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  Inter-Machine Browser Communication

Often, your file system will be shared by more than one machine so that communication between different machines is possible via files. Such an arrangement provides an opportunity for HTX to pass information to WWW browsers which are already running on other machines. With the Netscape browser, this can make working on multiple machines considerably easier by reducing the number of browser invocations you require. For it to work successfully, however, the files you are accessing must be known by identical names on all the machines involved.

If your file system is suitably set up, then HTX will normally be able to take advantage of this without any further action on your part. To achieve this, the temporary files which HTX creates to communicate with the browser will be placed in the directory $HOME/.htxtmpgif. Therefore, if you use the same login directory (and $HOME translates to the same name) on each machine, these temporary files will be accessible to the browser wherever it is running.

If your login directory is not the same on each machine, then you can set the environment variable HTX_TMP to give the name of a suitable alternative directory to hold these temporary communication files. The directory you use should be accessible (for both reading and writing) and be known by identical names on all the machines which will use it.



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HTX Hypertext Cross-Reference Utilities
Starlink User Note 188
R.F. Warren-Smith
6th January 1998
E-mail:rfws@star.rl.ac.uk