`netfront`

Netfront web server

This utility is available only in the Web Browser Technology Development Kit (TDK).

Syntax:

netfront [-n servername] [-c configdir]

Options:

-n servername: Start netfront server with servername as the registered connector name. Use Pt_ARG_CLIENT_NAME to connect a PtWebClient to a netfront server with servername, or the -P option in voyager. The default value is NetfrontServer.
-c configdir: The directory for netfront to store internal configuration files. The default value is $HOME/.ph/netfront.

Description:

The netfront command starts the NetFront 3.1 server.

You must be running Photon to use netfront.

NetFront is a fully-featured rendering engine. It is optimized for embedded devices with a small foot-print, despite its many features and standards compliance.

Standards

NetFront v3.1 supports several Internet and wireless standards, including:

HTML 4.01 and cHTML (iHTML)
XHTML 1.1 (including XHTML Mobile Profile)
CSS 1 (including CSS Mobile Profile) and CSS 2 (partial)
HTTP 1.1
SSL v3.0/TLS 1.0 (with 128-bit encryption)
Dynamic HTML
JavaScript 1.5 (ECMAScript)
DOM 1 and DOM 2 (partial)
WAP 2.0
OMA DRM 1.0
WAP Push
WML 1.3

Smart-Fit Rendering renders a large web page for small-screen devices by reformatting the page in order to eliminate the horizontal scrollbar. You can switch between normal and Smart-Fit rendering dynamically.

Direct Connect

Direct Connect^TM allows NetFront v3.1 to access and control hardware using JavaScript. This is an alternate to Live Connect, used in Microsoft's Pocket Internet Explorer. Using this technology, there is no need for a Java VM, making it ideally suited for small memory embedded devices. Security functions are also available to prevent unauthorized access.

Security

NetFront v3.1 includes support for Public Key Cryptography Standards (PKCS) 7, 10, 11, and 12. This means a browser can use client certificates for enterprise-grade security and access control.

Other technologies supported

Netfront 3.1 supports the MARQUEE tag, an extension introduced by Internet Explorer that allows you to display HTML content in a scrolling region on the page.

Netfront allows you to specify a magnifying factor that applies to the whole page (images, text, tables, controls, and so on). You can set the magnifying factor to <100% for a better fit on small screens, or you can set the magnifying factor to >100% to get a zoom effect. Independent of this, there is a text-magnifying factor that applies only to text.

Highly customizable

You can customize the Netfront 3.1 server through the Pt_ARG_WEB_OPTION resource of the PtWebClient widget. You can enable or disable most features at runtime, without restarting the browser.

For example, you can dynamically turn these features on or off:

Options related to CSS:

Default style sheet is invalid.
External file definition (LINK REL) style sheet is invalid.
Import (@import) style sheet is invalid.
<style> tag is invalid.
style attribute is invalid.

Options related to SSL:

Use SSL v2
Use SSl v3
Use TLS v1

Options related to JavaScript:

Disable JavaScript altogether
Validate/invalidate the external script file.
Invalidate src attribute of <script> element. The external script isn't read.
Invalidate a script in a newly generated window.

For more information on these options, see the NetFront-specific options section of PtWebClient.

Customizing controls

Netfront has the ability to change the look of its form controls. By default it uses the standard controls, but if the configuration file /usr/photon/config/netfront/controls.wgtp is present, it uses the controls in that file.

The Browser TDK package contains two picture module templates for this configuration file, installed in the /usr/photon/config/netfront: controls1.wgtp and controls2.wgtp.

You can copy either file to /usr/photon/config/netfront/controls.wgtp to use them as-is, or open them in PhAB to alter them.

To customize a template:

Open PhAB
Create a new application
Import one of the template picture modules
Customize the look of the controls
Save the application and copy the picture module from the application directory to /usr/photon/config/netfront/controls.wgtp.

The picture module templates contain the following widgets:

textarea: Multiline text controls
text: One line text controls
button, submit, and reset: Button controls
checkbox and radiobox: Checkbox and radio controls
list and combobox: Selection controls
inputfile: File input control

Plugins

Netfront supports the Netscape plugin API. This means that all the plugins that are available for voyager vserver run without any changes in netfront.

For more information, see http://www.access.co.jp/english/index.html.

netfront