Interview of Webmaster James A. Baker

Tell us a bit about cyberdog.org?

Cyberdog.org is a site that I set up to help maintain the Cyberdog user community in the absence of Apple's servers. It is a place for people to come find information about this great browser suite, to meet other users in the news groups, and to download helper files and Cyberdog add-ons. Its primary services include Web (HTTP), FTP and News (NNTP).

It was started primarily as a mirror site for the cyberdog.general newsgroup before Apple shut down its own Cyberdog server, but has continued to serve as a gathering point for information and for the 'doggers themselves (as we Cyberdog users often call ourselves). The news groups are also mirrored by at least two other sites on the Internet to help us reduce the load on our server, as we have a large number of people still using Cyberdog today.

Explain what happened to CD, i.e. Apple holding the technology and basically just sitting on it?

Cyberdog is a demonstration product created by Apple Computer, Inc. to show off the wonderful functionality of OpenDoc. Originally, plans had been made to move all Macintosh software (including the Macintosh Finder) into the OpenDoc architecture, and in so doing make Cyberdog's Internet access a part of the System itself. It would have been capable of connecting to Internet sites from inside almost any program in such a way as to be ubiquitous.

However, Apple could not get nearly as much support from software developers as they has hoped for the OpenDoc programming model. Therefore, they have placed both OpenDoc and its prodigy, Cyberdog, in what is termed "maintenance mode." A euphemism used at Apple that should be read as "discontinued and unsupported."

While Apple is often faulted for this decision, one must realize that the Cyberdog Internet suite was never actually a supported product, but was only a demonstration of the technology available from OpenDoc. Developer support (that is, the lack of it in any quantity) is really at fault for the end of Cyberdog and OpenDoc updates.

Yet, for unknown reasons (to anyone other than those inside Apple) they have refused to distribute the source code to Cyberdog to any third party for further development. (A petition has been signed by several thousand Cyberdog users and sent to Apple asking them to reconsider this decision.)

Some people have suggested that the choice was made because Apple intends to still use some of the Cyberdog functionality in future OS versions, albeit divested of its OpenDoc underpinnings. Do I believe this? Partly. I doubt we'll ever see another version of Cyberdog, but I suspect that Internet access will be made even more a part of the OS in the years to come... partly by using some of the ideas of Cyberdog.

Why do you prefer CD over other browsers?

One word: Elegance. There is not another web browser nor mail-/news-reader nor FTP client that comes close to the simple grace and beauty of Cyberdog. There are certainly some feature tradeoffs in using Cyberdog versus another browser suite or a set of applications. But, none of the other Internet tools I've ever used have come close to matching the simplicity and charm of Cyberdog.

Paraphrasing another 'dogger, "The difference between Cyberdog and other Internet tools is just like the difference between using a Mac and using a PC. Cyberdog is more Mac-like than the Mac itself."

Can it honestly be the sole browser on a Mac?

Simply: Yes.

Although, that isn't quite as common as having a "backup" browser. There are some pages (mostly JavaScript-enhanced pages or pages with HTML errors) that simply will not appear properly in Cyberdog. There are few of these, but they do occur. And so, many (but certainly not all) Cyberdog users install another browser to use just for those pages. Most often they can reload such a page with a single menu command made available by a shareware add-on to Cyberdog, Rapid-I Bookmarks.

What new technology is CD most sorely missing?

Probably the most noticed missing technology is the aforementioned JavaScript. (Though there is some debate in our community as to whether this is a good thing to avoid anyway or not. ;-) I personally despise JavaScript, and therefore am not disappointed that Cyberdog does not support it.

Other than that, Progressive JPEG's - which display blurred during loading and then with more detail as they finish loading (much like interlaced GIF's) - is the most desired feature lacking from Cyberdog. P-JPEG's were not used when Cyberdog was written, and cannot be added to its functionality without access to the source code.

Next in line would probably be Offline Newsreading. Cyberdog is an elegant (if not feature packed) news reader. But, one thing it does not do (or not well, at least) is to allow for the downloading of news articles for later reading. There are ways to do so, but sadly none of them are as elegant as Cyberdog is in other respects.

Are there any third party solutions to amend this, or any Apple made add-ons?

There are no true solutions to these problems, but each of them has at least one method available to work around the problem.

• For JavaScript pages, people often simply load the page into their backup browser via a menu command in Rapid-I Bookmarks.
• For P-JPEG's there are several OpenDoc image editors (which can be found from links on Cyberdog.org's Dog Bones page) that can be used to view the image in a separate window.
• And for Offline Newsreading, there is an application (currently in beta testing, as of this writing) that I wrote myself, called CONscript (also available from the Dog Bones page). It allows for downloaded news files to be properly prepared (in batches) for reading in Cyberdog.

Can you explain essentially how OpenDoc works and how CD uses it?

OpenDoc is a "component software architecture." That means it was designed to replace the application-centered model of computing we work in today with a document-centered paradigm. The documents are really what we want anyway, right? The application should be transparent to the user and yet accessible as needed. The intention being to allow users to choose a collection of small tools (or Editors) that could be combined to help create exactly the level of functionality they need to create or view documents.

This allows Cyberdog to have separate "programs" (that's a misleading term though, which is why the name "Editors" was chosen) for each of the Internet tools you wish to use it for, and yet you don't have to launch them separately as they are all available from within Cyberdog. And Cyberdog is itself available from within most other OpenDoc parts.

Really what this means for users is that you can choose with which web browser Editor (or "part") you want to view your HTML pages. You can also replace the FTP Editor, or the Telnet Editor, or any other Editor. You can even add new protocols by simply adding new parts to Cyberdog's collection.

There is a replacement web part that is in development by Kantara Development, called Blake. As well, there is a set of time protocol parts (NTP, Daytime, and Time), which allow you to check and/or set time via the Internet, available for free from Dr. John David N. Dionisio (a.k.a. "Dondi"), which is titled ChronoDog. These are just examples, as there are other parts out there too.

In both cases, Cyberdog merely needs you to load a single file into the appropriate folder (Kantara even provides a script to do this for you). And then, in the case of Blake, you simply tell OpenDoc that you'd like to use it instead of the original Cyberdog web part. You don't even have to tell OpenDoc to use ChronoDog though, because it is not competing with any other parts for its protocols.

CD can use some NS Plug-Ins; are there and/or could there be any natively developed for CD?

Yes, certainly it can use NS Plug-Ins. Though it does require the addition on the Internet Plug-In Viewer part (often abbreviated "IPIV"), which was created by Apple sometime after the initial development of Cyberdog. IPIV can be downloaded from the Dog Bones page on our site.

But, as to your question about "native" Plug-Ins: yes, you could develop a Netscape-style Plug-In specifically for Cyberdog. But, I think that IPIV was really created only as a way to let us use what was already available.

Because with Cyberdog's extensible nature, there should not be a need to write Plug-Ins for Cyberdog. You can add the functionality more directly and more powerfully by creating an Editor to deal with whatever data or content you wish. Plug-Ins are really a step down from Editors in terms of functionality.

I know personally that many mac users remember Cybie fondly, but, once the project was basically killed they eventually had to move on, is there anything past CD users can look forward to?

Well, I think that Blake is going to improve Cyberdog greatly in the coming months, as its development is finalized. And Dondi (creator of ChronoDog) has mentioned the possibility of creating another set of Editors in the future. As well as a set of "Rapid-I" parts from Hutchings Software (of which, I mentioned Rapid-I Bookmarks above). So, I think there is still plenty of excitement to be found in the Cybedog community over the things that will be happening soon or are happening as we speak.

Also, as I said, I anticipate Apple using some of the technologies they developed for Cyberdog in future versions of the OS. Much as the PowerTalk Keychain is supposed to be making its reemergence, I believe people will see Cyberdog in another form someday. I just can't say what form (or even what name) it will take when that happens.

Anyway, I'm personally looking forward to still using Cyberdog for some time to come. I would encourage others to take a second look at Cyberdog, and maybe find (as I and many other people have) that while it is an older dog, it's also still "Your best friend on the Internet."