1. WWW4MAIL Past, present and future Onime, Clement E Scientific Computing Section The Abdus Salam ICTP Trieste, Italy

2. Introduction ICTP initiatives (1995 – 1997) Academic Networks Pioneering efforts Academic Networking in Africa Support for training and deployment Some computers and networking equipment Remote Internet Access for E-mail only Networks Agora and Getweb Acess to Scientific database

3. Scientific Databases (1998) Key requirements Existing databases Not directly owned or controlled by the ICTP Have Web front-ends or planned to deploy web based front-ends. Access By e-mail Navigation and search. Un-aided (zero administration) access

4. Initial Considerations (April 1998) Web Access What was available? Text and Number based navigation Agora and GetWeb Searching (GetWeb only) Required periodic maintenance Configuration and Administration

5. A new idea (May 1998) Transport HTML over e-mail MIME attachments Visualisation of HTML Web Browsers Richer output Searching and Navigation?? HTML 3.x Form data submission by e-mail

6. 1998 state of the Art MIME Not available on all mail clients FORM data by e-mail Not on all web browsers (not even on Internet Explorer) Netscape communicator Web Navigation and searching by e-mail HTTP over e-mail

7. Implementation (June 1998) Perl Good text manipulation capabilities Good CGI capabilities Prototypes Wrapper for lynx text mode browser Simple filter to Make HTML ready for transport over e-mail Images Anchor tags

8. Version 1.x (Dec 1998) Wrapper for Lynx Filter Quota Limits Usage control (Optional) White/Black lists of users or URLs HTML Cookie support HTML 3.2 include javascripts All tags transported to user via e-mail. Navigation and Web searching

9. Version 2.x (mid 1999 to 2001) BUG fixes Common Log Format log files No longer required lynx Spool/Queue system to handle loading Dynamic text mode searching

10. Version post 2.4 (Late 2001 till date) Complete re-engineering and rewrite module based architecture Easily extendible Quicker bug fixes New bugs

11. eJDS system overview Participating publisher’s Web Site Registered USERS Database server Web Client Mail server User Access Control Registration check and journal access list

12. eJDS contributions www4mail Sessions History and keys MD5 support Multiple and conditional limits

13. Future Plans Better DOM support HTML 4.x, XHTML, scripts, DOM Administrative tools (GUI) Improve Speed and performance Improve cluster support