Getting WWW documents by email [fwd]

Francis Heylighen (fheyligh@VNET3.VUB.AC.BE)
Thu, 2 Mar 1995 19:26:00 +0100


For those of us who don't yet have a direct Internet connection with WWW
access, I hereby include the help file from the WWW mail robot, which
allows you get any WWW file (except graphics and sound) just by using email
to listserv@info.cern.ch. As a reminder, if you wish to consult Principia
Cybernetica Web, the URL address is:

http://pespmc1.vub.ac.be/

Francis

----------------------------------------------------------------------------
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From: agora@www10.w3.org
Subject: Help on the W3 mail robot

****************************************************
*** Agora: Retrieving WWW Documents through mail ***
****************************************************

Welcome to Agora, the World-Wide Web email browser!

To retrieve a document, you just have to specify its "address",
called a "Uniform Resource Locator" (URL). For example, the URL of
this document is
http://info.cern.ch/hypertext/WWW/Agora/Help.txt .
This means that to get it, you just have to send a mail to
listserv@info.cern.ch, with whatever subject you like, the body of
the mail being:
SEND http://info.cern.ch/hypertext/WWW/MailRobot/send.html

If this is the first time you enter this new medium, we suggest you look
at the following documents:

http://info.cern.ch/hypertext/WWW/TheProject.html
The World-Wide Web Initiative[1]

http://www.charm.net/~web/Vlib.html
Word-Wide Web Developpment[2]

http://sunsite.unc.edu/boutell/faq/www_faq.html
World-Wide Web Frequently Asked Questions[3]

In this new media, most documents are hypertext. In such a case
you will notice numbers in square brackets such as [12] next to
some special words.
This means you may access a new document, hopefully related to
the word(s) preceding the [12]. If you are interested to see this
new document, you will find at the bottom of the document containing
the [12] a list of URLs, next to numbers. Then, just copy the URL
next to [12], and paste it to the body of a mail you send to
listserv@info.cern.ch . If you are lazy, there is another way to
retrieve W3 documents through email: just reply to
listserv@info.cern.ch , and specify in the body the number(s) you are
interested in. This program will figure out which document you are
interested in by looking at the subject header that you then have to
preserve.

Example 1
=========
You'd like to know more about the World-Wide Web Initiative ?
All right, the number between brackets is 1. Let's look at the
bottom of this page. 1 corresponds to
http://info.cern.ch/hypertext/WWW/TheProject.html .

So you have to send a mail to listserv@info.cern.ch with the body:
SEND http://info.cern.ch/hypertext/WWW/TheProject.html

Example 2
=========
You still have some questions on World-Wide Web ? All right, the
appropriate documents are "World-Wide Web Developpment" and
"Frequently Asked Questions". They have the numbers 2 and 3 in
brackets next to them. So you reply to the mail from
listserv@info.cern.ch that you are currently reading, and write in
the body:
2 3

Note: If your mail tool truncates subject lines, it may be
useful for you to know that this robot needs only the part
(URL: ...) to determine what the numbers refer to.

Commands related to the retrieval of W3 documents
=================================================
Everything appearing in [] below is optional; everything
appearing in is mandatory; all arguments are case insensitive.
Only the first 10 lines of requests will be processed.

send <URL>
www <URL>
----------
this will send you back the document you requested, with all its
hrefs, so that you may ask further requests. (if the document is too
large, you will get only its first 5 000 lines). The url sent may
contain the following characters:

abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyzABCDEFGHIJK
LMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ0123456789:/._-+@%*()?$#&

Example:
SEND http://info.cern.ch/
WWW http://www.cern.ch/

rsend <return-path> <URL>
-------------------------
Same as "send", but you can specify a different return-path

Example:
rsend zorro@horsemen.holywood.com http://info.cern.ch/

deep <URL>
----------
Same as "send", but it will also send you the documents refered to in
the URL you mentioned. (If the documents are too large, you will get
only the first 5 000 lines of what "deep" should provide).
Be cautious when using "deep"! Agora might mail to you
several dozens of documents!

Example:
deep http://info.cern.ch/

source <URL>
------------
Same as "send", but allows you to see the source of the document, so
that you may use a nicer HTML browser to read it

Example:
source http://info.cern.ch/

rsource <return-path> <URL>
---------------------------
Same as "source", but you can specify a different return-path

Example:
rssource zorro@horsemen.holywood.com http://info.cern.ch/

help
----
This document

Enjoy!

Arthur Secret (agora-request@mail.w3.org)

*** References from this document ***
[1] http://info.cern.ch/hypertext/WWW/TheProject.html
[2] http://www.charm.net/~web/Vlib.html
[3] http://sunsite.unc.edu/boutell/faq/www_faq.html