Graphics, Visualization, and Usability Center
Mosaic Comments
Comment 0: Excellent product. I am new to WWW and
I find that Xmosaic makes it extremely simple
to use. (BTW you said Add your comments hear, instead of here)
Comment 1: It would be nice if you could save
transferred files before they get
dumped - specifically, sound files
on unix systems get deleted as soon as
the external viewer exits.
Comment 2: I have only used the support staff once
and then was still semi-confused, but
I don't think it was any fault of theirs.
I think I didn't have a firm understanding
of the background that I needed.
Comment 3: Excellent software
need more additional features...
e.g. on-line HTML editor, fully integrated SOCKS library
performance tunning, better Internationalization support, etc.
Comment 4: Best free program I've ever used.
Comment 5: The classic missing links are:
1. How to run mosaic remotely, and
2. Generally insufficent links between
documents.
Comment 6: I also use NCSA Mosaic on PC (although
not very often). In addition to this
I also had a quick (sort of succesful)
try at running PC Mosaic up on a Sun
Sparc under WABI!
Comment 7: Mosaic for Windows and Macintosh would
be much more usable if they supported
forms too.
Comment 8: I use the "help" menu less than daily,
but more than never.
The text-editing interface needs
improvements.
There sould be a way to find out the
current settings of the X resources.
Comment 9: I had lots of good interaction with Marc
during early Mosaic development stages.
Finding things in the Mosaic Help pages
is often a nightmare. It needs a
keyword search.
Comment 10: Mosaic is an excellent example of what
can be done quickly. To a significant
degree I would be happy to replace all
button'n'text user interfaces (e.g. xrn,
xmh, DQS monitor, etc) with Mosaic, partly
due to the nature of WWW, but also the
quality of Mosaic.
Comment 11: Actually, I use Mosaic on VMS, not Unix, but that wasn't an option
in question 1.
Comment 12: Mosaic is great. There are two things that
annoy me. It's rather slow (which may be a result
of motif; chimera is noticeaby faster).
Also, it doesn't come with any documentation -
you have to get the documentation over the network
which is stupid. There isn't even a man page
to tell you the available options.
You need to be able to use Mosaic to
find out how to use Mosaic...
Comment 13: I will be interesting to see how Mosaic develops
now that Marc Andreeson has left NCSA.
Comment 14: I think that the first question should let you tick more than one; we've got X, Mac and PC Mosaic in use here.
Comment 15: I use Mosaic on the Mac, PC, and Unix.
I am using Unix at the moment,
but this is not always the case.
Comment 16: It is often hard to find the documents
needed. It is not often that documentation
is needed, but when i look for something
that i'd just look in the man page to
find on any other application, i may have
to look for 30 min. to find it for Mosaic.
Comment 17: What about multiple-platform users?
Comment 18: might be interesting to have some questions about
experience with other WWW browsers, and to
what extent important features seems to be missing
Comment 19: Don't really use the online docs so
can't answer the last question as "No"
means 'not used' rather then "unhelpful"
I just look at the source - to see how
things are done... I assume that is not what
you mean by online doc./help!
Comment 20: I was impressed when I saw Mosaic spring '92(?).
It has only gotten better...
Comment 21: Mosaic is only getting better
Comment 22: Great product. Wish I had written it.
Comment 23: You could have asked:
what would you change about it?
Comment 24: Part of my Mosaic use is behind a
firewall, so I'm not used to the Help
menu doing anything useful.
There are people at my company testing
Mosaic as an online help facility for
other software.
Comment 25: I am one of the authors of Amiga Mosaic
so I use that almost as much as XMosaic.
Comment 26: I uso both the UNIX and PC versions. PC
version needs form support.
Mosaic is superb.
Comment 27: Good job!
Comment 28: The Mac version is a bit slow still and I am
patiently waiting for the forms capability. The
X version is cool but a SPARCstation 1 is
a bit too slow to appreciate the power of Mosaic.
Comment 29: The thing that is most needed in Mosaic
is better doc for setting keyboard
settings.
Comment 30: I also use mosaic on my mac.
Comment 31: I would really like a batch mode so I
can retrieve a document automatically
if I know its URL (for instance, automatic
weather updating)
Comment 32: in Help, I mainly use "What's New"
BTW, we liked Mosaic so much that we hired Marc!
Comment 33: I use Mosaic about 2-3 times a week. It
is very intuitive and works quite well.
I often get pointers from others that use
it extensively.
Comment 34: Great first step in tieing all these
parts of the Net together..
Comment 35: we need a Mac version with forms support
I am really growing to hate the Xwindows
version I have to use every time I want to
fill out a form.
Also... these surveys should not be taken
very seriously because only folks with
Xwindows clients can respond.
Comment 36: Have sent email for help and questions
but never received response. Wonderful
tool.
Comment 37: Local documentation would be a plus
Comment 38: Intuitive - I gjust use it and don't
need to ask any question...
Comment 39: Mosaic is wonderful, though I think
NCSA needs to be continually supported
to improve and continue development on
Mosaic.
Comment 40: Mosaic is pretty
self-explanatory.
At least for me it
is.
Comment 41: I wish that Mosaic would cache images, such as the ones
used in this form (logos) so that they wouldn't
need to be retransmitted. It should be able to
look in the cache and say I have that image, so
I will show it instead of re-transfering it.
It would be nice if Windows was kept upto date with
the Unix version.
Also, it would be nice to have a way to save HTML's
in the Windows version. Also, when you do a "load to disk" and
at some point you reload that document from disk,
it doesn't display theimages.
Other than that.... It is great!!!
Comment 42: I am delighted with Mosaic (2.1) but fear
its proliferation may choke the net.
It is the most intuitive and useful method of net exploration I have ever encountered. It's great!
Comment 43: I use Mosaic on X, Windows, and even Mac
Comment 44: Mosaic is a great tool keep up the good
work.
Comment 45: The format rather than the conten of the documentation leaves a lot to be desired - send email to for more words on the difficult of using the documentation. This form filled in using the Lynx client
Comment 46: If you are taking Mosaic suggestions/complaints:
FTP mode is hard to use: access to file
size and date information would be very useful
Mosaic gratuitously uncompressing file
transfers is irritating.
When saving files, it would be very nice
if it would use some part of the node name
as a default name for a file. It is
tedious to keep having to supply the name
Comment 47: Not being able to select multiple anchors
is the feature I miss most.. If I'm on
an ftp site and I want 12 files, I have
to do them one at a time (or leave Mosaic).
If you could select many, then "click"
them all at once, (or at least put them
in some sort of queue of things to
remember to read), it would be much better.
Other than that, Mosaic is great!
Comment 48: I have a small amount of real estate for
a screen. If I had more, I suppose I
could move the Hotlist window off some-
where away from the main Mosaic window,
and not have to worry about the fact
that it doesn't auto-dismiss after load-
ing the requested entry.
Comment 49: Mosaic is too intuitive to cause problems. It's just a great piece of software!
Comment 50: I use the What's New option of help
frequently as a short cut. Other than
that I rarely use the help until the
next new version. Then I look to see
what has changed. I am the person
who supports Mosaic locally.
Comment 51: I had a lot of trouble finding
some info on things related to
Mosaic. Particularly, SGML
comments.
Comment 52: Mosaic is wonderful. Give the developers
a lots of money!
Comment 53: On-line docs aren't useful if you never need to use them.
Comment 54: I recently downloaded Mosaic for our Sun system at the University of Minnesota. Everyone that has used it is quite impressed. Personally I feel that browsers like Mosiac will be the trend for the future and will allow those who are still not comfortable working with computers the opportunity to access the Internet without having to know anything about UNIX or DOS or wahtever operating system one might use. I guess I am not sure if this is a good thing , for it might actually make people more
computer illiterate. Multimedia is the buzzword for the future, and MOsaic certainly does deliver that. As I was talking with other students here, the problem for the future will not be the lack of available information but the overload of information,
now we spend too much time digging through all the available resources to find something that is useful to us. Mosaic does address this problem by allowing a person to develop their own home pages, giving immediate access to those sites relevant to the
person's interests. In summary I feel Mosaic is a wonderful piece of software, definitely taking a step forward in Internet technology. I now find myself spending way too much time browsing the Web with Mosaic rather than doing my own work. (such as now
). This will be an invaluable resource for education in the schools at any level. I really think the public who doesn't use the Net would be surprised to find a utility of this kind freely available.
Comment 55: You should have a return to other parts of the survey
at the end of each survey.
Comment 56: I am very impressed with Mosaic as a
tool, and am very pleased that it is
available free of charge.
Comment 57: Re Q1 : Mosaic also runs on VMS
Comment 58: This is to special... I use Mosaic on
MSDOS AND Unix...Depends on machine I'm sitting in front of..
Comment 59: Could do with scriptable/mocro interface;
embedded TCL for scripting explorations?
Comment 60: I use Mosaic on an OpenVMS platform.
It has also been ported to OpenVMS and
OSF/1 for Alpha AXP which is rather
quick.
Comment 61: I've never realy used the online documentation or help,
but I like mosaic. I use an OpenVMS AXP workstation.
Comment 62: I've used Mosaic only for a few weeks, so my view
is somewhat limited
Comment 63: ... strictly I *do* use the Help menu often, but
only because that is where the "What's New"
item is.
Mosaic is wonderful. There is no alternative.
Comment 64: I use the VMS unofficial version of Mosaic 2.0
Comment 65: I ...
never used help
never asked support staff
never read online documentation
use Xmosaic on VMS sometimes, on Unix most of the time
Comment 66: I ...
never used help
never asked support staff
never read online documentation
use Xmosaic on VMS sometimes, on Unix most of the time
Comment 67: I'm still fairly new to WWW, these numbers will probably change soon.
Comment 68: It can often be annoying that the online documentation is
actually just a URL pointing to ncsa - particularly for people
having problems with their internet connection.
More local documentation would be useful.
Comment 69: NCSA has done a remarkable job with Mosaic: the code is quite stable/fast (on UNIX, a least).
The PC/Mac versions need some work in the speed area, although these platforms are more limited by nature..
I especially like/use the "What's New" feature under help.
NCSA seems over-extended (which is what happens when something this useful takes off this fast)..
Comment 70: I'm using on VAX/VMS there si no checkbox
for it
Comment 71: I have become over the last several (7)
months an avid user of mosaic. I find
the ease of use and extensibilty very
exciting.
Comment 72: Mosaic was a remarkable discovery for
me. Before that, I had just used text
packages or Viola. Once Mosaic appeared,
the WWW became something completely
accessible rather than just a great idea
that has potential. There is no question
that Mosaic created the tremendous
growth for the WWW recently. Since they
are continuing development on the
product, I can't wait to find out what
else they are going to do to it!
Comment 73: I need a Solaris 2.3 version of Mosaic.
Comment 74: Having to go over the network to get docs is a real
drag - I'm on a slow network connection.
Comment 75: Use help only for setting up URL documents
on the page I run
Comment 76: My primary platform is OpenVMS VAX, which isn't listed.
I also run Mosaic on my PC (MS Windows)
Comment 77: Scroll bars should be on left! I had
to recompile code to get them there;
NCSA staff was very helpful in
explaining how.
Comment 78: I think that the Mosaic interface is the
future and I am very impressed with it.
I have showed it to others here where I
work and they also feel that it is an
excellent interface to the Internet. I
hope that someday soon I will be able
to have it running at home on my PC so
that my children can become acquainted
with the world. Thank you for making
the Internet accessible and enjoyable.
Comment 79: More info on mime types used by
Mosaic (and some examples) would
be very useful.
Comment 80: Since Andreesen left, the responses
has diminished
Comment 81: I sent email with comments. It wasn't answered.
Comment 82: I find on-line docs about Mosaic
to be very difficult to use. Once
I find what I need, it's helpful but,
it takes work to get there.
Comment 83: IMHO, the first real enabling application
(and that is conunting lynx, cello,
and the rest...) for the net and the
clueless users...
Comment 84: Since I haven't used Mosaic's online
help, it hasn't been useful at all. You
may want to discard my "No" response,
since I don't use it...
Comment 85: Don't really use the online documentation; Mosaic is easy enough to use that it's not really necessary.
Comment 86: You might ask about performance issues
in a future version of this form.
Comment 87: I love Mosaic and am encouraging others to
use it also...it's working.
Comment 88: The documentation could be better organized in spots. There are a lot of things that aren't easy to find, and some that are mildly annoying.
It would be nice to have an actual 'man' page for Mosaic, just for completeness' sake if nothing else. (And for listing command line options.)
Comment 89: The help information isn't really structured
well for either tutorial or in-depth
information. (For a contrasting example,
the online httpd information is very well
structured as a tutorial, although as
reference information it could use some
work.)
I would try to organize information
into more distinct packets/pages and
create more links, along with references
which form threads of discussion.
Comment 90: I've used the support staff at NCSA a lot,
but never for Mosaic (I thought their job
was to run the supercomputers, not support
public domain software!)
Comment 91: The Mosaic help documents should be
distributed with the code! It's
ridiculous to expect the default help
documents to be served from NCSA. I
ended up grabbing the source and
changing the help URLs to pull from
a local mirror of NCSA. My only problem
is that it's hard to update the mirror
properly.
Comment 92: Although this may be confusing to new
users, I would like a better description
of why a certain URL failed to load;
Host not found, no response from host,
connection refused (no http server running),
permission denied, etc.
Comment 93: Work on speed for
these complex forms
(such as this
survey...) Other
than that, great!
Comment 94: I *Hate* the file selector on Mosaic.
Otherwise, it's one of the best bits
of software I've ever used.
Comment 95: We are using Mac/PC/UNIX here
Comment 96: Mosaic is so intuitive and follows standards so well that help is hardly ever needed. It's more than excellent it's way excellent. Keep up the good work and thank you from the staff at
the Wisonsin Department of Natural Resources.
Comment 97: Version 2.0 is a great improvement over
1.0. I'd like drag-and-drop of an html
document to work, though.
Comment 98: I actually filled in this form on Unix-Mosaic.
I answered Mac-Mosaic since I use it the most.
Comment 99: i use the Help menu mostly for the what's new page
Comment 100: please consider incorporating
"stretch text" sometime.. being able
to filter the HUGE amounts of info
would be welcomed.
Comment 101: I would have liked to answer "Occasionally" rather
than "Never" for the question about the Help menu.
Comment 102: Assume "by using the support staff"
you mean explicitly, as opposed to
using their on-line services, e.g., help.
Comment 103: As before - the bugs prevent me from
using Xmosaic much much more.
Comment 104: Your comment box is too small! I said
twice no in the previous section when I
meant it only once!
And you should have warned the users
that there would be a "submit" button
in each section.
Comment 105: I'm often frustrated by the lack of information
given regarding items to be downloaded,
whether pictures, files, or movies. It would
be nice to always know how many bytes long any file is,
and maybe even an estimate of the time it will take
to download it (perhaps based on past average transfer rates?).
Comment 106: I find it a little sluggish on questionnaires...
Comment 107: The item in the Help menu I access is
the "What's New" document, though I have
a pointer to it in my home page. Access
is a few times per week.
Online help on the program (or any
program) is a necessity even
though I don't use it very often
now on Mosaic.
Mosaic is clearly the best freely
available X program I've used.
Comment 108: The only annoying thing is trying to find the
Mosaic icon on my desktop -- it is the indistinct
"X/Motif" black/gray blocks rather than something
visually recognizable.
Comment 109: would like to use it on my laptop
Comment 110: Question 2: I e-mailed them with a suggestion
for the Hotlist 2 weeks ago, but have
heard no response.
Comment 111: The labels on the "How often" question
are out of order.
Comment 112: Because xmosaic is simple to use,
I rarely look at the help
Comment 113: I think that Mosaic is really great--to
me it represents the primitive beginnings
of what we will see in a few years' time.
Comment 114: Mosaic is a useful browser but the PC version
is not very reliable as well as the NCSA staff.
I had sent a mail about not finding a hotlist
in the PC version (I can add to config file) and
until now I have not gotten an answer. I Need some
support to be able to promote MOSAIC.
Comment 115: Half the time I use mosaic for the Amiga
please add that choice.
Comment 116: I look at "What's New" every day, but
rarely if ever use any other items from
the "Help" menu.
Comment 117: Wonder tool - allows so much from one interface on multiple platforms - The future beckons!
Comment 118: The first question of what machine am I using is misleading since only the Unix version
can do this form, therefore I would be surprized if you got any other answers.
I actually use the Mac Version more, but since the Mac does not support forms, I
stepped over to the unix box to do this questionare.
Comment 119: This form needs substantive work, I don't
really see much point to it.
Comment 120: Best developement since telnet and ftp.
Incredible tool. Cyberspace visualized.
Comment 121: A downloadable Mosaic manual would be
helpful, especially for not-so-clear
features, e.g., annotations...
Comment 122: my instance doesn't *have* a Help menu,
though I have had to refer to the HTML
programmers guide often.
Comment 123: my instance doesn't *have* a Help menu,
though I have had to refer to the HTML
programmers guide often.
What's great about Mosaic is that it made
two signficant leaps: Internet resource
abstraction and hypertext. It's the combination
that makes it so impressive.
I would like to see some support for 2D
formatting. Limiting HTML files to linear
sequences is not very good; come on, the
mac finder did all this a decade ago.
Comment 124: Mosaic is great, but the use of Motif
makes it hard to freely distribute. I
realize that NCSA has provided statically
linked versions that avoid the problems
with Motif distribution, but I'd prefer
the use of another widget set.
Comment 125: This product is amazing. However, it
will not be complete until it allows
you to create html documents. (a la
tkWWW) I want to be able to type in text
and then highlight it. Once highlighted
I should be able to italicise, bolden,
change the size of, or make a hyper link
from it.
Comment 126: My experience with NCSA support was
very good, when Marca was working there.
I cannot say how it is now.
Comment 127: Comments deleted for brevity's sake.
Comment 128: I mostly use the help menu for the HTML
and HTTP manuals
Comment 129: The help menu doesn't work for me since
I'm using Solaris.
Comment 130: Actually I use Mosaic on VMS.
I prefer to be able to print a manual
and read it at my leasure off-line.
Comment 131: using What's New in Help Menu, of course...
Comment 132: It is a wonderful production. Every time
I use it I am impressed.
Comment 133: Mosaic is great. Very easy to use.
Comment 134: Excellent tool. This is what computers
are really for.
Comment 135: Mosaic needs the ability to remember a default font family on a per user basis.
For instance. I would like to be able to select small helvetica, and then have mosaic
pick fonts for me accordingly.
Mosaic is a wonderful piece of software. Keep extenting it!
I would like to see Mosaic support the creation of one's own html documents
while browsing. A user should be able to drag a URL reference from the
browser into their own personal information herierchy including their annotations
Comment 136: After using Mosaic to scour around the World Wide Web for a few hours, I realized that the Web itself is _not_ a new thing, but rather that Mosaic is simply the first widely available WWW server for the platforms most commonly used by Internet users.
Well, Halleluia! The World Wide Web clearly represents the future of information technology, and Mosaic has brought it to the people who are the most likely to do the most with it-- the Internet Community.
Comment 137: The platform question of /UNIX/PC/MAC may
seem to indicate that I use the Windows
Mosaic. I hate Windows. I use the X
window system version ported to DESQview/X
Comment 138: Very new user. Really enjoy the whats
new and adding to the hot list new and
unusual items
Comment 139: I've been using Mosaic since early
Summer 93. I have sent many suggestions
to the NCSA folks and have found
them very responsive
Comment 140: I've been having a problem configuring the
Macintosh version, it would be nice if there
was some on-line documentation which was not
a hot-link, so that it could be read even if
network links are not working.
Comment 141: A great tool
Comment 142: - I am using Mosaic on UNix AND on Windows
but I can only choose 1 option in this
questionaire.
- I use the on-line documentation but I
would prefer a Postscript file which I
could print. Then I could read the documentation
at home, in the train etc.
Comment 143: I would like to see more detailed
documentation about Mosaic's and httpd's
MIME Content-Type mechanism.
Comment 144: ACCESS TIME!!! I have really slow network
connection, besides, I am in Europe.
Fetching help documents from NCSA is
SLOOOW... I would much prefer to have them
locally. I think I'll have do to something
about it...
Comment 145: I'm not a big manual fan but your help does not seem right somehow. I use winsdows and their help and maybe its the colour it seems friendlier (seldom has what you want though....)
Comment 146: The online tute for setting up your
own httpd rocks it in.
Comment 147: Mosaic is just great!! I've been using the internet for years
and have never come across anything that makes information
so accesible.
Comment 148: :-)
Comment 149: There are more computers in the world
than "Mac/PC/Unix" (question 1).
I use Mosaic under VMS.
Comment 150: Mosaic is Hyper-excellent. Thanks a lot.
I think tutorials are a good thing, too rare
and never really really well.
Comment 151: Excellent program, perhaps THE best program I've
used under X-Windows. The only problem is that
the courier font used to display "raw" text is hard to
read. I like the idea of using the net for help. The
only problem is that our net connection is slow and
it takes a long time to download pages. Sometimes I
wish I could cache more localally.
Comment 152: I'm using VMS port of Mosaic.
Comment 153: Mosaic is so easy to use that I rarely
need any instructions or help-files.
Comment 154: Mosaic is superb. Searchable indexes are
a must - more please. Also, is there any way
of speeding it up a bit? I think I'm being
unreasonable. MOSAIC gets 10/10.
Comment 155: The documentation on setting up the httpd
server was teriffic. I use the What's
New help option daily, but the other
online help stuff only weekly.
Great job! I could say positive things
about Mosaic for hours, and it still
wouldn't be enough.
Comment 156: One of the best Motif interfaces I've
seen. If there's an online help explan-
ation of what clicking on the "globe"
button does, I've missed it, and it seems
to be both powerful and dangerous!
Comment 157: Great product - note: first question
should allow multiple responses. I
also use mosaic from a PC at home
occasionally.
Comment 158: Great product.
Comment 159: Mosaic itself could be improved with a
horizontal scrollbar, and improving
throughput efficiency, i.e. re-using
http connections for everything in a
document for instance.
Comment 160: It takes to long time to access the
help information, it is often much
faster to try things out and the
interface is very easy to understand.
There is one thing I do not like (maybe
do not know) that is that you do not
inherit file names when you transfer a
file like using ftp or rcp
Comment 161: I'm a brand new user, that's why my
use of the help menu is so frequent.
I love Mosaic.
Comment 162: Actually, I use Mosaic on the Macintosh pretty frequently as well.
The macintosh version is not as polished and could use more work,
but a lot of my browsing involves digging through FTP sites for
Mac information.
Comment 163: This type of program is a great time
saver and also makes it far easier and
likely to find new information.
Keep up the good work!
Comment 164: Online docs need to be updated as new
versions arrive.
Comment 165: It was very useful when I started,
but not so important now.
Comment 166: We have only been on the Internet for a
very short time and are trying to determine
how best to use it for the benefit of the company.
I feel that Mosaic will provide an easy
to use interface for our non-computer type
people.
Comment 167: help menu? What help window?
Comment 168: Mosaic only gets better. Every release
adds something stellar.
Comment 169: we are using also a microsoft windows version
and we are expecting the form support
Comment 170: Please please keep up the good work.
Please don't try to commercialise it.
Ask for donations if neccessary rather than
restrict distribution by charging.
Comment 171: NCSA Mosaic is an excellent tool.
NCSA should act as a leader in
developing the next generation of
WWW browsers.
Comment 172: FAQ files should be renewed regularly
Comment 173: Question 1: User can use more than one
platform - eg I use both Mac and Unix.
The question needs revision.
Comment 174: Mosaic is awesome. They ought to be given
some type of award.
Comment 175: It's *GREAT* I'd like more support for running
behind firewall routers though.
Comment 176: Actually, I use the items in the 'Help'
menu only but occasionally.
Comment 177: Never used online docs. Help doesn't work
at my site.
Comment 178: I almost never invoke the Help items
directly, but I do visit the documents
they reference often (a few times a week
at least). SO my answer may be misleading.
Comment 179: My rating of the support staff is based on
the fact that on the few times I have emailed
the NCSA staff I have NEVER got a reply,
not even to say that the email was received
and was in a queue awaiting consideration.
The online documentation is very good, although
a little more handholding could be done for
those of us trying to set up servers to make
our own databases public - with the advent of small
single user unix machines (I use an SGI Indigo)
there are a lot of us without too much system or
network management experience ; the documentation on
setting up ones own server I find quite demanding.
Comment 180: Help menu??? What Help menu? ;-) The PC Help only offers e-mail to developers.
Comment 181: The one thing that bothers me the most
about Mosaic, and something that is so
very appropriate in the current context,
is the atrocious slowness of forms during
scrolling. It's really bad and seriously
detracts from their usefulness.
Comment 182: It would be nice if, when you spawn a
new window, doing an operation in the
first window wouldn't lock up both
windows.
I'm not sure how hard this would be to
do, but it sure would be nice!
Comment 183: Good stuff.
Comment 184: Use it on PCs too.
I reported some bugs during the 2.0beta stage, but
never received a response :-(
Besides that: One of the best peaces of
free software I saw lately.
Comment 185: At a low-bandwidth site, I'm kinda reluctant to
use the help.
-JMax
Comment 186: Changes between 1.* and 2.* versions
have been a little confusing since the
menu structure was changed. My hotlist
fills up quickly and takes awhile to
search.
Comment 187: Generally, I've only needed to use the
documention when configuring for new
versions, or when first learning a new
aspect of publishing.
Comment 188: Mosaic 2.0 wasteful! Title/URL sect too giant! Buttons at bottom useless (except BACK!) Wasted space everywhere! Developers must own
gigantic color displays...
What with WWW content tending to take up lots of visual space, agressively trimming Mosaic overhead/visual clutter (never mind speed...)
would be great!
Title/URL is useful; but it takes up
Screen height (actual image illuminated) 6.75in
"X" window bar, Menu bar, Title/URL height: 2.0"
Bottom bottons/dead space: .75in
Usable view window: 3.75inches!!! Egad!!
*** SQUASH titl/URL into 0.5"!!
*ELIMINIATE* Bottons at bottom (Make assymmettriccal "BACK"; it's used a lot)
Eliminate approx. 0.1" border left/right of view window/
On a small screen, every pixel counts...
(The spinning globe I admint is totally cool; but the space is utterly wasted...)
Comment 189: Suggestion: it would be nice to have a
menu button to save current
configuration info (window size,
selected font, and so on), perhaps to
~/.Xdefaults
Comment 190: The lacking support for fetching many
documents at the same time (non-blocking)
i/o) is bad. My temporary solution to fork
a new mosaic with the middle button has
been quite usable for me, I think other
users would appreciate my patch (maybe as
a compile-time option or even selectable at
runtime).
Comment 191: I'm usding this on a VMS system. I think
we did a bit of a hack to get it to
work(?). Very Good though!
Comment 192: I use the What's New page from Help all
the time, but I don't think that counts.
Since this is a survey about how users use Mosaic,
I'll tell you something about my method.
As I travel, when I see something of interest
but expect to return to the current page,
instead of clicking on the link and returning
later via the "Back" button, I use the middle
button to open a whole new window.
I found this off What's New, and currently
have four windows open awaiting further
exploration.
With this technique, I create a stack, as
a memory aide. This functionality could
be captured in a stack feature, which would
store the exact position of the document
on the current page (maybe window size too),
and allow me to simply add things to the
stack, to return to later.
anyway, that's browse mode,
- Ryan
Comment 193: The http documentation is nice, but I
would like all the info in one place
rather than on different http pages
(as an option)
Comment 194: I think the help is still a bit sketchy.
Local help pages might be useful for
those exploring the idea, but are not
yet on Internet. Finally, use of icons
for things like printing, or Options,
might have greater appeal to the general
public.
Comment 195: Printing, or even copying to the clipboard, would be a nice feature to have.
Comment 196: I think putting the documentation
online is a great idea. That way, they
can keep it up to date.
They must be geniuses.
Comment 197: Consider doing a new kind of external
viewer that is actually a FORM-ENTRY
tool, with incredible flexibility.
Something like WordPerfect Informs, but
as FREEWARE! This would open the NET
up!
Scott Beaudreau
Comment 198: The "Help" item I use is the "What's New" entry.
Comment 199: It can be tricky to find things in the documentation.
The dependance on Motif is annoying, as many platforms don't have it.
The font control is too tied to specific things (eg a specific font for bold, etc).
It would be better to have the point size portion track the current text point size.
An easy way to use a proxy web server would be very useful.
Comment 200: Although I never use the "Help" menu now, I used it extensively when I first started.
Comment 201: Terrific application!!
Comment 202: The only problem I have with Mosaic,
is the spinning world icon. This seems
to take quite a lot of CPU power, not
a good idea on a shared system.
Comment 203: I would like mosaic to not block subwindows
when retrieving a URL on one of the windows.
Comment 204: It is amazing to be able to get software of this calibre in the
public domain. Mosaic has, for me anyway, revolutionised the use of
Internet.
Comment 205: A shame you can't do a search on the
current text !
Comment 206: V2 was a big improvement.
Need to work on scrolling of Forms!
Online Documentation getting better as well.
Comment 207: It's a brilliant piece of software,
the support is a bit intermittent, but
then I assume they must be a bit flooded.
The documentation would be fine if it
could keep up with the version.
It could also do with more details of
WHY you should use Mosaic, rather than
just HOW......
Comment 208: An excellent piece of software.
Really demonstrates what the Internet is
about: some other pieces of software get
in the way.
Comment 209: I like the features. I don't like
the interface.
Comment 210: Not enough BASIC information for
brand new users, or at least I can't
find it.
Comment 211: Didn't even realize there was Help until I read this survey!
Comment 212: The help pages are pretty good, but sometimes they still resemble
unix man pages. They need more examples.
Comment 213: The documentation was invaluable for
starting out, but since I've become
more skilled at using Mosaic, I rarely
need to use the Help, which is good!
Comment 214: 1) I'm not sure I understand the necessity of
using Motif as the preferred X library.
2) I believe that Linux should be supported
more than it is.
3) I find it hard to sell World Wide Web
to members of my laboratory, because the
Mosaic for Windows is really buggy.
Comment 215: I find there the menu titles don't
necessarily describe where to find what.
I find it difficult to go searching, but
easy to browse.
Comment 216: Mosaic should provide 'Abort' option
in addition to 'Back','Forward'....
Comment 217: The problems that I have with mosaic
I have with several motif apps. I hate
the fact that the hotlist (or whatever)
doesn't raise to the top if it is already
open when I request it. Also, the speed
of scrolling is horrible, if there are many buttons
or type-in boxes on the screen (like this page
for instance)...
Comment 218: I had to use XMosaic to answer this survey . Mosaic
on the mac
seems to be unable to correctly display these forms.
Comment 219: Where can I get a (oh pardon me for saying it)
a printed manual? Online help is OK when
it is done well...but I want a paper copy.
Comment 220: I acutally use a VMS system.
No local node has Motif and TCP/IP
so I need to run it on a machine
500 miles away and display it locally
using DECNet. Shame Mosaic can't also
use DECNet to get info.
Comment 221: Don't feel like help is necessary
Comment 222: a great public service
Comment 223: As I am a server maintainer, too, we should
really keep the docs to Mosaic locally, too.
As we are from Germany and have made
WWW the general infosystem for our departmrent
with about 3500 students we could save a lot of bandwidth
and gain a lot of performance.
Maybe there should be a xmosaic-doc.tar.gz
Comment 224: would be nice if you didn't have to put the mouse in
a text field to enter data there, but could
tab between multiple text fields.
Comment 225: I use both PC and Unix versions of Mosaic.
The versions I have, have no help associations.
Comment 226: Daily use of `Help' menu is `What's New'
Comment 227: Talk about your killer app! I also grabbed
NCSA collage, to be used to edit graphic
images. The Windows version still needs
work. It would be nice if all of the
viewers were bundled with Mosaic.
Comment 228: How about a way to post USENET articles?
The scrolling of the forms is slow, and
I am on a very fast machine.
Thank for a the great software
Comment 229: on-line docmentation about Mosaic is well
done but there's no many details about all
the HTML syntax.
Comment 230: Also use mosaic on PC (at home, via SLIP).
Would like selective imbedded images rather
than the current all-or-none. Would like
an authoring mode.
Congratulations on an excellent product!
Comment 231: A very friendly and useful tool
Comment 232: Mosaic 2.1 has some problems with B&W displays.
Comment 233: They also respond well to big reports.
Comment 234: A pretty well-designed piece of software.
However, the form displays need to be sped up (perhaps sacrificing some of the fancy bits)
Comment 235: It seems that the windows/mac versions
still need some more work.... It would
be nice if they functioned as well as
the unix version (which is *excellent*)
Comment 236: There are still bugs and rough edges,
but it's amazing for a freely available
program.
Comment 237: WOuld like more drivers for multi-media (and a faster net)
Comment 238: Mosaic is an excellent tool - though there is a role for others.
The main thing I would like at present is better
tools for *creating* HTML documents, e.g. maps, adding in URLS from other
documents etc.
Comment 239: I have to find the on-line documentation
about Mosaic helpful because there's
nothing else. :-(
Comment 240: Hot stuff! I am not alone in seeing
Mosaic as the "killer" application
for networks. By making networks
"point and click" the available information
becomes readily accessable.
Charging and organization are the primary
facilities still needed.
Comment 241: I have only used Mosaic to search the WWW.
I have had contact with both gopher and wais and appreciated
the ability to use them from text terminals.
Correction I've only used Xmosaic (I',m unsuare if there exits
a text based mosaic program) -
Note I am upset theat the current version I'm using
on a ?Subn workstation will not allow me to delete mistakes within this window!
Comment 242: In general, Mosaic is a very nice product.
The single most annoying behavior of
Mosaic is its habit of deleting MPEGs
immediately after they are played. I would
prefer that the file be kept. What makes
this an especial aggravation is that so
far, Mosaic refuses to accept the command
flag -loop for mpeg_play.
Comment 243: I'm using Mosaic on VMS... you should probably add this choice
in question 1
Comment 244: sometimes the screen update is very
slow and can result in search boxes
being left on the screen covering text.
I do not know if this is a xmosiac fault
or something to do with the unix system/
network I am using.
Comment 245: documentation? what on-line documentation?
(maybe I'd better go talk with the sysadmin about that...)
Comment 246: I *LOVE* Mosaic.
Comment 247: I only use the help sometimes
ie between never&daily
Comment 248: Am also trying to get Windows ver. to run.
Instructions with aip file not very helpful
wrt connecting to local http server and
figuring if winsock.dll is appropriate.
Comment 249: Need a way to spread Mosaic's manuals
around so that not all the load of the
Help menu falls on one server...
Comment 250: Documentation needs to be more accessible, and there should be links
for retrieving the full text of many of the documents,
instead of being forced to browse them
with Mosaic.
Comment 251: Mosaic could definitely be improved, but it's the
best of it's kind I've seen. It makes the "standard"
Unix alternatives look like dinosaurs...
Comment 252: Very small "start up" time (time to learn),
but easy to get more sophisticated
Comment 253: Very Nicely Done.
Comment 254: Only one thing. Mosaic is the greatest!
Sang
Comment 255: Also use Mac version
Comment 256: The hotlist should be saved as html,
rather than making Yet Another format.
No need to have `Mail To' option then :)
Comment 257: That's a low-somewhat. It'd be nice to simply point
the help menu items to local help documents. I'm on a v.32 SLIP line,
and therefore I just open local...
I use Mosaic on NeXTSTEP 3.2 using MouseX. It's slightly
painful (keymaps, lack of external viewers
for images/sound), but generally I love it.
Thanks!
Comment 258: Would use MacMosaic more if it supported forms.
Comment 259: N.B. I have never used the Mosaic on-line
documentation
Comment 260: I didn't know that there was a support
staff. Please forward and email address
for them.
Thanks,
J. Day
Comment 261: NCSA support has declined recently
Comment 262: It's the best WWW Browser I've used (Which,
admittedly, isn't very many) and I've been
impressed (Esp. with v2.x). The only bad
thing is how slow scrolling is for forms.
*Sigh*
Comment 263: For all its hyper-linking gee-whizzness,
Mosiac's online documentation lacks depth.
There are few examples, and fewer comprehensive
descriptions of, for example, file formats/ options.
It is frustrating to look for information
in these pages because there such a low information density
on any given page...
Comment 264: basically used it without needing
documentation - seemed obvious
Comment 265: I've never used the on-line documentation.
Perhaps this should be added as an alternative answer.
Comment 266: There should be more doc files distributed
with mosaic. The acces time can be quite long for
the docs.
Comment 267: Mosiac is fantastic compared to other things
but definitely spurs the imagination onto
the potential for interfaces like it. I
find that the performance (and we are connected
via 10Mb/s to the internet) is often lacking.
Keep up the great work, though!
Comment 268: Forms scrolling is too slow.
I'd like a way to mark something as "visit later" without jumping right away.
Comment 269: The spinning world thing uses too much
bandwidth on the LAN, as I use X between
hosts to run and display Mosaic. Make it
slow down, or be optional.
Comment 270: Make the news: interface better. It has
great potential.
Comment 271: ug
xmosaics 2.1 has a bug and there is a input window in the upper right... it's making everything really slow (and flashy)
Comment 272: I've had very bad experience with
NCSA Mosaic support staff. They don't
respond to requests for help or bug
reports.
Comment 273: My personal wishlist:
Selectable fonts for the Document Title (etc) window.
I have a system at home only capable of 640x400, and it doesn't
give much space left for the document window.
Search within a page for text. Some pages (e.g. Cern's list
of servers, output from archie/veronica etc would benefit
greatly from a search facility.
Comment 274: Generally don't look at the doc much because it's
so good you don't *need* the doc -- at least for
browsing. When I'm creating, I need the docs.
Comment 275: My biggest wishes are:
- that each page was a separate process/thread so that a
slow transfer doesn't hold up everything.
- that the Unix version displayed images as they arrive
like the Mac version, rather than waiting until they are all retrieved.
Comment 276: Are there any plans to add a "put"
capability to Mosaic?
Comment 277: I've been working on connecting
a home PC based machine to the
internet at which point I will
use PC based version and likely
increase usage.
Comment 278: I'd like annotations to work...
Comment 279: Where is the "Help" menu
Comment 280: Wonderful program though I wish it weren't Motif based so that it could be distributed freely to people who don't want to contribute to the OSF!
Comment 281: The hypertext is blue and the command buttons are red.
I love Mosaic, I hate the color scheme!
Comment 282: I
Mosaic is great. I tried the help a few
times, bu tthe net was so slow that to
get the stuff from NCSA was toooo long.
Comment 283: Documents such as manual must be distributed with
Mosaic binary.
Because WWW and Mosaic is useful as document
viewer, even if offline(not connected to Internet)
environment.
Comment 284: Splendid, Congrantulations, =|:-)
Comment 285: I like the upgrade features available for Mac
users.
Comment 286: What online docuemtnation?
Problems seeing only tiny window of text and poor colours on my 486 machine.
Comment 287: I often run mosaic at home on a pc using
X over a modem link to work where mosaic
is running on a unix platform. Thanks
for -dil it made it posible.
Comment 288: Rightnow now I am running the X-windows version of Mosaic on SunSUN IPC. Normally uset the Mac version. I am really impressed with the ease of use. I planto use Mosaic in instructional roles in genetics and developmental biology. I have a few suggestions for improvements that I will submit some day to SDG NCSA. For the present, think Mosaic is great!
Comment 289: The Mosaic people at NCSA almost never respond to email even though they encourage it and imply they will answer questions for help.
On the other hand, I'm satisfied with the response of the httpd staff at NCSA.
The on-line documentation would be easier to use if it had an over-all index.
Comment 290: Mosaic is wonderful! What more can I say :-)
Comment 291: The text entry boxes are a pain, though.
Why can't I backspace?????!
Comment 292: I wish it was easier to change spawned utility preferences
in unix mosaic. Why not offer the capability of changing them
in a preference menu option like the mac mosaic?
I'm running openwindows and I'd like a simpler way to get
mosaic to activate the software on our system.
Comment 293: I never think to use the online help. wish there were a menu selection to make something the new default home page.
Comment 294: Never needed help because the Mosaic
home page, tutorials, and demo pages
were very complete. The interface is
intuitive also.
Comment 295: more documentation could be handy
Comment 296: I have used Mosaic since it entered the market.
So, I am quite unlikely to need to look in the eHel-menues, etc.
My main problem with Mosaic is that it is
motif-based.
Comment 297: Either I have missed something,which
wouldn|t be the first time anyhow,
but is there any helppages which
thouroughly tells you have to do
this kind of forms, clickable pictures
and such?
I would be glad if the helppages could
be bit more structured and, how should I
put it, keyword oriented(?). As it is
now it can be very hard to find what you are
looking for! Otherwise I find the software
to be excellent!
Comment 298: I think the Web help is not at all useful. It's simply far too slow and cumbersome. A decent help facility should give instant, context-sensitive information, in small chunks.
Also, I find the Motif standard on the Unix version a real pain. It's slow, it's large, and it's completely inconsistent with OpenWindows or X-Windows, which is the standard... it looks more like a Mac or a PC.
Comment 299: By using the O$F's Motif toolkit, you
greatly restrict this client's usability.
Comment 300: By using the O$F's Motif toolkit, you
greatly restrict this client's usability.
Comment 301: The method for entering characters into boxes is awful.
I hate having to click on text to delete it.
Comment 302: It might be not the right place, but I didn't quite figure out, who is responsible for the video programs. It's a pity that the view programs(e.g. mpeg) are not really easily available. Otherwise it 's great. Keep on going!
Comment 303: Mosaic needs more interfaces to external tools and environments
The SQL interface was a great start.
Comment 304: NCSA has done a wonderful service to
the Internet world.
Omy
Comment 305: I have a problem saving binary files when using
Mosaic for FTP.
Comment 306: The thing I really hate about the help
menu is the "About" item. It doesn't
tell me anything about the client I'm
using. Heck, when I was using version
1.X, I clicked on about and it loaded up
a document that said "The current version
is 2.1." I didn't want to know what the
currently available version is. I wanted
to know MY version.
--
Comment 307: Mosaic is somtimes quite slow.
It processes too many expose events.
So the screen flickers very much.
But nevertheless it's an excellent program!
Comment 308: Need a guide on the Help menu which has
a listing of all the codes for HTML
documents. I know codes which are not
present in the "comprenhensive" listing
so ther are definately some missing.
Comment 309: There are 2 features that absolutely need
to be in Mosaic:
1) Multiple selections. I should be able to
select multiple items on a page (there should
also be a "select all" button) and "get" all
my selections at once.
2) Retry URL open capability. If a server is
refusing me, say because only 10 people are
allowed in at a time, I should be able to
tell Mosaic to constantly retry until a
connection is established.
In general, Xmosaic is the best Internet browsing/
searching/presentation tool in existence; great
work guys!
Comment 310: Love NCSA's HTML instructions for setting up
their server! It was just point-n-click and
a little typing, and Viola! My server was
ON THE WEB! :-)
Comment 311: little in no online documentation of any kind
for WinMosaic...that makes it difficult for
new users to get started in the world of
the web.
Comment 312: Response time on help pages is a problem. It would be much better to distribute them with the application for local access.
Comment 313: Add "Occasionally" for the "Help" menu question?
Comment 314: I'm still new to Mosaic. It seems very
nice, though it is frustrating to
download a document, just to find that
the proper viewing tool is not present
on the local system.
Also, it is frustrating that Mosaic does
not let you interact with it when a
download is occurring. Often, I'd like
to be downloading a document while
perusing another document in a
different window.
Comment 315: Mosaic for X should fetch inline images
AFTER getting and displaying the text
portions like AMosaic does. At this time the only
bearable mode is delayed image loading!
Comment 316: I wish there was a more concise online technical explanation of Mosaic to help explain the interaction of the browser and my local OS.
I haven't spent enough time RTFM'in to really complain though, which is a testament to the superior job done in designing Mosaic.
The only thing that I really would like to see in browsers is an extension language in the same style as elisp in Emacs so I could customize my search procedures (a sort of local interpreter of the http traffic if you will).
I guess I will eventually look at the various html modes available under FSF Emacs 19 and go on from there.
All in all, I can only echo the rave reviews that have already accompanied the changes in Mosaic 2.x.
Kudos to all involved! I hope to help out as soon as I get up to speed; see you on the Web.
Comment 317: I don't know how to abort a request in
Mosaic. I try control C, etc, and the
"hung" or busy request (http request is
never responded to) has to time out or
I must "kill" the Mosaic process.
Cloned windows should fire off new processes
and run independently.
Hotlist should allow icons and sorting.
This may be a WWW problem and not a
Mosaic problem, but a large amount of
items I attempt to retrieve are marked
as the server refused to give the items
or the server is unavailable (and this
hangs Mosaic for a long time). Maybe a
user selectable timeout could be added.
Comment 318: I am not familiar with the vocabulary of networking,
therefore I find helps often confusing
Comment 319: There's still a way to go but Mosaic looks like the front-runner.
Comment 320: Please add the Amiga Mosaic to your list of platforms. Thanks!
Comment 321: in the last question there should be an
option for never tried/used it.
mosaic is excellent and self explaining
so i didn't need a documentation
Comment 322: It would be a great help if there were an
"Abort" button somewhere.
Comment 323: A nice addition to Mosaic would be some sort
of interface that graphically showed the nodes
(documents) and links. Something like the
"DiGraph" viewer that was in the Kiosk prototype
developed at HP Labs.
Comment 324: It should be a law against having a job
in which you love and have so much fun at
Comment 325: It should be a law against having a job
in which you love and have so much fun at
Comment 326: Great stuff! Embedded buttons/check-boxes
/radio-buttons/text-fields/search-fields
can sometimes be left undestroyed, though.
Comment 327: Should be possible to get a linearized
version of documentation for reading off
line.
Should be possible to get easily local
copies of documentation.
Documents should have date and version
numbers on all pages.
Make it easier/more obvious for people
to change their home page.
Heck, a lot of the configuration should
be doable from within Mosaic.
Hotlist should be an HTML document
(as with lynx, for example).
In fact, wouldn't it be great if many/most
www browsers used the same format
hotlist? (HTML of course, but same format
HTML.)
Comment 328: Everything can be made better. But for
the prize I am paying for this service
it's *excellent*
Comment 329: I would prefer a manual page which I
can print out
Comment 330: Very nice program
Comment 331: Thank you all peoples who supports
WWW world...
Comment 332: Rarely use mosaic - use lynx instead.