term% cat index.txt MOTHRA(1) General Commands Manual MOTHRA(1)
NAME
mothra - retrieve and display World-Wide Web files
SYNOPSIS
mothra [ -va ] [ -m mtpt ] [ url ]
DESCRIPTION
Mothra uses webfs(4) to retrieve and display files from the World-Wide
Web, by name or through hypertext links. Web names, called URLs, have
a peculiar syntax:
http://9front.org/
https://code.9front.org/plan9front/
http://cat-v.org/
The part up to the first colon gives the protocol for retrieving the
file. http:, Hyper-Text Transfer Protocol, is the usual way of access‐
ing web files.
// begins the Internet address of the server where the file resides.
The address may contain a colon and a TCP port number, which overrides
the default port number for the service. Next comes a file name. Fi‐
nally, the file name may be followed by # and a string giving a label
within the file where the display should begin.
Mothra starts with the url given on the command line, defaulting to the
environment variable $url.
There are a number of options:
-a Alt display. Starts in alt display mode, see menu commands table
below.
-m Specify the webfs(4) mountpoint with -m mtpt. The default is
/mnt/web.
-v Verbose mode. Causes HTML errors to be printed on file-descrip‐
tor 2.
The display contains the last message from mothra, a box where typed
commands appear, a scrollable list of previously visited files, the ti‐
tle and URL of the current file, and the scrollable text of the current
file.
Button 1 selects and displays a file, either from the list of previ‐
ously visited pages or from a link (indicated by underlined text or a
boxed image) in the current file. Button 2 shows the URL of a file,
but does not retrieve or display it. Button 3 pops up a menu of com‐
mands:
alt display
Collapse or expand the navigation boxes at the top of the
browser window.
moth mode
Enter moth mode and switch to the moth cursor. If the HREF of an
image link is different from the URL of the image itself, a link
to the HREF will be printed on the right side of the image.
Clicking an image or link with mouse button 1 prompts the user
to save a copy of the file in the current directory. Clicking
mouse button 2 sets the target as the current URL. Clicking the
moth mode menu option again exits moth mode.
snarf Copy the current entry text or selected page text to snarf buf‐
fer. If nothing is selected, the current URL is copied.
paste Paste the snarf buffer to the current text entry.
search Search for a regular expression in the current page.
save hit
Save the current URL to the hit list.
hit list
Retrieve and display the hit list.
exit Ask for confirmation and quit.
The typed commands are:
a Toggle alt display.
g url Go to the page with the given URL.
j n Jump to page n from the list of previously viewed pages.
k Kill images on the current page.
m Enter or exit moth mode.
r Reload the current page.
s file Save the current page in the given file.
W file Capture a screenshot of the entire browser window in the given
file.
w file Capture a screenshot of the content area in the given file.
q Quit.
When mothra retrieves a direct link to a file that is not an HTML docu‐
ment (for example a GIF or JPEG image), it will start up an appropriate
viewer, for example page (see page(1)) for most image files.
FILES
$home/lib/mothra/hit.html the hit list
SOURCE
/sys/src/cmd/mothra
SEE ALSO
webfs(4)
BUGS
Files are saved in the form received, not in the form suggested by the
name in an s command. A directory index saved from moth mode may be
written in the local directory as a file named index. Sanitizing re‐
mote file names for the local file system is imperfect.
Mothra is distributed in a preliminary state; it has more than its
share of bugs. Note that mothra, like the other Guardian Monsters, has
no particular concern for humanity.
HISTORY
Mothra first appeared in Plan 9 from Bell Labs (1995). It was later
modified for inclusion in 9front (September, 2011).
MOTHRA(1)