Basic Use of techexplorer

The IBM techexplorer Hypermedia Browser is a Web browser plug-in and ActiveX control for people who read or publish scientific articles, books, journals, or even their homework on the Internet! IBM techexplorer can even be used in concert with applications such as Microsoft PowerPoint, Word and Excel. techexplorer dynamically formats and displays documents containing scientific and mathematical expressions that are coded with the popular TeX and LaTeX markup languages, as well as those using the new Mathematical Markup Language (MathML).

techexplorer supports a large subset of these languages. We've chosen the tags that you need for electronic publishing of your documents, the tags that will enhance your Web presence, and perhaps extend your commercial reach to readers who don't have access to or don't subscribe to the hardcopy equivalent of your articles, books, and journals. We discuss the compatibility of the markup supported by techexplorer in another section.

In addition to support for TeX and LaTeX, we've expanded support for the Mathematical Markup Language (MathML) Specification that has been issued as a Recommendation of the World Wide Web Consortium. techexplorer has complete support for the MathML Content and Presentation Tag Set. The Professional Edition of techexplorer includes C++ and Java support for the World Wide Web Consortium Document Object Model (DOM) Level 1 APIs. We discuss the techexplorer scripting interface and add-in interface in great detail in other sections.

techexplorer is easy to download and install. When you install techexplorer, the plug-in is automatically registered with your browser to handle Web documents with the following file extensions and MIME types:

The ActiveX control is automatically registered with the Windows object registry.

techexplorer optimizes the readability of online documentation. You can choose among several options to customize techexplorer to your preferences as a reader and author of scientific and mathematical documents. For example, because techexplorer uses the fonts available on your machine, you can use the fonts you prefer, such as TrueType fonts, rather than Computer Modern fonts.

techexplorer supports hypertext, multimedia, pop-up menus, and other document extensions. All of these can help you produce engaging and highly functional documents for distribution on the Internet.

techexplorer source documents process quickly. Because they are small (often a quarter the size of portable document formats), techexplorer documents format and display rapidly. techexplorer is ideal for working with a series of hyperlinked documents that move quickly to your desktop and into view. And techexplorer can link to other Web documents even if they are not techexplorer documents.

After installation, the IBM techexplorer plug-in can be activated by opening a TeX, LaTeX or MathML document with the appropriate file extension in your web browser. HTML pages can also contain portions that are displayed by techexplorer.

The IBM techexplorer ActiveX control can be used as an embedded object in Internet Explorer or as a component in applications such as Microsoft PowerPoint, Word or Excel. To view a techexplorer document in another application simply open the application specific document that contains techexplorer content.

The official techexplorer web site at http://www.software.ibm.com/techexplorer/ provides extensive information about the various editions of the product, upgrades, and links to related sites.

The Microsoft Windows techexplorer installation provides access to the program documentation via the Windows Start button on the task bar. Click Start, then Programs, then IBM techexplorer Hypermedia Browser, and then Documentation.

There is a public newsgoup devoted to techexplorer. The news server is news.software.ibm.com and the newsgroup is ibm.software.techexplorer. You should be able to access it directly via the URL news://news.software.ibm.com/ibm.software.techexplorer. This is "community" newsgroup rather than a "support" newsgroup, though IBM will participate to ensure that the discussions remain accurate.

A non-IBM-sponsored techexplorer mailing list is available for public discussion of the techexplorer products. To subscribe to the list send e-mail to LISTSERV@LISTSERV.NODAK.EDU with the body of the mail containing the command

SUB techexplorer YourFirstName YourLastName

For example, if your name is Pat Jones, send email to LISTSERV@LISTSERV.NODAK.EDU with the text of the email being

SUB techexplorer Pat Jones

Much of the functionality of techexplorer is exposed via the document context menu. You get this by right-clicking your mouse on an empty area of the document.

As you can see, this is how you print, search, set options, and learn about the version of techexplorer you are using.

Many document elements have their own popup menus, so try right clicking on section headings and other document parts.

A conventional book is typically divided into chapters and sections. Many hypermedia documents are divided into chapters and sections in the same way.

Each section of a large original document is broken up into smaller documents for easier viewing in techexplorer. As a result, each section is stored in its own separate file and and is viewed in its own window. Document links contained in each file might represent the logical structure of the document as a collection of chapters and sections, and allow you to conveniently navigate among the sections.

When you are viewing a long section, you can use the scrollbar on the right (and sometimes on the bottom) of the techexplorer window to move around the section. You can also use the PgUp, PgDn, and up and down arrow keys to scroll the document window.

A hypertext link in a document is an active area in a document that points to a specified location in a document. If your mouse hovers over a hypertext link, information about the link is displayed on the status bar at the bottom of the screen. A hypertext link may point to a different location in the same document or to a location in a different document. A hypertext link usually appears in blue and your mouse cursor always turns into a hand when it passes over a link.

On the techexplorer document context menu

there are three entries labelled Above topic, Next topic, and Previous topic. These topic links can be used to move left to the topic preceding the current topic, right to the topic following the current topic, or up to the topic that logically contains the current topic. In some documents, these links point to the previous or next section, or to the table of contents for the current chapter. In case there is no "above," "next," or "previous" topic, the corresponding menu item will be grayed out and unavailable.

Note: The Active control version of techexplorer does not support hypertext links when used with applications other than Internet Explorer.

In the previous section you learned how techexplorer provides hypertext links to allow you to jump elsewhere in the same document, or to any other document that your browser can access. techexplorer also provides several other kinds of links:

1. An application link launches a local application on your computer. Because this is a potential security problem, you can control this via the Permissions options property page.
2. An audio link plays a WAV audio file when you click on it. Note that the Professional Edition also allows you to define an audio file that is played when the document is loaded. (Windows only)
3. A video link plays an AVI video file when you click on it. The video is displayed and controlled in a separate window. Note that the Professional Edition also allows you to define inline video that is displayed within the document. (Windows only)
4. An alternating link toggles between two textual displays. For example, you might use an alternating link to alternate between a problem set question and its answer.
5. A popup link brings up a window and displays fully formatted text. These can be used for footnotes and for document annotations.
6. Dialog box links display dialog boxes and retrieve information from the reader.
7. Evaluation links connect to external applications.

Right-click your mouse on an empty area of the techexplorer document to bring up the standard document context menu.

Choose Options... and you will see the techexplorer options pages. Click on the Fonts tab and you will see the following dialog:

The Roman Font color is the font used for regular text. Click on the button to see your font choices. After pressing OK, press Apply to see if you like your choice. Then either make a different selection, choose OK to save your choice, or press Cancel to revert to the initial value. Note that this will be used for all techexplorer windows, not just the one you are currently viewing.

See Customizing your techexplorer environment to learn more about personalizing your techexplorer viewing environment.

Right-click your mouse on an empty area of the techexplorer document to bring up the standard document context menu.

Choose Options... and you will see the techexplorer options pages. Click on the Colors tab and you will see the following dialog:

The Standard Foreground color is the color for regular text. Click on that button to see your color choices. After pressing OK, press Apply to see if you like your choice. Then either make a different selection, choose OK to save your choice, or press Cancel to revert to the initial value.

See Customizing your techexplorer environment to learn more about personalizing your techexplorer viewing environment.

To search for a phrase, right-click your mouse on an empty area of the techexplorer document to bring up the standard document context menu and then click on Find.

You will next see a dialog box similar to the following:

Enter your selection phrase in the edit field and then click Find All. Click the Match case box if you want lowercase letters in your entry to match only lowercase letters and uppercase letters to match only uppercase letters.

If your search is successful, all matches will be selected. You will be presented with a message if no matches were found. When you are done looking at the result of your search, click anywhere outside a selection to clear the selections.

Caution: You must use the document context menu to search a techexplorer document. If you use the web browser menu selection for searching or the browser searching hot-key (Ctrl-F), you will get the browser search dialog. This will not perform a search in the techexplorer document. Furthermore, there is a problem with some versions of Netscape Navigator whereby its search dialog is displayed and cannot be removed from the screen until you exit the browser.

To print, choose Print from the document context menu you can obtain by right-clicking your mouse on an empty area of your document:

You will next be presented with a standard application printing dialog box. Make your printer selection, choose the options you wish, and then click OK.

Notes:

1. In this version, printing is only available for full screen documents that techexplorer renders and not for embedded windows within HTML documents. Also, there is a problem in some versions of Netscape Navigator version 4 that causes your web browser to crash when you try to print from a plug-in. If this happens to you, please upgrade to a newer version of your browser.
2. For Netscape Navigator, but not current versions of Microsoft Internet Explorer, you can also print by choosing Print from the browser File menu or by pressing the browser Print toolbar button.
3. When techexplorer is used with another application such as Microsoft PowerPoint, Word or Excel the Print option from the File menu can be used.

Right-click your mouse on an empty area of the techexplorer document to bring up the standard document context menu. Choose About... and you will see the techexplorer about pages. Click on the About Add-Ins tab and you will see the following dialog: