MOTHRA(1)                                               MOTHRA(1)

     NAME
          mothra - retrieve World-Wide Web files

     SYNOPSIS
          mothra [ url ]

     DESCRIPTION
          Mothra retrieves and displays files from the World-Wide Web,
          by name or through hypertext links.  Web names, called URLs,
          have a peculiar syntax:

               http://netlib.att.com/netlib/1127/www/1127.html
               http://akebono.stanford.edu:80/yahoo/
               http://www.teleport.com/~crowell/
               file:/sys/lib/mothra/help.html
               file:html2.elements.html#ADDRESS
               ftp://ftp.gmd.de/music/scores/harrington/Harrington.readme
               gopher://gopher.bev.net/11/BevBus/King.Video

          The part up to the first colon gives the protocol for
          retrieving the file.  http:, Hyper-Text Transfer Protocol,
          is the usual way of accessing web files.  file: names a file
          in the local file system.  ftp: and gopher: are standard
          Internet services.

          // begins the Internet address of the server where the file
          resides.  The address may contain a colon and a TCP port
          number, which overrides the default port number for the ser-
          vice.  Next comes a file name.  Finally, the file name may
          be followed by # and a string giving a label within the file
          where the display should begin.

          Mothra starts with the url given on the command line,
          defaulting to the environment variable $url, and finally to
          file:/sys/lib/mothra/start.html.

          The display contains the last message from mothra, a box
          where typed commands appear, a scrollable list of previously
          visited files, the title and URL of the current file, and
          the scrollable text of the current file.

          Button 1 selects and displays a file, either from the list
          of previously visited pages or from a link (indicated by
          underlined text or a boxed image) in the current file.  But-
          ton 2 shows the URL of a file, but does not retrieve or dis-
          play it.  Button 3 pops up a menu of commands:

          save back  Place a link to the current file in a `back list'
                     for future reference.
          get back   Retrieve and display the back list.

     Page 1                       Plan 9            (printed 12/17/25)

     MOTHRA(1)                                               MOTHRA(1)

          fix cmap   Adjust the display's color map so that images
                     will have correct colors.
          exit       Ask for confirmation and quit.

          The typed commands are:

          g url      Get the page with the given URL.
          s file     Save the current file in the given file.
          q          Quit.
          ?
          h          Get help.

          When mothra retrieves a file that is not an HTML document
          (for example a GIF or JPEG image), it will start up an
          appropriate viewer, for example fb/9v (see 9v(9.1)) for
          image files.

     FILES
          /sys/lib/mothra/*
          $home/lib/mothra/back.html the back list
          $home/lib/mothra/mothra.url log of visited URLs
          $home/lib/mothra/mothra.err log of error messages, including
          HTML syntax errors

     SOURCE
          /sys/src/cmd/mothra

     BUGS
          ftp: URLs are not supported.
          Files are saved in the form received, not in the form sug-
          gested by the name in an s command.
          Mothra is distributed in a preliminary state; it has more
          than its share of bugs.

     Page 2                       Plan 9            (printed 12/17/25)