT '01. p. 19. doi:10.1145/504216.504225. ISBN 978-1591134206. S2CID 14289046.
  33. ^ From the help file "UDIWWW32.hlp" from the Version 1.2.000 installation.
  34. ^ Stroud, Forrest (December 11, 1996). "UdiWWW – No Longer a Serious Contender". Windows Software Reviews. Win Planet. Archived from the original on July 3, 2004. Retrieved March 22, 2010.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: unfit URL (link)
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