Examples for Possible NetShell usage
Example 1 (encryption):
Suppose that you want to put a page on the Web which only
a few of your friends will be able to read.
You could encrypt the contents using your favorite encryption program
and share the secret key with those friends.
They can set a NetShell command that takes the input from the current
page (or a given URL), runs the encryption program with the given key, and
sends the output to the browser.
With one click, the browser will show the plaintext.
Before After a click
Example 2 (folding linked documents)
One often encounters Web pages with many links in them
when one would have preferred to see all the information in one
place (e.g., for saving or for printing).
One of the commands included with the NetShell distribution allows
all pages pointed from a given page to be collected
into a single page (with a table of contents).
Before After a click
Example 3 (History browsing):
We implemented a history browser that keeps track of where you
have been and allows you to manipulate those places (e.g., fold
them as in example 1, delete).
Here is a screen shot:
Example 4 (Collecting links):
With one click you can collect only the links from the current page.
Here is a screen shot:
Before After a click
Other examples include
collecting all images from a page and storing them in a predefined
directory, appending the current page to an existing file,
running analysis programs (e.g., spreadsheets)
directly on data in the current page,
spell checking, making Frames,
and converting a page into a different format (e.g., for printing),
NetShell was developed by
Dachuan Zhang and
Udi Manber
at
University of Arizona, Dept. of Computer Science.
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