Glossary

This glossary defines how terms are used with respect to the AnswerBook2 product.

AnswerBook

Sun's online documentation product that was provided with pre-2.6 versions of the Solaris operating environment and supplied Display PostScript versions of hardcopy documentation. Throughout this book, the term AnswerBook1 is used to differentiate this product from the AnswerBook2 product.

AnswerBook2

Sun's online documentation system that uses a web-browser interface and follows a client-server model. The AnswerBook2 product lets you view and print a variety of Solaris information, including SGML-based document collections, Display PostScript AnswerBook collections, and man pages.

alternate server

When a user clicks on a link in a book, the AnswerBook2 product can follow that link to an alternate server. If the book being linked to exists on the current server, the link goes there. If, however, the book is not located on the current server, the AnswerBook2 server "falls through" to any defined alternate servers.

browser

For purposes of AnswerBook2, browser means any HTML 3.2-compliant web-based browser, such as HotJava^TM or Netscape Navigator^TM.

catalog

When referring to an AnswerBook1 collection, a catalog file is named ab_cardcatalog and a single ab_cardcatalog file contains information about multiple AnswerBook collections (sets of books, often referred to as "AnswerBooks"). When referring to an AnswerBook2 collection, a catalog file is named collinfo and contains information about a specific collection.

client

An AnswerBook2 client is any HTML 3.2-compliant browser that connects to an AnswerBook2 documentation server's URL.

collection, document collection

A document collection is just a logical grouping of books. For example, you might have a collection of Solaris Developer books and another collection of Solaris System Administrator books.

documentation server, server

A document server is a machine that serves document files to clients. For this product release, the documentation server must be running the Solaris 7 operating environment.

HTML

HyperText Markup Language. HTML is an implementation of SGML that is widely used for authoring information that is accessible through the World Wide Web.

library

The AnswerBook2 library is the top level of the document hierarchy. The library can contain multiple collections of AnswerBook1 and AnswerBook2 documents.

SGML

Standard Generalized Markup Language. SGML is an international standard for defining document structures.