Mountain View, Calif. - Netscape Communications Corp. has begun refining new technology for navigating Web sites in a directory-like fashion.
Code-named Aurora, the new technology is embedded in the open source code Netscape recently released for Version 5.0 of its Communicator client suite. The goal is to make it easier for users to get to information on Web sites.
Much like the current structure of bookmarks in Communicator, Aurora displays a site as a tree-like directory of folders and files, a handy site map that facillitates moving from a home page to a nested page without having to drill down a level at a time.
Aurora can also be used for navigating a hard drive, which would insulate the user from Microsoft's native Explorer directory system in Windows 95 and NT - as well as provide an alternative to Microsoft's dynamic Active Desktop.
Aurora will let users combine Web pages, e-mail and other files into a single interface.
"You can use it to define all kinds of information, not just bookmarks: Local files, e-mail or shared documents, Word files, Adobe Photoshop files...regardless of the data type and location," said John Gable, a product manager Netscape on Communicator.
Netscape still faces some hurdles in developing Aurora beyond an R&D project. It is based on the Resource Description Framework, a proposed standard that's still winding its way through the approval process of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) - although it was was recently pulled u nder the umbrella of the extensible markup language. Gable said he expects any changes to RDF will require only "minor tweaks" to bring Aurora into compliance with a final standard.
Aurora, like the rest of Ver. 5.0, collectively known as Mozilla, can be compiled into a running application today. However, it is still very much in test mode, and Netscape is plugging it as source code for developers to play with and refine, rather than something that end users should download. It's "ugly code" at present, one developer said.
"It's not ready for prime time," Gable said. "It's not even really at a beta level. [At this point, it's] really a long-term direction. Some of the pieces you'll see (in Version 5.0) and some you won't see," Gable said.
Gable said Mozilla shows Netscape and Microsoft had different approaches to managing information. Microsoft says, 'Let's put everything into the operating sytsem we can.' We're saying, 'Let's manage information better.' We're helping people manage and find information quicker, rather than forcing them to live in the operating system more than they would otherwise."
Netscape first demonstrated Aurora at the Seybold Conference this past September. The company expects to get Aurora into the hands of users with its next version of Communicator, slated for release by the end of 1998.
