Controlled by the Web

A hypertext version of this paper is also available 1]. This paper provides a brief description of a software tool developed within the tltp Interact Project 2] which allows application programs, concurrently executing within a Unix environment, to be controlled by scripts delivered to Mosaic from W3 servers. This tool was developed to allow the coupling of interactive simulations of sci-entiic and engineering phenomena with courseware provided by W3. This software is known as the Interact Communication Facility (icf). The features of the icf include: The ability to allow application programs to receive control messages and data from scripts embedded as links within html documents. The use of html ll-out forms to enter data intended for application programs. A simple interface to allow programs to control Mosaic, including the automatic execution of Mosaic if it is not currently being used. A means of allowing secure execution of applications from scripts. This avoids the security problems associated with allowing Mosaic to interpret arbitrary shell scripts This paper provides an overview of the icf together with an example showing the use of Mosaic in conjunction with a simple graphical program.