Jim Angus <[log in to unmask]> wrote in article
<v01530505af2a431c1557@[204.140.246.62]>...
> >
> >>Does anyone know of a variation (a hacked version) of Netscape (or
another
> >>browser) that has some features disabled, features such as:
> >>
> >>1.  The menu bar
> >>2.  The ability to quit
> >>
> >>Even better, is anyone aware of a web browser that prevents desktop
access
> >>entirely when running? (we can use At Ease to limit desktop access)
> >

Nobody here seems to have mentioned that the Windows 95 versions of
Netscape and Internet Explorer (I don't know about Mac versions) both have
an inbuilt but scarcely documented 'kiosk mode', which is extremely simple
to call up. This also worked with a couple of old versions of Mosaic which
I tried.

You just start the browser using the RUN command, adding -k at the end of
the command line. The computer can easily be configured to do this each
time it is switched on.

The browsers start up with (almost) nothing visible apart from the HTML
display produced by the default start-up URL you have set up using the
appropriate configuration options. This is potentially great, because users
can't get out to the Windows desktop PROVIDED that you don't let them use
the keyboard.

UNFORTUNATELY, there are just a couple of rather irritating snags to be
aware of.

Netscape still displays the blue title bar at the top of the screen, which
is just great because anybody can touch or click the top right hand corner
and exit the browser . . . and get onto the desktop. So that's no use for
our purposes unless each monitor is carefully adjusted so that the title
bar disappears off the top of the screen. Hardly an elegant solution.

Internet Explorer behaves rather better, with no title bar. Its only
annoying feature is that it insists on displaying a vertical scroll bar
down the side of the screen, even when your HTML is carefully written so as
not to require scrolling.

The rather dated old Mosaic browser actually behaves better than either of
these others in these respects! But it won't do anything fancy like Web
pages with Java features etc.

Having sorted that out, you now have to think about the way users are going
to navigate around the Web pages you are introducing them to. You've gone
and removed the BACK button etc, so users can only click or touch the
hypertext links included in the Web pages. Quite a few software firms have
produced special browsers specifically for public internet access using
touch-screen displays. They typically have their own set of special
buttons: BACK, FORWARDS, SCROLL etc. but these do take up some
screen-space.

Regarding 'internet security' and 'inappropriate material' as well the even
more obvious problem of users simply 'wandering off and getting lost out
there', there's a lot to be said for downloading selected Web pages from
the internet and letting visitors access these 'locally' from the
computer's hard disc. You can update these regularly, and only appropriate
links from them will be enabled. Several pieces of software exist for doing
this, such as Web Whacker for example.

This 'free' material could usefully be displayed alongside your own
specially written, locally stored Web pages. As a company specialising in
popular interpretation of scientific subjects this new medium is of great
interest to us. We are science centre and interpretive exhibition designers
rather than computer boffins, but we do know lots of ways of USING
information technology to communicate appealingly with people. (Pardon the
sales message!)

I hope this information has been useful.

--
Ian Russell
[log in to unmask]
Interactive Science Ltd
http://www.interactives.co.uk