Frequently asked questions

• Is Envision a Web browser?
• How does Envision find its images?
• How does Envision improve on a Web browser?
• What else does Envision do?
• Does Envision work with all Web sites?
• What do I need to use Envision?
• If I manage a Web site, should I do anything differently to be sure it works well with Envision?
• How does Envision work? Some of the things it does seem like magic.

Is Envision a Web browser? Envision is a Web-image browser. Envision does not display full Web sites, let you click on links or enter information into forms, or do many of the things that general Web browsers do. What it does do, in a way similar to but much more advanced than a general Web browser, is display images from Web sites. By focusing on the visual parts of the Web, Envision acts as a great companion to, but not a replacement for, your Web browser. Envision is a Web browser specifically for images.

Envision changes this...

How does Envision find its images? There are three main ways. Like a Web browser, you can simply type in the URL of a Web site, and Envision will scan that site for images. As with a search engine, you can type in a topic and Envision will search the Web for images of that topic. Or you can simply run one of the pre-built "Web shows" that we include with the product to view some of our favorite "sights."

How does Envision improve on a Web browser? Envision provides a wide range of advanced ways for displaying images from Web sites as "Web shows." Images displayed by Envision do not have to reside in the constrained world of a Web browser. They do not have to live in windows (although they can), they are not surrounded by text (although the text associated with them is still available), they do not have to be accessed by a series of clicks (although they can be presented, slide-show like, through clicking if you desire) and much more. In fact, with Envision Everywhere, Web images are no longer even confined to your Mac. Use them on your TV, your digital picture frame and of course your iPhone.

What else does Envision do? Lots! Envision can give you an overview of a Web site as a series of thumbnail images. It can create an image montage from a site. It can set images from a site as your desktop picture, or save them for use by your screen saver. It can search the Web for and display images relating to any topic. And a whole lot more.

Does Envision work with all Web sites? No. Envision only makes sense for visual Web sites -- Web browsers can handle purely textual sites fine, and other specialized applications work with other media forms, such as music files. Additionally Envision only supports the Web's standard language, HTML. It does not support sites that use non-HTML features like Javascript or Flash.

What do I need to use Envision? You must be running Mac OS X version 10.4 or later. 10.5.4 or later is recommended. It is also highly recommended that you have a high-speed ("broadband") Internet connection, since you will probably be using Envision to explore sites that contain a fairly large amount of visual data. Finally, since Envision caches images on your hard drive, it's recommended that you have at least 2GB of free disk space.

If I manage a Web site, should I do anything differently to be sure it works well with Envision? There are a few things you can do to make your site work better with Envision, such as be sure you use TITLE or ALT text with your images (Envision gets caption information from this text). Other suggestions are available here. But in most cases the site you have already should work fine.

How does Envision work? Some of the things it does seem like magic. "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." :) Arthur C. Clarke.

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