Connect to site：
For example, we want to connect site aaa.bbb.ccc.ddd
Type telnet://aaa.bbb.ccc.ddd in Firefox URL bar to connect site. BBSFox use telnet default port 23 to make connection.
If the site use specific port such as 8888, Type telnet://aaa.bbb.ccc.ddd:8888 in Firefox URL bar to connect site.
General Hot Key:
(Hotkey can be enable/disable in preference.)
Ctrl + Shift + V (Paste)
Ctrl + A (Select All)
Select a preferred text and press Ctrl + C (Copy)
Select a preferred text and press Ctrl + > (Add selected text to keywords pool)
Select a preferred text and press Ctrl + < (Remove selected text from keywords pool)
Ctrl+D (Downlod post to system clipboard)
Ctrl+E (Display/Hide BBS background image)
Ctrl+M (Mouse browsing ON / OFF)
Mouse Browsing:
(Refer to the preference to enable the feature.)
General page
Page's left side = Arrow left(Go to the previous page)
Page's other part = Enter (Click to access the article)
While under the main board or the article list
Refer to the following diagram:
Red area = Home (First page)
Green area = End (Last page)
Blue area = Page Up (Page up)
Yellow area = Page Down (Page down)
Orange area = Arrow left (Go to the previous page)
Purple area = Enter (Enter the board,/Read the article)
While reading articles
Refer to the following diagram:
Green area = End (Last page)
Blue area = Page Up (Page up)
Yellow area = Page Down (Page down)
Yellow area = Arrow left(Go to previous page)
Some notes about Mouse Browsing:
While selecting a preferred text, mouse browsing would be blocked temporally.
By single click, mouse browsing can be restored.
While under mouse browsing, texts cannot be selected by double click (ignored automatically).For the concern that after the text is selected,
the next click is ignored by the previous action.
Use ctrl + M to switch ON/OFF mouse browsing temporarily for the sake of general operation.
It is applied to all existing BBS windows for safety.
Advanced Mouse Browsing:
(Refer to the preference to enable the feature.)
While under the article list or reading the article
Top left corner of the page = Send command '=' (Go to the top of the thread.)
The second/third line on the top left part of the page = Send command '[' (Go to the preceding article within the thread.)
Top right corner of the page = Send command ']' (Go to the next article within the thread.)
Bottom right corner of the page = Go to the last article within the thread.
Bottom left corner of the page = Send command arrow left + Enter + End (Refresh the article.)
Gestures:
Create FireGestures script in the BBSFox preference page
Menu for Right Button of the Mouse:
Save as = Save the current page as HTML format
Copy = Store the selected text to the clipboard.
Paste = Get the selected text from the clipboard.
Select All = Select the whole text of the page.
Enable Punctuation Window = Open the window for punctuation. (Need to be enabled first in the preference.)
Enable Embedded Player = Only for video link of Youtube. Right click on the Youtube link to enable the feature and a small frame would pop up in the main BBS window. (Need to be enabled first in the preference.)
Show Preview Image = Show image link content.(Need to be enabled first in the preference.)
Open All Links = Open all link in new tabs.(Need to be enabled first in the preference.)
Download Post = Download article to system clipboard.(Need to be enabled first in the preference.)
File I/O = Save system clipboard content to file / Load file content to BBS.(Need to be enabled first in the preference.)
Mouse browsing ON/OFF = enable/disable the mouse browsing feature.(Need to be enabled first in the preference.)
Background Image Display On/Off = Switch BBS background image Display or hide.(Need to be enabled first in the preference.)
Add to keyword pool = Add selected text to the keywords pool. All keywords would be highlighted.(Need to be enabled first in the preference.)
Cancel the keyword = Remove selected text from the keyword pool.(Need to be enabled first in the preference.)
Clear up keyword pool = Remove all keywords from the keyword pool.(Need to be enabled first in the preference.)
For Users Using Both IE Tab Plus/IE tab 2 with BBSFox
There are two situations for IE tab right click menu:
One is to open the current page based on IE core.It's of no use to display BBS by IE, since you would see a black, blanket page.
To keep the popup menu concise, dummy items are hided.
The other is to right click on a hyperlink within the BBS page.The menu remains unchanged.
In short, you can use all features when right clicking on a hyperlink, while the dummy part is automatically hidden form the user.
If the dummy part remains, the following is the solution.
Remove BBSFox and restart Firefox. Now make sure you have IE tab installed on your Firefox,
then reinstall BBSFox and the problem is solved. To avoid this problem, always have IE tab installed prior to the BBSFox.
F.A.Q.
About Font Test:
Font test is based on some basic fonts, but it is possible that BBSFox makes a mistake over the detection.
If the layout goes wrong or ASCII pattern is messed up after a new font is applied, the font is not suitable for BBSFox.
Preview for Pictures:
The feature "Preview for pictures" determines whether a picture can be previewed by its format from the hyperlink. If it is hard to recognize, the picture preview takes no effect.
To achieve perfect recognition, the code segment would be much more complex, which degrades the performance.
Therefore, no further modification or improvement will be made over this issue.
Crashes about BBSFox Youtube Feature:
When the video is played first time, since Flash player is called, Firefox may crash for some users.
The problem doesn't stem from BBSFox. For newer Firefox version (Firefox 3.6.4 or later), the problem is solved. (For more information, please refer to OOPP.)
Native Gestures Support:
So far, native gestures are not supported. FireGetures are adopted to achieve these features.
However, mouse browsing is different from the native gestures. It's a build-in feature for BBSFox.
About the Future...
The plug-in is meant to pure BBS browsing only, there won't be further enhancement for standard telnet console support in the future.
For commonly used features, the author would refer to other plug-ins and adopt the feature.
BBSFox is a hybrid plug-in, the author is not mastered in every aspect.
For a better BBSFox, users' feedbacks and the open source of other plug-ins both play important roles in the future.
The goals of the plug-in are enhancement of BBS browsing, improved compatibility and better interaction with other plug-ins.
In addition, there are two major limitations for BBSFox need to be conquered.
1. Regarding to the issue of full coverage of the wide screen display area, there's no simple way to dynamically change the aspect ratio of a character at present. The author is working on the CSS feature.(maybe CSS3 can do this)
2. About the great flexibility in interacting with other plug-ins, there are pros and cons.For its advantage, the user can do things within a BBS window, like a regular window.
For its drawback, the more plug-ins BBSFox interacts with, the more chances of crushes the user may encounter. The only way to solve this is solve them one by one.
Further Development:
The basic functions of the plug-in are nearly complete. Due to the burden of work, the progress of update and fixes may slow down.
If interested, you may contact the author.
The author would give you as much assistance as he can, e.g. the functionality of the code segment, the reason for writing in this way or ideas for improvement.
Under GPL restriction, any developer interested in the source code of the plug-in can utilize the code freely.
Acknowledgement:
Thanks for the author of PCMAN grants authorization and all developers of pcmanfx project.
Thanks for the author of pcmanfx-0.1.8_r40+_alpha devotes to the open source of the project.
