Active Message Content
Perhaps the most interesting aspect of SurfIt! is its ability to download Tcl/Tk
scripts and execute them in a safe slave interpeter. Scripts written to be executed
in this manner are known as applets. A safe interpreter prevents
the applet from interfering with the user's computing environment.
Applets may be used to make a new capability available to the user, to perform
special effects on a Web page or to pre-process forms before they are submitted.
A HTTP server should require no modifications to serve Tcl
applets. The only configuration aspect that you should check is that your daemon
knows that the .tcl
file extension indicates documents of type
application/x-tcl
.
Demo Applets
I've prepared a few demonstration applets to show both
the capabilities/possibilities of SurfIt! applets, as well as serving
as examples of how to write applets.
An important consideration of the SurfIt! browser is the security of the user's
computing environment. Various aspects of this topic have been considered and
tested.