Netscape Communicator for SCO OpenServer Release and Installation Notes -- Early Release

Netscape CommunicatorTM 4.7 for SCO OpenServer systems is a comprehensive set of Internet and intranet components that integrates email and HTML editing with the Netscape NavigatorTM WWW browser. Netscape Communicator allows users to easily communicate, share, and access information using the latest Internet technologies.

For the latest information and downloadable updates of SCO® Internet Products, visit the SCO Downloads page:

http://www.sco.com/downloads/

This document contains:



Before installing Netscape Communicator

Before installing Netscape Communicator, familiarize yourself with:



System requirements

 Software:     SCO OpenServer Release 5
 RAM:          40MB (per user)
 Disk Space:   35MB free disk space
 Video:        Minimum 800x600, 256 colors

This Netscape Communicator early release software is intended for the following releases:

NOTE: This Netscape Communicator early release software is not yet fully supported.


Required patches

If you are installing onto:

SCO OpenServer Release 5.0.6
No patches are required.

SCO OpenServer Release 5.0.5
No patches are required.

SCO OpenServer Release 5.0.4
Install this patch:

SCO OpenServer Release 5.0.2
Install these patches:

SCO OpenServer Release 5.0.0
Install these patches:

SCO Internet FastStart
Install these patches:

These patches are available from the SCO Support & Services page:

http://www.sco.com/support/ftplists/index.html/

Use the SCOadmin Software Manager (in the System Administration window on your desktop) to load and apply these patch supplements. For information on using the Software Manager, see Chapter 4, ``Installing and managing software components'' in the SCO OpenServer Handbook.

NOTE: If you try to install Netscape Communicator before you install the required patches, you will be notified that a patch is required. However, the Software Manager (that is, custom(ADM)) continues the first part of the installation of Netscape Communicator. This might take a few minutes. Afterwards, the custom window that lists the products installed on the system shows the product as partially installed. Because only the product package files are loaded at this point, you are not able to run Netscape Communicator. Install the required patches, then reinstall Netscape Communicator to be able to run the product on your system.



Important installation notes

Getting support for Netscape products
Support for the Netscape products is provided by SCO. Ignore any links or references that point to Netscape for support information.

Obtaining product updates
For product updates, patches, and other product assistance, visit the SCO Downloads page:

http://www.sco.com/downloads/

Obsolete documentation removed
The Introduction to Netscape Communicator has been obsoleted by Netscape and is no longer included with SCO Netscape products. If you installed this documentation with earlier Netscape releases, it will be removed when you install Netscape Communicator 4.7. The latest Communicator documentation is available from the Netscape Communicator Library:

http://home.netscape.com/library/communicator.html

See also ``Documentation notes''. 

Enabling SCO Strong Encryption Supplement
Customers in the United States and Canada are allowed to use strong encryption with the Netscape products. All the Netscape client and server products use 40-bit encryption by default when using the Secure Socket Layer (SSL) protocol to communicate secured information. Strong encryption allows the use of 128-bit encryption between clients and servers.

The SCO Strong Encryption Supplement must be installed to enable strong encryption for all Netscape products on this CD-ROM, even when installed on an SCO Internet FastStart US/Domestic system. The installation of this product prompts for a license. You can purchase a license for the SCO Strong Encryption Supplement by calling 1-800-SCO-UNIX.

NOTE: The license can be used on all systems at your site.



Installing and removing Netscape Communicator

To install Netscape Communicator:

  1. Install software patches, if necessary.

  2. Use the Software Manager to install the product.
To remove a product or patch, use the Software Manager.

For information on using the Software Manager, see Chapter 4, ``Installing and managing software components'' in the SCO OpenServer Handbook. 

Starting Netscape Communicator

To start Netscape Communicator, double-click on the Netscape Communicator icon on your desktop or enter either communicator& or netscape& in an xterm or scoterm window.

For more about using Netscape Communicator, see its Help menu and the communicator(NSCOMM) manual page. 

What's new in Netscape Communicator 4.7

Netscape Communicator 4.7 includes the following new features and enhancements:

NOTE: Communicator 4.7 has been tested and certified as Y2K-compliant. See these URLs for additional information on Netscape's Y2K Compliancy support and product status:

http://home.netscape.com/products/year2000/readiness/client.html

http://home.netscape.com/products/year2000/readiness/clientstatus.html



Netscape Communicator 4.7 notes

These notes cover important information concerning:



Netscape Communicator 4.7 on SCO OpenServer

Netscape Communicator is free
The Netscape Communicator 4.7 browser is free. No separate license is required unless you use strong encryption; see ``Enabling SCO Strong Encryption Supplement''

Netscape browsers only support PostScript printing
If you do not have a PostScript-capable printer, you might want to use a public domain program, such as ghostview, to convert the PostScript to a format that your printer recognizes. See ``Printing from Netscape Communicator to a non-PostScript printer''.

Running Netscape Communicator on the system console
If you experience core dumps when running Netscape Communicator on the system console (as opposed to displaying it on a remote X server), the DISPLAY variable must be set to unix:0.0. If it is set to hostname:0.0, Communicator will dump core.

Running Netscape Communicator or SCOhelp as root on the system console
When you run communicator(NSCOMM) or scohelp(XC) as root on the system console, Netscape Communicator sets:

xhost +local:

This enables non-networked local connections to your X server, but also might allow other users logged into the system to make windows pop up on your screen without your permission.

To correct this, after exiting communicator or scohelp, enter:

xhost -local:

Netscape Communicator hangs
If Netscape Communicator or portions of Netscape Communicator hang, kill the Netscape Communicator process:

kill -9 processID

Then, restart Netscape Communicator.

Netscape Messenger hangs and delays
You might experience delays when using the Netscape Messenger function in Netscape Communicator due to network or mail server latency.

Connecting to local URLs
When accessing locally served URLs that contain the string localhost, Communicator might display popup dialog boxes with subprocess stdout/stderr information. These popups can be safely ignored. To prevent their appearance, substitute the system's hostname for localhost in the URL.

Browser warning messages
While running the browser as root, you might sometimes see this WARNING dialog: 
   Cannot convert string %s to %s. WARNING: This program is an suid
   program or is being run by root... full text cannot be safely
   formatted.
You can safely ignore this message.

Java applets sometimes hang in Webtop
When connected to a Webtop server, Java applets launched in a Communicator may occasionally hang. If this happens, reload the Webtop connection and restart the applet.


General Netscape limitations

These notes describe issues specific to the UnixWare 7 platform as excerpted from the general Netscape release notes. For the entire document, see their Communicator 4.7 Release Notes:

http://home.netscape.com/eng/mozilla/4.7/relnotes/unix-4.7.html

In addition, you can search for known problems with Communicator at the Netscape Netcenter:

http://help.netscape.com/search.html

IMAP
Certain servers (i.e., University of Washington) may prevent you from renaming or deleting subscribed mail folders if you have specified that deleted messages should be automatically moved to the Trash folder. If you try to delete a mail folder and then see an error message that the command failed, you should choose Subscribe from the File menu, and then unsubscribe your Trash folder.

If you change your user name on an IMAP server, you need to restart Communicator for the name change to take effect.

If you are using IMAP mail and would like your Sent, Templates, or Drafts folders to be located on your IMAP server, first create the folder on the server, then use Communicator Preferences to specify that you want Sent, Templates, or Drafts folders to be kept on the IMAP server.

To copy messages from one IMAP server to another, use the File toolbar button. You cannot drag and drop of messages from one IMAP server to another.

If you delete your only IMAP server and then add a POP server, Communicator may quit.

In order to create an IMAP container folder on servers that do not support folders containing both messages and subfolders, the folder should be created with a trailing slash, e.g., "toplevel/".

Exported certificate names
Exported certificate names are appended with either letters or numbers. Communicator doesn't check for duplicate names, so make sure to use a unique name for each certificate.

CSS objects in HTML files
Composer doesn't properly handle existing HTML files that contain CSS objects -- they may be removed from the file.

Zero-length cert7.db files
A zero length cert7.db file in the profile directory can cause Communicator to crash at startup. To avoid this, delete the zero length cert7.dbfile from the profile directory.

Roaming access
When using a slow connection, be patient with the progress dialog boxes. Sometimes they don't immediately respond to your input during file transfers.

If you choose not to transfer your preferences, Communicator does not transfer your address book and IMAP mail filters, which are stored with preferences.

Mail, address books, and pinpoint addressing
Certain IMAP servers cause an error when a mail message is moved from a subfolder to the Inbox. The workaround is to first file the message in a top-level folder, and then move the file to the Inbox.

If you are upgrading from Navigator 3.0x, you need to manually import your 3.0x address book into Communicator 4.7 by opening the address book window and choosing Import under the File menu.

Removing ns_imap folders causes Communicator to lose the mail filters you have set up. If you suspect corrupted mail summary files, be sure to just remove the files, not entire folders or directories.

Communicator 4.7 allows you to create multiple address books. Pinpoint addressing searches the first 15 address books in your address book window. If you have more than 15 address books, you can select the 15 you want to use by re-ordering them in the address book window.

Pinpoint addressing in Communicator 4.7 searches for matches against the display name, last name, email address and nickname. Communicator 4.0x gave precedence to nickname matches. If you want exact matches against a nickname to have precedence over matches against the other fields, add this line to your javascript preferences file: 

   user_pref("ldap_2.autoComplete.nicknameHasPrecedence", true);
If you have an LDIF file representing an address book that was generated from Communicator 4.0x and contains 8-bit data, you can correctly import the 8-bit data into Communicator 4.7 by changing the file extension of your LDIF file to .4ld. Then, import the LDIF file like you normally would, using this new extension. You only need to do this if the file with 8-bit data was generated from a previous version of Communicator.

"Department," "URL," and "Prefers to receive rich text (HTML) mail" values are not exported/imported with CVS and TXT format.

Navigator
Some HTTP proxy servers don't support Internet Keywords when the user supplies only one keyword, instead giving the error Could Not Find Host.

When Communicator updates a page, either through the Reload button or a meta tag, it checks for changes in HTML descriptions, but doesn't check check for changes within individual elements on the page. Because the HTML description of an image can remain the same even after the content of the image is updated, there may be applications, such as a webcam, for which you want to "force" an update. To force the update of individual elements on a page, you can use meta tags: 

   <META HTTP-EQUIV="Pragma" CONTENT="no-cache">
   <META HTTP-EQUIV="Refresh" CONTENT="60">

By default, when saving from an FTP server in Navigator, Communicator saves binary files as HTML files.

A previous workaround to avoid the freezing on startup of the edit or compose window has been changed. If you previously set editor.disable_spell_checker in the preferences.js file, you can now implement the improved fix by deleting this line from the preferences.js file: 

   user_pref("editor.disable_spell_checker", true);
Replace it with this line: 
   user_pref("editor.dont_lock_spell_files", true)
This preference setting prevents the spell checker from locking files over NFS, thereby preventing the window freezing problem.

International
If you usually attach vCards (Personal Cards) that contain 8-bit characters (e.g., Chinese, Japanese, Korean) to your outgoing mail messages, we strongly recommend that you follow these suggestions when creating your vCard:

ISO 8859-15 charset support has been added to Xterm in order to provide euro support for Unix. This charset support currently is not available on Windows and Mac OS.

Some email sender applications use "UNKNOWN" as the charset name in the MIME2-encoded subject field. In such cases, Communicator uses the global default (which is set by View->Character Set->Set Default Character Set) as a reasonable guess.

When using the User Profile Manager to create a new profile, some Japanese characters that you enter in the Profile Name field of the "Choose a Name and Directory for Your Profile" dialog don't appear correctly in the directory. To correct the directory entry, delete the directory name and manually type the correct Japanese characters.

Java and JavaScript
JavaScript 1.3 contains an ECMA-compliant fix regarding assignments such that if (a=b) is no longer interpreted as if (a==b). You can update the code or, if you want the old behavior, specify: 
   <SCRIPT language="JavaScript1.2">.

If you use an applet that uses RMI callbacks, you must call netscape.security.PrivilegeManager.enablePrivilege("UniversalConnect") before your first call into the RMI runtime. Changes to Java classes have been made to improve security and simplify internal use of the reflection API.

You should set the CLASSPATH environment variable only if you need to install special Java files in Communicator. Communicator uses CLASSPATH to find local .class files. If CLASSPATH is set in the user's environment, only the .jar files and directories specified in the CLASSPATH are searched. If you set your CLASSPATH variable, you need to make sure that each .jar file in $MOZILLA_HOME/java/classes is listed individually in your CLASSPATH.

If Communicator exhibits consistent problems on pages containing Javascript, check your ~/.mailcap file, and remove this line if it is in that file: 

   application/x-javascript;;\
   x-mozilla-flags=save

If you register a mime handler for 'application/x-javascript,' errors occur when you attempt to display pages that have that mimetype. For example, if you use the Navigator Applications preference to add a new mimetype for 'application/x-javascript,' then choose Save To Disk, a core dump error occurs when you display pages containing that mimetype.

Graphics
The DirectColor visual class is no longer supported. If you specify a DirectColor visual with the -visual argument, or connect to an X server which implements DirectColor as the default visual class, Communicator uses a TrueColor visual instead.

If you receive Motif warnings that appear as dialog boxes, you can send those warnings to the command line instead by adding these lines to the file ~/.Xresources: 

   Netscape*useStdoutDialog:False
   Netscape*useStderrDialog:False

Mail
If this is the very first time you've run any version of Communicator on your system, start Communicator, then exit, then start Communicator again before you use Messenger to access your mail. If you attempt to use Messenger the very first time you run Communicator, it may quit with an "Illegal instruction" message.

Help
In the Help window: The Index "look for:" field is small and it might be difficult to read, however when you type a word and press Enter, matching topics do appear. You can also scroll through the index entries.

TMPDIR environment
Communicator does not heed the TMPDIR environment variable when creating temporary files.


Documentation notes

The primary Communicator online documentation is now context-sensitive NetHelp. To access NetHelp, start Communicator and select Help, then Help. The Release Notes entry in the Communicator Help sends you to the general Netscape release notes. Issues relevant to SCO platforms are covered in the SCO release notes.

NOTE: The Introduction to Netscape Communicator has been obsoleted by Netscape and is no longer included with SCO Netscape products. If you installed this documentation with earlier Netscape releases, it will be removed when you install Netscape Communicator 4.7.

You can access the SCO release notes online using scohelp(XC) when the Communicator package is installed. To start SCOhelp, double-click on the Help icon on your desktop or enter scohelp& in an xterm or scoterm window.

You can also point your existing Netscape browser to:

http://<ServerName>:457/dochome.html

NOTE: Using the SCOhelp browser to view SCO OpenServer documentation is recommended.

Online documentation is also available at the SCO Product Documentation Library page:

http://doc.sco.com/

Because the Netscape products are supported by several operating systems, their documentation includes information specific to other operating systems. You can ignore such information.

For more information on Communicator documentation resources, see the Netscape Communicator Library:

http://home.netscape.com/library/communicator.html



Printing from Netscape Communicator to a non-PostScript printer

Use gs (Ghostscript), included on Skunkware, to print from Netscape Communicator to a non-PostScript printer. To do this:

  1. Download ghostscript to a temporary directory (such as /tmp) from SCO Skunkware Open Source Software:

    http://www.sco.com/skunkware/osr5/textproc/gs/

    Select gs-5.10-VOLS.tar to download the tarfile to a temporary directory, such as /tmp.

  2. Use tar(C) to extract the tarfile:

    cd /tmp
    tar xvf gs-5.10-VOLS.tar

  3. Use the SCOadmin Software Manager (custom) to install (select Media Images when prompted for a media device and enter the temporary directory for the directory name).

    For information on using the Software Manager, see Chapter 4, ``Installing and managing software components'' in the SCO OpenServer Handbook.

  4. Create a file called gslp and include the following text: 
    #!/bin/sh
if [ $# = "0" ]
then
   gs -q -sOutputFile="|lp -oraw" -sDEVICE=devname -dNOPAUSE -
else
   for i in $*
   do
   cat $i | gs -q -sOutputFile="|lp -oraw" -sDEVICE=devname -dNOPAUSE -
   done
fi
    Change devname to match your printer device. For example, use -sDEVICE=cdj550 for HP Color Deskjet 550C and 560C printers.

    For more information on the Ghostscript printer devices, see the devices.doc file installed on your system. For the location of this file, enter gs -? and scroll to the bottom of the help file.

  5. Make gslp executable.

  6. Change the Netscape printer setup by selecting File->Print and changing the ``Print Command'' field to gslp.


Document version 4.7a
21 December 1999
© 1999 The Santa Cruz Operation, Inc. All rights reserved.