Latest version of Mosiac for Windows -Reply

[BOCHERF at MAIL.STATE.WI.US]

web4libl 12/20/95 10:37am >>>

On the Mosaic issue, Peter Gorman,  my fellow colleague down the road
here in Madison, noted:

>I would dearly love to jettison Netscape in favor of Mosaic, especially for
>some of Mosaic's new features, but I find that it falls down in some very
>basic areas:
>
>- the Mac version still can't save files in any useable format. I can't
>view the source at all, and saving as text results in a file consisting of
>one (LONG) line.
>
>- The Back button still doesn't recognize links within a document. It
>always goes to the previous *document*, not the previous *link*.
>
>- Inlined images frequently fail to be rendered. Multiple reloads usually
>fixes it.
>
>I really like Mosaic's control over display features - it puts display
>options where they belong, in the browser. But if I can't even go back from
>a footnote to its source without hard coding the link back, and if our
>users can't save files reliably, we won't be able to use it, no matter how
>many advanced features it has. <sob>
>_______________________________
>Peter C. Gorman, Automation Help Desk
>Memorial Library, University of Wisconsin
>pcgorman at facstaff.wisc.edu

As a gov't. agency that can't roll-out Netscape w/o paying the license fee, and
as an agency dealing with a 25% budget reduction, we have installed Mosaic
(Final Release, 2.0) on about 90 PCs and 40 Macs.  The Mac version is
relatively stable but certainly has the limitations as Peter outlined.  Windows
has most of the same limitations.  Windows users also get frequent Win32
errors. (We have installed the latest Win32 add-on to DOS.)  Mosaic also
takes more  RAM and resources.  Many of our users with 8MB find they
cannot have more than one, or any, other program open or Mosaic won't
load.  (Netscape is more stable in a 16 bit environment and takes far less
RAM/resources.)  I should note that using Mosaic at home under Win '95 is
fairly stable.  We won't install Win '95 in our agency but will wait until the NT
upgrade (aka Cairo) is available.  This may solve some of our problems.   I'd
be interested if others are having the Win32 errors, assuming someone out
there is still using Mosaic....

   --  Bob
___________________________________________________________
Bob Bocher,  Wisconsin Dept. of Public Instruction
State Division for Libraries and Community Learning
P.O. Box 7841 Madison, WI 53707-7841
608-266-2127  fax 608-267-1052  email: bocherf at mail.state.wi.us
http://www.state.wi.us/agencies/dpi/www/bob.html