Accessing folders anonymously

All folders or discussion forums of a BSCW server that have been published by allowing ano­nym­ous access via   Access    Public Access  are listed in the public space of the server, which is a com­munity folder named ‘public’.

The public space may be accessed via the  icon in the instant access bar or by selecting  GoTo    Public Space  in the top menu. The latter access via the top menu lets you view objects that have been published as they would appear to an anonymous user – without having to terminate your current BSCW session under your own user name.

If you want to create a link to a BSCW object, that allows anonymous access in a public Web page, you should proceed as follows:

•      Copy the object’s URL in BSCW (most Web browsers are able to copy the URL of a link to the local clipboard).

•      Modify the URL so that it by-passes the log-in procedure and accesses the object di­rectly by replacing .../bscw/... by .../pub/....

•      Insert the modified URL, e.g., into your home page to allow direct access to the BSCW object from your home page.

The modification of the URL is demonstrated in the following example. Let the internal ad­dress of an object be:

http://your-bscw-server/bscw/bscw.cgi/d18147/some.doc

The bold part of this address must be replaced for anonymous access as shown below:

http://your-bscw-server/pub/bscw.cgi/d18147/some.doc

Replacing “bscw” by “pub” has the effect that the BSCW log-in procedure (which is normally started when a user accesses the BSCW server) is by-passed. Access control, however, is not by-passed: BSCW returns an error message if anonymous access is not allowed for the object requested.