LinksBoks ========= version 0.99 "Marmitopter" (c) 2003-2005, ysbox Port of the Links Hacked Project (030709 release), by Sergey Karpov , a modified version of Links. Links is (c) 1999-2005 Mikulas Patocka, (c) 2000-2005 Karel Kulhavy, Petr Kulhavy, Martin Pergel. The official LinksBoks site is: http://ysbox.online.fr/. The official links-hacked site is: http://xray.sai.msu.ru/~karpov/links-hacked/ The official Links site is: http://atrey.karlin.mff.cuni.cz/~clock/twibright/links/ ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- PLEASE READ THROUGH BOTH THIS FILE AND VERSION.TXT BEFORE CONTACTING ANYONE!! If you still have problems, check for more info on the LinksBoks Wiki at http://ysbox.online.fr/ ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- What is LinksBoks? ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ It's a fully functional WWW browser that runs natively on your Xbox, entirely controllable with the regular Xbox controller, for those who don't want/know how to run Linux on their console. Its rendering engine is not as powerful as IE's or Mozilla's (no it doesn't support CSS or the latest eyecandies), but it should be more than enough for your casual browsing. LinksBoks is a straight port of the Links2 browser. The version I have chosen is Sergey Karpov's "hacked" version, which adds a number of neat features (tabbed browsing, options manager, etc., see the site above). How do I install/configure it? ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ If you have a binary version, just copy the contents of the archive somewhere on your hard drive and launch default.xbe. If you have the source version, you can compile it by loading LinksBoks.sln in Visual Studio (you must have the XDK). It should hopefully compile out-of-the- box. Then upload the resulting LinksBoks.xbe along with the Media directory somewhere on your Xbox hard and launch LinksBoks.xbe. There is no configuration file to edit in order to make LinksBoks run the first time you try it. It should adapt automatically to your configuration: - VIDEO CONFIGURATION: The program detects your video standard and choose an appropriate supported resolution (720x576@50Hz for PAL, 720x480@60Hz for NTSC and PAL-60). The HDTV modes (480p, 720p, 1080i) are supported but untested as I don't have the equipment. There are black margins to compensate overscan, which can be adjusted (check out "Video calibration" in the Setup menu). For HDTV users, be aware that LinksBoks will run in the highest available resolution; it will try first 1080i, then 720p, then 480p, then fall back to standard NTSC. You can however skip certain resolutions, thus choosing the one you want, either by disabling them globally in your original dashboard, or by setting certain options in LinksBoks, located in the "User interface > Xbox-specific options" section of the Options Manager. - NETWORK CONFIGURATION: In order to browse the Web, you must have your network settings properly set up, especially the gateway and the DNS server(s). **LINKSBOKS DOES NOT CHANGE THOSE SETTINGS**. That means it will use the settings your dashboard has configured. So make sure you can access the Internet from your dashboard before running LinksBoks. If you are able to get RSS newsfeeds for example, you shouldn't have any problem with LinksBoks. If you get "Host not found" messages, you probably have misconfigured your gateway or DNS settings in your dashboard. Remember also that you have to "share" your internet connection to make it available for the Xbox --look for "Internet Connection Sharing" in the Windows online help to know how to do that. After that, the gateway and DNS to put in your dashboard settings is the IP of your PC. The other option is to run a proxy server software on your PC (and tell LinksBoks to use it instead of trying to contact Web servers directly, see "Some tips" section below). How do I use it ? ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ First, let's see the input modes: there are 2 main input modes in LinksBoks. You can toggle the input mode by clicking the left thumbstick on your controller. NAVIGATION or MOUSE MODE: ------------------------- This mode is used to navigate through menus, dialog boxes and (of course) Web pages. You should see a mouse pointer in this mode. The available controls in Navigation Mode are: o left thumbstick Move the mouse pointer o A button "left" (regular) click o X button "right" click (contextual menus...) o B button Mapped to the ESC key (cancel, show menu...) o Y button Close current tab/dialog, exit Links o right thumbstick Scroll page o Black button Bookmark manager o White button Go to URL dialog o Left/right triggers Previous page/Next page o Directional pad Mapped to arrow keys on the keyboard (usually to navigate between links) o START button Mapped to the Return key (validate forms, dialogs, etc.) TEXT INPUT MODE: ---------------- This mode is used to input text. Make sure you can input text before using this mode (LinksBoks does not automatically guess it yet). The input method is quite different from the virtual keyboards you are used to. I know some of you will hate it. I chose it because it takes up minimal space on the screen, and while it'll be uncomfortable at first, you'll eventually get used to it soon and you'll be able to type text faster! You can see 8 groups of characters at each corner of the screen. You have to direct the left thumbstick in the appropriate direction (you should see the key mapping thingie move there), then press the A, B, X or Y button to get the character you want. There are additional mappings in Text Input mode: o Black button Show the keypad. The keypad is used to enter numbers. When in keypad mode, use the A button to enter the desired number, B for Backspace, X for Delete. The d-pad and the START button keep their mappings. Press the Black button again to exit the keypad. o Left/right triggers Hold to input majuscules or symbols. o Directional pad Mapped to the arrow keys on the keyboard (navigate through text) o START button Mapped to the Return key (validate forms, dialogs, etc.) Ok, now how do I *really* use it? ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ At the top of your screen you have the menu/tool bar. There are 5 icons by default, respectively Back/Forward/Reload/Bookmark Manager/Stop. The URL of the current page is also displayed. If you "click" on the bar (not on the icons), it will change into a menu bar. There are several useful menu options, for example Setup>Options Manager (English menus) where you can tweak most of the browser's apparence and behavior. You can open pages in new tabs (also sometimes called new windows), for example by "right-clicking" on a link and choosing the "Open in new window" option. When 2 tabs or more are present, they are displayed on the bottom part of the screen, just above the status bar. How do I edit my bookmarks? ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ When you start LinksBoks for the first time, there is no bookmarks file. Fire up the Bookmark Manager by pressing the Black button. You can see several default bookmarks are already present. In order to have a bookmark file created, you must change this list of bookmarks, by adding/editing/removing/moving one of them. LinksBoks will then create a bookmark.html file in its directory. This is a HTML file, you can edit it with any text editor on your PC. This HTML file is parsed on startup, so make sure you understand its syntax or LinksBoks will not boot! (According to the comment in it, you shouldn't be editing it by hand anyway ;) Other created files ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ LinksBoks will create a number of files in its working directory. You can safely delete these files, for example the cookies and globhist files in order to protect your privacy. They will be re-created when needed. Some tips ~~~~~~~~~ - If the text is too small for you, you can change its size in the Options Manager, separately for the menus (Document > Html options > User font size) and the document (User interface > Fonts and Colors > Menu > User font size)). You can even change the menu's colors there, try it! - If you're behind a proxy, you can configure it in the Options Manager too. It's in "Network options > HTTP options > HTTP proxy" - The embedded (experimental)Javascript engine has been reenabled, but it's *disabled* by default. Enable it in Document > Javascript options. Is browsing SSL-enabled using LinksBoks secure? ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Starting from version 0.95, LinksBoks has support for SSL connections, using a port of the OpenSSL library. You can therefore browse on https:// sites, and the data between you and those servers is encrypted: nobody can eavesdrop on what you're doing. BUT! All this is worthless if we're not able to certify that we're actually talking with the right server. That's what certificates are for: a Web client must check that the certificate provided by the server is valid, and issued by a trustworthy source, like VeriSign (...) or Thawte. We're NOT doing these checks currently; so I cannot say you're perfectly safe to connect to your bank or shopping sites using LinksBoks (although it's nearly impossible to fake a well-known server). Just so you know. Last word, license, acknowledgements... ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Congratulations, if you've read through this entire boring README file, you know all you need to know about LinksBoks! Happy browsing! :) I hope you will have as much fun using it as I had porting it. May I insist on the fact that: This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License, version 2, as published by the Free Software Foundation. This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License for more details. That means among other things you have to release the entire sources of your program under the GPL if it is based on LinksBoks or include it. Please respect that... I did! I apologize for any English errors you may have encountered. I'll finish by giving my many thanks to: - the original Links authors at Twibright Labs for their great piece of software; - Sergey Karpov for links-hacked; - Sven Neumann for the DirectFB graphics driver on which I have based mine; - Jakub "Jimmac" Steiner for his cute mouse pointer (which comes from Gnome); - and of course the countless people who make the Xbox more than a regular console: they know who they are and you should too.