Editing WorldWideWeb

{{Short description|First web browser, later renamed Nexus}}
{{About|the first [[web browser]]|the distributed hypertext system|World Wide Web}}

{{Infobox software
| name = WorldWideWeb
| logo = WorldWideWeb Icon.png
| screenshot = 
| caption = WorldWideWeb, 

 {{circa}} 1994
| developer = [[Tim Berners-Lee]] for [[CERN]]
| released = {{start date and age|1990|12|25|df=y}}<ref name="faq-www" />
| latest release version = {{wikidata|property|preferred|reference|edit|Q590890|P348|P548=Q2804309}}
| latest release date = {{start date and age|{{wikidata|qualifier|Q590890|P348|P548=Q2804309|P577}}}}
| discontinued = yes
| programming language = [[Objective-C]]<ref name="faq-www" />
| operating system = [[NeXTSTEP]]<ref name="faq-www" />
| language = English
| genre = [[Web browser]], Web [[authoring system|authoring tool]]
| license = [[Public-domain software]]
| website = {{URL|w3.org/People/Berners-Lee/WorldWideWeb.html}}
}}

'''WorldWideWeb''' (later renamed '''Nexus''' to avoid confusion between the software and the World Wide Web) is the first [[web browser]]<ref name="faq-www">{{cite web|title=The WorldWideWeb browser|url=http://www.w3.org/People/Berners-Lee/WorldWideWeb.html|publisher=[[World Wide Web Consortium]]|access-date=23 July 2010 |author-link=Tim Berners-Lee |first=Tim |last=Berners-Lee}}</ref> and [[web page]] editor.<ref name="IEEE" /> It was discontinued in 1994. It was the first [[WYSIWYG]] [[HTML editor]].

The [[source code]] was released into the [[public domain]] on 30 April 1993.<ref>{{cite web|title=The document that officially put the World Wide Web into the public domain on 30 April 1993.|date=1993 |url=https://cds.cern.ch/record/1164399|publisher=CERN|access-date=26 September 2013}}</ref><ref name="faq" />

==History==
[[Tim Berners-Lee]] wrote what would become known as WorldWideWeb on a [[NeXT Computer]]<ref name="faq"> {{cite web|title=Frequently asked questions – What were the first WWW browsers?|url=http://www.w3.org/People/Berners-Lee/FAQ.html#browser|publisher=[[World Wide Web Consortium]]|access-date=22 July 2010|last=Berners-Lee|first=Tim|author-link=Tim Berners-Lee}}</ref> during the second half of 1990, while working for [[CERN]], a European nuclear research agency. The first edition was completed "some time before" 25 December 1990, according to Berners-Lee, after two months of development.<ref name="timblhistory">{{cite web|last=Berners-Lee|first=Tim|title=A Brief History of the Web|url=http://www.w3.org/DesignIssues/TimBook-old/History.html|publisher=[[World Wide Web Consortium]]|access-date=17 August 2010|author-link=Tim Berners-Lee|year=1993}}</ref> The browser was announced on the [[newsgroups]] and became available to the general public in August 1991.<ref name="timblhistory"/><ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.w3.org/History.html|title=A Little History of the World Wide Web|website=www.w3.org|access-date=2020-02-03}}</ref> By this time, several others, including Bernd Pollermann, [[Robert Cailliau]], [[Jean-François Groff]],<ref name="upgrade">{{cite web|title=NeXT editor upgrade proposal|url=http://www.w3.org/History/1991-WWW-NeXT/Implementation/Upgrade.html|publisher=[[World Wide Web Consortium]]|author=Jean-François Groff|access-date=21 June 2010}}</ref> and visiting undergraduate student [[Nicola Pellow]] – who later wrote the [[Line Mode Browser]]  – were involved in the project.<ref name="timblhistory" />

Berners-Lee considered different names for his new application, including ''The Mine of Information'' and ''The Information Mesh,'' before publicly launching the ''WorldWideWeb'' browser in 1991''.''<ref name="cern">{{cite web|title=Welcome to info.cern.ch |url=http://info.cern.ch/|publisher=CERN|access-date=25 July 2010}}</ref> When a new version was released in 1994, it was renamed ''Nexus Browser'', in order to differentiate between the software (''WorldWideWeb'') and the [[World Wide Web]].<ref>{{Cite web|last=Boulton|first=Jim|title=The Nexus Browser {{!}} Digital Archaeology|url=https://digital-archaeology.org/the-nexus-browser/|access-date=2021-06-15|language=en-US}}</ref>

The team created so called "passive browsers" which do not have the ability to edit because it was hard to [[Porting|port]] this feature from the NeXT system to other [[operating system]]s. Porting to the [[X Window System]] was not possible as nobody on the team had experience with the X Window System.<ref name="IEEE"/>

Berners-Lee and Groff later adapted many of WorldWideWeb's components into a [[C (programming language)|C programming language]] version, creating the [[libwww]] [[Application programming interface|API]].<ref>{{cite web|title=Web Browser History|url=http://www.livinginternet.com/w/wi_browse.htm|publisher=Living Internet |first=Bill |last=Stewart|access-date=2 June 2010}}</ref>

A number of early browsers appeared, notably [[ViolaWWW]]. They were all eclipsed by [[Mosaic (web browser)|Mosaic]] in terms of popularity, which by 1993 had replaced the WorldWideWeb program. Those involved in its creation had moved on to other tasks, such as defining standards and guidelines for the further development of the World Wide Web (e.g. [[HTML]], and various [[communication protocol]]s).{{cn|date=December 2020}}

On 30 April 1993, the CERN directorate released the source code of WorldWideWeb into the [[public domain]]. Several versions of the software are still available on the web in various states.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://browsers.evolt.org/?worldwideweb/NeXT|title=browsers.evolt.org|website=browsers.evolt.org}}</ref> Berners-Lee initially considered releasing it under the [[GNU General Public License]], but after hearing rumors that companies might balk at the concept if any licensing issues were involved, he eventually opted to release it into the [[public domain]].<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.governingwithcode.org/case_studies/pdf/NCSAmosaic.pdf|title=History of Libwww|page=3|access-date=2007-02-14|archive-date=2009-09-16|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090916142158/http://www.governingwithcode.org/case_studies/pdf/NCSAmosaic.pdf|url-status=dead}}</ref>  In 2021, [[Sotheby's]] held an auction for an [[NFT]] of the WorldWideWeb [[source code]].<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.sothebys.com/en/buy/auction/2021/this-changed-everything-source-code-for-www-x-tim-berners-lee-an-nft/source-code-for-the-www |title=Source Code for the WWW &#124; This Changed Everything: Source Code for WWW x Tim Berners-Lee, an NFT &#124; 2021 }}</ref><ref>{{cite news|url=https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-57666335 |title=Tim Berners-Lee sells web source code NFT for $5.4m |date=30 June 2021 }}</ref>

==Features==
Since WorldWideWeb was developed on and for the [[NeXTSTEP]] platform, the program uses many of NeXTSTEP's components – WorldWideWeb's [[Browser engine|layout engine]] was built around NeXTSTEP's Text [[class (computer science)|class]].<ref name="faq-www"/>

WorldWideWeb is capable of displaying basic [[style sheet (web development)|style sheets]],<ref name="faq"/> downloading and opening any file type with a MIME type that is also supported by the NeXT system ([[PostScript]],<ref name="IEEE">{{cite web|url=http://www.computer.org/portal/web/computingnow/ic-cailliau|title=Interview Robert Cailliau on the WWW Proposal: "How It Really Happened."|last1=Petrie|first1=Charles|last2=Cailliau|first2=Robert|author-link2=Robert Cailliau|date=November 1997|publisher=[[Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers]]|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110106041256/http://www.computer.org/portal/web/computingnow/ic-cailliau|archive-date=6 January 2011|access-date=18 August 2010}}</ref><ref name="faq"/> movies, and sounds<ref name="faq"/>), browsing [[newsgroup]]s, and [[spell checker|spellchecking]]. In earlier versions, images are displayed in separate windows, until NeXTSTEP's Text class gained support for Image objects.<ref name="faq"/> WorldWideWeb is able to use different protocols: [[File Transfer Protocol|FTP]], [[Hypertext Transfer Protocol|HTTP]], [[Network News Transfer Protocol|NNTP]], and [[file URI scheme|local files]]. Later versions are able to display inline images.<ref name="faq-www"/>

The browser is also a [[WYSIWYG]] editor.<ref name="faq-www"/><ref name="IEEE"/> It allows the simultaneous editing and linking of many pages in different windows. The functions "Mark Selection", which creates an anchor, and "Link to Marked", which makes the selected text an anchor linking to the last marked anchor, allow the creation of links. Editing pages remotely is not possible, as the [[Hypertext Transfer Protocol#Request methods|HTTP PUT]] [[method (computer science)|method]] had not yet been implemented during the period of the application's active development.<ref name="faq-www"/> Files can be edited in a local file system which is in turn served onto the Web by an HTTP server.{{cn|date=December 2020}}

WorldWideWeb's navigation panel contains Next and Previous buttons that automatically navigate to the next or previous link on the last page visited, similar to [[Opera (web browser)|Opera]]'s Rewind and Fast Forward buttons, or [[HyperCard]]; i.e., if one navigated to a page from a table of links, the Previous button would cause the browser to load the previous page linked in the table.<ref name="faq-www"/> This is useful for web pages which contain lists of links. Many still do, but the user interface link-chaining was not adopted by other contemporary browser writers, and it only gained popularity later. An equivalent functionality is nowadays provided by connecting web pages with explicit navigation buttons repeated on each webpage among those links, or with [[typed link]]s in the headers of the page. This places more of a burden on web site designers and developers, but allows them to control the presentation of the navigation links.{{cn|date=December 2020}}

WorldWideWeb does not have [[Bookmark (World Wide Web)|bookmarks]] as they exist in later browsers, but a similar feature was provided: to save a link for later use, users could link to it from their own home page (start page). Users could create multiple home pages, similar to folders in modern web browsers' bookmarks.<ref name="IEEE"/>

== See also ==
{{Portal|Free and open-source software}}
*[[History of the World Wide Web]]
*[[Wiki]]

==References==
{{Reflist|30em}}

==External links==
*[http://www.w3.org/People/Berners-Lee/WorldWideWeb.html Tim Berners-Lee: WorldWideWeb]
*[http://www.w3.org/History.html A Little History of the World Wide Web]
*[https://web.archive.org/web/20051224001905/http://dig.csail.mit.edu/breadcrumbs/blog/4 Berners-Lee's blog]
*''Weaving the Web'' ({{ISBN|0-06-251587-X}}), Berners-Lee's book about the conception of the Web.
*[http://info.cern.ch/ CERN, Where the Web Was "WWW" born]

{{HTML editors}}
{{Early web browsers}}
{{Authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Worldwideweb}}
[[Category:Free web browsers]]
[[Category:Free software programmed in Objective-C]]
[[Category:NeXTSTEP software]]
[[Category:Public-domain software with source code]]
[[Category:1990 software]]
[[Category:Discontinued web browsers]]
[[Category:History of web browsers]]
[[Category:Free HTML editors]]