Overview

THE WORLD WIDE WEB has become part of our life. This chapter offers guidelines for using DCL within the framework of the World Wide Web (WWW) . It builds on information from Chapter 6 on displaying output and from Chapter 23 on DECnet communications.

A complete description of the World Wide Web is beyond the scope of this chapter. Various good books exist on this subject, and a wealth of information exists online, including the information available via the World Wide Web Consortium's site at www.w3c.org.

To make full use of the information in this chapter, you will need access to a package known as a web server and to a package known as a web browser. Commercial and noncommercial web server and web browser packages are available for OpenVMS from various sources. Various features common to most web servers are assumed; you will want to check your specific web server documentation for the features available, and for any specific requirements or restrictions.

The World Wide Web is commonly called simply the "web," which is what we will call it. The web is a collection of computers that, in cooperation with each other, retrieve and display pages of text for users. They can also gather simple input from the users. The text pages contain information and links to other related pages that can reside in the same document or in documents on other computers anywhere in the world. These links, called hyperlinks, are among the most powerful...