• World Wide Web documents are just ASCII text documents.
• Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) is just ASCII text.
• HTML documents on the Web can be easily saved. Most browsers allow this under the "File" menu option, usually "File" then "Save as ..."
• Saved HTML ASCII text can be edited by any word processor.
• After editing, make sure HTML documents are saved "as text"

Uniform Resource Locators (URL’s) are the telephone numbers of the Internet. A URL points to a unique object on the Internet. The basic syntax of an Internet link using a URL is:

<A HREF="technicalgibberish">Click On This Visible Text</A>

When the above HTML text is viewed using a web browser, the only thing the user sees is: "Click On This Visible Text". The unique object pointed to is the actual URL described by "technicalgibberish".

When clicked on, URL’s appear in the location box of Web Browsers (e.g., Netscape).

You can take any document with URLs, save them, modify them, then place your modified document (and modified HTML) on the Internet.

Example 1 – Changing the Text You See:

Example 2 – Changing the URL

Access a III WebPAC (doesn’t have to be your own) and do a keyword search for "Commodore computers". You should see a URL in your web browser location box that looks something like this:

Click in the box and directly edit the URL changing "commodore+computers" to "apple+computers"

If you submit the URL (press ENTER or RETURN) you should see the results for a keyword search for "apple computers". In fact, you can now do ANY keyword search simply by changing the URL as above. Note that the space character is replaced by a "+" sign.

Let’s try this with a subject search. Access a WebPAC and do a subject search for "corporations directories"

You can directly modify the above URL in the location box to search for "libraries directories"

Using what you know to create HTML links with URLs you could create an online web document pointing to different types of directories, thus:

Using a web browser, the user would see:

The words "Businesses" and "Libraries" would be hot links submitting searches to the catalog.

This technique will also work with search engines like Yahoo, Infoseek, and Altavista . . .

Internet searches for Sigmund Freud can be found

<a href="http://av.yahoo.com/bin/query?p=sigmund+freud&hc=0&hs=0">

via Yahoo</A>,

<a href="http://www.infoseek.com/Titles?qt=sigmund+freud&col=WW&sv=I2&svx=NSQuickseek"

Infoseek</A>,

and

<a href="http://altavista.digital.com/cgi-bin/query?pg=q&what=web&kl=XX&q=sigmund+freud">

Altavista</A>.

For different searches, you would once again change the URL using different terms (and "+" for spaces).

This is the easiest way to "Hack the PAC". You can create custom documents with canned searches and your own graphics, explanations, etc.

But ... there are stranger creatures in the Internet woods ...

Using a Web browser’s "File ... Save as ..." capabilities, you can go to any WebPAC search screen, such as keyword search, and save the entire file to your hard drive. You may decide that you want to change how the form looks, so you modify it merrily. Then, you load the file up to your OWN web site (or just use it right off of the hard drive), enter a search, AND NOTHING HAPPENS.

This is why:

The WebPAC is expecting that a form is coming from a specific location, or URL. Since the information filled in on the form, the search terms, are not coming from the location established by the REAL owners of the catalog, WebPAC is confused. There is a way to lie to the WebPAC and fool it into thinking the form is really where it is supposed to be, i.e., on the WebPAC server. You do it like this . . .

First, go to the WebPAC and pull up the form you want to modify. Write down the URL for the form, e.g.,

Add the following non-displaying text to your saved version of form:

This will fool the WebPAC into thinking the form is being submitted. From the proper location.

Two notes:

1. Each form must have the "<BASE HREF ...>" tag modified with the unique URL for the original form as above.
2. The "BASE HREF ...>" tag must be BEFORE the existing "<BODY ...>" tag.

If you follow these steps, you can place animated Michael Jackson gifs on WebPAC pages.

HTML frames allow a Web browser window to be subdivided into sections. A common use of frames is to have a menu bar from which choices are made, and a main viewing area for the selections from the menu bar.

JavaScript is an interpreted programming language which can be imbedded in an HTML document. Among other things, JavaScript allows HTML documents to modify information input from forms.

Thorough coverage of these subjects is beyond the scope of this presentation. However, the templates disseminated with this presentation are designed to be modified with no more understanding than that which has been covered already.

The basic steps are:

1. Open the templates in any text editor.
2. Modify them as you wish.
3. Save them AS TEXT files.
4. Use them off of a hard drive, diskette, or web site.

Muns, Raleigh. Creating Customizable Local WebPAC Pages. St. Louis, MO : University of Missouri-St. Louis Libraries, April 30, 1998 http://www.umsl.edu/~muns/webcatdemos/IUG.html