Closure Web Browser: Quickstart

These instructions explain how to run Closure in SBCL under Linux, stepwise.

1. install a recent version of SBCL (later than 0.9.18 should work)
2. install a version of SLIME from the same period as your SBCL installation
3. download the source code of the latest release (or CVS development version) of McCLIM
4. install the external applications gif2png and djpeg for image support (Debian packages gif2png and libjpeg-progs)
5. check out the latest Closure source code from CVS:

   $ export CVSROOT=:pserver:anonymous@common-lisp.net:/project/closure/cvsroot
   $ cvs login
   Logging in to :pserver:anonymous@common-lisp.net:2401/project/closure/cvsroot
   CVS password: anonymous
   $ cvs co -P closure

6. make sure your Closure and McCLIM ASD files are linked from your ASDF central registry
7. push :rune-is-integer on your lisp's *feature* list to avoid some lingering character/integer bugs in the Closure source code
8. compile Closure and McCLIM from SLIME with ,load-system closure
9. start Closure with (closure:start). It's a good idea to run Closure from within SLIME, since it knows how to handle errors that occur in threads.

Basic usage

You will find Closure is able to render most simple web pages, but will fail correctly to lay out complex pages that make heavy use of CSS for absolute positioning. Here are some basic usage tips:

• hyperlinks are highlighted when you pass the mouse over them (this uses CLIM's presentation features), and you can follow a hyperlink by left-clicking
• you can visit a new web page by entering Visit URL in the listener (the listener is the yellow zone towards the bottom of the window)
• you can search on Google using the Search Google command. CLIM command arguments are typically separated by spaces, so if you want to search for multiple words, use quote characters around your search string.
• you can navigate in the history with the commands Back and Forward (enter these in the listener, or use the Go menu)
• select text from the interactor to the system clipboard using Shift + mouse drag
• quit Closure from the File menu.

Screenshot

2007-01-02