
© M. Gallant 02/14/2001
WebPager is a standalone Java application for the
win32 desktop platform that provides peer-to-peer remote-control
of web browsers and other applications through a simple GUI interface.
The application implements a custom-protocol TCP/IP socket-based server and
client within a single application. The application enables web-page addresses to be easily
sent to single or multiple remote machines running the WebPager
utility. The server part of WebPager listens for such connections
on a specific TCP-port and logs any connections. A simple pop-up security dialog
announces a remote machine connection, and the recipient has the choice to
allow or deny the connection. Allowed connections load the
received web-page address into the client's default web-browser for displayable
URLs, or attempt to launch associated applications. If the browser
is not started, it will be started automatically. Optionally, a
"trustlist" of trusted remote machine names can be loaded at startup.
The utility also supports peer-to-peer multi-slide remote url presentations.
A broad variety of applications can be invoked
remotely with WebPager enabling unprecedented remote launching capability with
exceptional ease of use.
Usage Notes
Features:
- LOCAL or REMOTE modes
- Browser neutral
- Peer to peer, or peer to multi-peer
- Multi-threaded
- Totally client based (2-tier)
- Light-weight, small memory footprint, efficient
- Remote-host dynamic accept/deny security list
- Remote-host "trustlist" at startup
- Logging of remote accesses with save function
- Text-file "urlist" at startup, or manual url capability
- Drop-down list of text-file urls
- Automatic timed, or manual remote slide shows
- Remote and local indicator lights.
- Extensible to launch arbitrary remote applications
To load a list of urls at startup, create a simple text file named urlist.txt
in the current directory containing the webpager.exe or webpager.jar application.
The recognized format for urlist.txt is one simple
web-page address per line. Blank lines are ignored.
To load a list of trusted remote hosts at startup, create a simple text file named trustlist.txt
in the current directory containing the webpager.exe or webpager.jar application.
Remote connections from any host in this trustlist will proceed transparently,
with no intervening user security dialog.
The recognized format for trustlist.txt is typically
hostname.some.domain/ipaddress. Blank lines are ignored.
The digitally-signed Java application is distributed three different ways: