Internet Config was an

Internet The Internet (or internet) is the global system of interconnected computer networks that uses the Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP) to communicate between networks and devices. It is a '' network of networks'' that consists of private, pub ...

preferences In psychology, economics and philosophy, preference is a technical term usually used in relation to choosing between alternatives. For example, someone prefers A over B if they would rather choose A than B. Preferences are central to decision theo ...

manager and

API An application programming interface (API) is a way for two or more computer programs to communicate with each other. It is a type of software Interface (computing), interface, offering a service to other pieces of software. A document or standa ...

for

Mac OS Classic Mac OS (originally System Software; retronym: Classic Mac OS) is the series of operating systems developed for the Macintosh family of personal computers by Apple Computer from 1984 to 2001, starting with System 1 and ending with Mac OS 9. The ...

. It was originally developed by Quinn! The Eskimo, Peter N Lewis and Marcus Jager and released in 1994 into the

public domain The public domain (PD) consists of all the creative work A creative work is a manifestation of creative effort including fine artwork (sculpture, paintings, drawing, sketching, performance art), dance, writing (literature), filmmaking, ...

. It was later bundled by

Apple Inc. Apple Inc. is an American multinational technology company headquartered in Cupertino, California, United States. Apple is the largest technology company by revenue (totaling in 2021) and, as of June 2022, is the world's biggest company b ...

Internet Config's purpose was to consolidate what was, at the time, an unwieldy number of options and settings related to

use that had not yet been integrated into the operating system's own control panel. Some settings were for a systemwide default

web browser A web browser is application software for accessing websites. When a user requests a web page from a particular website, the browser retrieves its files from a web server and then displays the page on the user's screen. Browsers are used on ...

, home page, default

FTP The File Transfer Protocol (FTP) is a standard communication protocol used for the transfer of computer files from a server to a client on a computer network. FTP is built on a client–server model architecture using separate control and data ...

client, systemwide default download folder, and email settings. Internet Config represented an important ease of use advantage for the Macintosh platform on the early Internet. The software consisted of two pieces, the Internet Config control panel — which was actually just a normal application — and an 'appe' extension that launched at boot time but did not patch any system traps. Internet Config enabled the ability for applications to support command-clicking of

URL A Uniform Resource Locator (URL), colloquially termed as a web address, is a reference to a web resource that specifies its location on a computer network and a mechanism for retrieving it. A URL is a specific type of Uniform Resource Identifie ...

s displayed anywhere onscreen and have the URLs sent to the user selected application. For example, http: URLs would be sent to the selected web browser, ftp: URLs to the selected FTP client, mailto: URLs to the selected Email application, and so on. This functionality was made optional systemwide, as it did have to patch one trap, _TEClick.{{cite web, url=http://www.quinn.echidna.id.au/Quinn/Config/Prog_Docs.html#CommandClicking, title=Command Clicking Internet Config also provided functionality to ease interoperability of the Macintosh type and creator code system with the

file extensions A filename extension, file name extension or file extension is a suffix to the name of a computer file (e.g., .txt, .docx, .md). The extension indicates a characteristic of the file contents or its intended use. A filename extension is typically d ...

used on the Internet and on other operating systems. API functions were provided to map file extensions to Mac type/creator information, and vice versa. The public domain licensing of the project and the tight Macintosh Internet community in the late 1990s led to the rapid adoption of the facility, and then to Apple bundling it as part of Mac OS. The Internet Config calls ended up being part of Carbon and Mac OS X, with the header and library files now part of Universal Interfaces and Headers.

External links

Internet Config homeICeCoffEE free implementation of command-click for Mac OS X

References

Classic Mac OS