ANSI telnet
has anyone done ANSI telnet workalike in MC, im having an issue with the socket streams? r d hammond Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/metacard@lists.runrev.com/ Info: http://www.xworlds.com/metacard/mailinglist.htm Please send bug reports to <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, not this list.
socket streams
I have encountered a problem with the MC environment. I wrote a script to repeat forever and scan a socket for new input. it seems to HANG inside the script. it hung far longer that the socketTimeoutInterval (now thats some CONFUSING capitalisation) result had to kill the app after 3 minutes of gefingerpoken got me nowhere. what is the nice way to scan a socket stream for new data? rdh Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/metacard@lists.runrev.com/ Info: http://www.xworlds.com/metacard/mailinglist.htm Please send bug reports to <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, not this list.
Messages and Scope
In the documentation metaTalk Reference (111) Messages by Object : Not that objects that contain other objects can get messages from any of these objects, because if a message is not handled by an objects script, it is passed up to its owner. so if you click on a button , and there is no mouseDown handler, but the CARD to which it belongs had a mouseDown handler, then the card handler is used. so far so good. messages pass from objects to those objects that contain it until one of them contains a handler that does not call the pass procedure. i created a an object (a group of 3 atomic graphical elements) and gave it a script. the object had clearly defined boarders. the script included a mouseDown handler. clicking ANYWHERE on the card called that objects handler. Is this defined as correct behavior? thankyou robin-david hammond Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/metacard@lists.runrev.com/ Info: http://www.xworlds.com/metacard/mailinglist.htm Please send bug reports to <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, not this list.
No Subject
Does MC work on Linux based PADDs (or PDAs) ? [ its been 6 years and i dont know which apreviation/acronym to use, Paramount's or Apple's.] I havent bought a PADD/PDA since my Apple Newton Message Pad 100. The load-it-once attitude is clearly the right aproach for embeded/wearable/pocket computers. I have noticed that on monochrome macOS boxen the colours come out all but unreadable. B&W seems impossible with recent versions. Perhaps its high time to reevaluate systems requirements. Obviously winCE is a great concern to a great many people. if MC can get to WinCE and Linux PDAs FIRST there is an rapidly emerging (or growing?) market to corner. RE> >As a Windows CE user (I have a Cassiopeia E125 Pocket PC), and it supports >Visual Basic applications that are developed for the Pocket PC platfom. It >basically runs like VB, or SC or MetaCard... you have an interpreter that is >loaded once, and a number of "projects" that run with the interpreter. In >the case of EVB (Embedded Visual Basic - the name for the development >environment for Pocket PCs), you have a "pvbscript.dll" which is the main >interpreter (and weighs in at about 600K), and individual projects can be >anything from 5K on up. If MetaCard were to do the same thing; that is, >create a version of MC which could be downloaded to a PDA and then only >stacks would get downloaded and run off the interpreter, it would be quite >reasonable. > >Just my $0.02, > >Ken Ray >Manager of Systems Technology >Thinking Publications, Inc. >http://www.thinkingpublications.com/ Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/metacard@lists.runrev.com/ Info: http://www.xworlds.com/metacard/mailinglist.htm Please send bug reports to <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, not this list.
Re: Digest metacard.v004.n303
It looks like the close sockets function does not accept the name of the socket, but the host:port pair. this would make opening multiple sockes to the same port rather difficult. can someone please confirm/deny? - Robin-David Hammond 56 Hardwick RD Ashland MASS, USA "Contrary to popular belief, penguins are not the salvation of modern technology. Neither do they throw parties for the urban proletariat." Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/metacard@lists.runrev.com/ Info: http://www.xworlds.com/metacard/mailinglist.htm Please send bug reports to <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, not this list.
Re: Digest metacard.v004.n303
It looks like the close sockets function does not accept the name of the socket, but the host:port pair. this would make opening multiple sockes to the same port rather difficult. can someone please confirm/deny? - Robin-David Hammond 56 Hardwick RD Ashland MASS, USA "Contrary to popular belief, penguins are not the salvation of modern technology. Neither do they throw parties for the urban proletariat." Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/metacard@lists.runrev.com/ Info: http://www.xworlds.com/metacard/mailinglist.htm Please send bug reports to <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, not this list.
Re: Digest metacard.v004.n298
re> Here's a link to a "Golden Oldie" list message from Scott Rossi in December 1999. It may help answer your question: http://www.mail-archive.com/metacard%40lists.best.com/msg01437.html Phil Davis < those data date from 12-1999 if you are tarketing the same user base as quickbooks, then you can bet that 98% has grown. - Robin-David Hammond 56 Hardwick RD Ashland MASS, USA "Contrary to popular belief, penguins are not the salvation of modern technology. Neither do they throw parties for the urban proletariat." Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/metacard@lists.runrev.com/ Info: http://www.xworlds.com/metacard/mailinglist.htm Please send bug reports to <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, not this list.
Re: Digest metacard.v004.n276
RE> From: Richard Gaskin <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: TCP/IP security considerations Date: Thu, 12 Apr 2001 00:31:54 -0700 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit What are the security considerations in the following scenario?: Suppose I have two MC apps running on different machines, and they communicate with each other showing a listing of files each machine has designated specifically for sharing (much like Napster, GNUtella clients, etc.). In this scenaro, what special risks would someone be taking in having a MetaCard client sharing a designated folder to other MetaCard clients using the same custom protocol? Given that ultimately everything is hackable, what specific standards constitute various levels of security? Or at least, a level of security business people (not hospitals and other critical-systems) find acceptable? Most importantly, can we satisfy those requirements with MetaCard? If you must develope new TCP/IP protocols, please publish the RFC for them. If security is important investigate SSL. FREELy avail from stunnel.org. -- good questions. If like napster the servers files are offered up for sharing, and a user initiates download, then the security issues i would care about are: ensuring the file recieved is the file that was tranmitted. avoid "man in the middle" attacks. If the servers allow client initated uploads, then you want to be aware of overwrites etc. (excuse the following crusaid) in any case MC hasnt been rigorously analysed for buffer-overrun attacks afaik. Not only should you be cautious about using it for sensitive data, but also on any virtual file system with sensative or mission critical data, unless you are very sure that the permissions DONT allow it to write to disk, or read sensative data. still the active copy *in ram* may be rewritten, and you dont want to run MC out of inetd! any door can be broken, with a lever long, and strong enough, but dont leave the door open. MC was built (in the image of HC) to make GUIs and be an OO database with advanced scripting capabilities, it now includes inet_socket functionality. do not assume that just because you can, you should. There are tried and true methods of sharing files SCP2,FTP,HTTP don't reinvent the wheel unnessesarily. write software to co-ordinate these underlying transactions to provide a nice GUI to people who need to access data without learning how technology works. keeps development time down, and reduces the complexity of your product, while reasuring the customers (end users) of compatability. yes i am the first to admit i am rather opinionated on some of the issues here, that dosnt make me right/wrong. good luck, - Robin-David Hammond 56 Hardwick RD Ashland MASS, USA "Contrary to popular belief, penguins are not the salvation of modern technology. Neither do they throw parties for the urban proletariat." Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/metacard@lists.runrev.com/ Info: http://www.xworlds.com/metacard/mailinglist.htm Please send bug reports to <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, not this list.
Re: Digest metacard.v004.n276
RE> From: Richard Gaskin <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: TCP/IP security considerations Date: Thu, 12 Apr 2001 00:31:54 -0700 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit What are the security considerations in the following scenario?: Suppose I have two MC apps running on different machines, and they communicate with each other showing a listing of files each machine has designated specifically for sharing (much like Napster, GNUtella clients, etc.). In this scenaro, what special risks would someone be taking in having a MetaCard client sharing a designated folder to other MetaCard clients using the same custom protocol? Given that ultimately everything is hackable, what specific standards constitute various levels of security? Or at least, a level of security business people (not hospitals and other critical-systems) find acceptable? Most importantly, can we satisfy those requirements with MetaCard? If you must develope new TCP/IP protocols, please publish the RFC for them. If security is important investigate SSL. FREELy avail from stunnel.org. -- good questions. If like napster the servers files are offered up for sharing, and a user initiates download, then the security issues i would care about are: ensuring the file recieved is the file that was tranmitted. avoid "man in the middle" attacks. If the servers allow client initated uploads, then you want to be aware of overwrites etc. (excuse the following crusaid) in any case MC hasnt been rigorously analysed for buffer-overrun attacks afaik. Not only should you be cautious about using it for sensitive data, but also on any virtual file system with sensative or mission critical data, unless you are very sure that the permissions DONT allow it to write to disk, or read sensative data. still the active copy *in ram* may be rewritten, and you dont want to run MC out of inetd! any door can be broken, with a lever long, and strong enough, but dont leave the door open. MC was built (in the image of HC) to make GUIs and be an OO database with advanced scripting capabilities, it now includes inet_socket functionality. do not assume that just because you can, you should. There are tried and true methods of sharing files SCP2,FTP,HTTP don't reinvent the wheel unnessesarily. write software to co-ordinate these underlying transactions to provide a nice GUI to people who need to access data without learning how technology works. keeps development time down, and reduces the complexity of your product, while reasuring the customers (end users) of compatability. yes i am the first to admit i am rather opinionated on some of the issues here, that dosnt make me right/wrong. good luck, - Robin-David Hammond 56 Hardwick RD Ashland MASS, USA "Contrary to popular belief, penguins are not the salvation of modern technology. Neither do they throw parties for the urban proletariat." Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/metacard@lists.runrev.com/ Info: http://www.xworlds.com/metacard/mailinglist.htm Please send bug reports to <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, not this list.
Re: Digest metacard.v004.n237
R G asked: So here's the question: Just how secure is MC's encryption compared to, say, PGP or other popular methods? Would it be considered suitable for transporting medical record data? PGP is a software package it includes several algorithms at varibale strengths. I think it can be made to work up passed 10240 bits these days. I say I have no clue. But s-tunnel is a GOOD solution for both NIX and dos based systems. It can make SSL connections relatively painlessly. If your going to be doing anything as confidential as that KEYSTRENGTH and algorithm strength are the primary issues. SSH2 is in it latest incarnations belived to be secure. It has a major drawback, you can only send one datastream through it a a time. opening multiple SSH sockets solves this problem at significant CPU overhead. or just tarball everything first. If i see one more 56-bit DES implementation i'm going to be sick. www.stunnel.org is the home of stunnel PS if anyone wants to flame me about the nonviability of optronic processors factoring 56 bit products-of-primes, do so PRIVATELY not on channel. thankyou - Robin-David Hammond KPL 25-8D Van Zant Norwalk CONN USA Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/metacard@lists.runrev.com/ Info: http://www.xworlds.com/metacard/mailinglist.htm Please send bug reports to <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, not this list.
Re: Digest metacard.v004.n236
It has been asked: How do you folks handle designing menubars for both Mac and Windows? I would consider First doing the normal (*nix) style small window housing the menus as a windoid or pallate holds ones tools. create this a a stack that has functions for MenuInit, MenuEnable , MenuDisable, MenuTerm. The menu contents and the signals they generate can be stored in fields or better yet files. Then if Mac and Win32 versions are needed have the startup() function determine which Os is present, in stead of opening the MenuStack in new window just use it, and augment the functions to be mac and win32 aware. This way most of your code is never aware of HOW anything is displayed but you can be sure that it is, and in a manner the user is expecting. downside: lot o' work. upside: can be very modular and reusable. not so much work nexttime. that is a very truthless answer, i prefer using navigation buttons, because i generaly develope for a touchscreen environment and menus dont work so well. but it seems like a good solution one i would enjoy working on so long as i dont have to touch the Windex machine.. - Robin-David Hammond KPL 25-8D Van Zant Norwalk CONN USA Gerrold's Laws of Infernal Dynamics: (1) An object in motion will always be headed in the wrong direction. (2) An object at rest will always be in the wrong place. (3) The energy required to change either one of these states will always be more than you wish to expend, but never so much as to make the task totally impossible. Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/metacard@lists.runrev.com/ Info: http://www.xworlds.com/metacard/mailinglist.htm Please send bug reports to <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, not this list.
Re: Digest metacard.v004.n231
Interesting idea comes to mind. in PERL the backticks `` allow execution of a command. `mv /home/muaddib/.pinerc /root/.pinerc`; interestingly although classic MacOS has no move command, the command still works on MacPERL by some rather creative hacks. Maybe MetaCard can do this too? I can see one reason not to even bother, and that is MacOS X (BSD+NextOS) does ofcourse have the mv command, and the classic OS is already obselete. Maybe my point is: Has metacard announced a policy for the MacOS port on functionality that is obseleted with OSX ? Re> Subject: Re: Moving files with MC Date: Thu, 08 Mar 2001 14:58:38 -0500 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" References: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > Is there any built-in function of MC that allows > copy / move of files between directories, or is > an XCMD / DLL necessary ? And if yes, which > one would you advise ? - Robin-David Hammond KPL 25-8D Van Zant Norwalk CONN USA Gerrold's Laws of Infernal Dynamics: (1) An object in motion will always be headed in the wrong direction. (2) An object at rest will always be in the wrong place. (3) The energy required to change either one of these states will always be more than you wish to expend, but never so much as to make the task totally impossible. Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/metacard@lists.runrev.com/ Info: http://www.xworlds.com/metacard/mailinglist.htm Please send bug reports to <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, not this list.
Re: Digest metacard.v004.n231
Interesting idea comes to mind. in PERL the backticks `` allow execution of a command. `mv /home/muaddib/.pinerc /root/.pinerc`; interestingly although classic MacOS has no move command, the command still works on MacPERL by some rather creative hacks. Maybe MetaCard can do this too? I can see one reason not to even bother, and that is MacOS X (BSD+NextOS) does ofcourse have the mv command, and the classic OS is already obselete. Maybe my point is: Has metacard announced a policy for the MacOS port on functionality that is obseleted with OSX ? Re> Subject: Re: Moving files with MC Date: Thu, 08 Mar 2001 14:58:38 -0500 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" References: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > Is there any built-in function of MC that allows > copy / move of files between directories, or is > an XCMD / DLL necessary ? And if yes, which > one would you advise ? - Robin-David Hammond KPL 25-8D Van Zant Norwalk CONN USA Gerrold's Laws of Infernal Dynamics: (1) An object in motion will always be headed in the wrong direction. (2) An object at rest will always be in the wrong place. (3) The energy required to change either one of these states will always be more than you wish to expend, but never so much as to make the task totally impossible. Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/metacard@lists.runrev.com/ Info: http://www.xworlds.com/metacard/mailinglist.htm Please send bug reports to <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, not this list.
Re: Digest metacard.v004.n183
personaly the ISO 8601 is a favourite source for standardised dates the .MM.DD hh.mm.ss format has a few advantages firstly it is a STANDARD it is well used, and its format is not imitated by people (yankees) stands back and watches a NAPLAM fireball ascend into the heavens who think that days are longer than months are longer than years. so there is little danger of confustion. the real reason this standard comes in handy is the characters are arranged from most significant to least. so to tell if one date is before (less than) another you can do byte wise comparison. its been a while since i used MC , so if some perl sneaks in here, cut me some slack. function ischrono ( foo, bar) repeat with i = 0 to the number of chars in foo if (char i of foo > char i of bar ) return (false) if (char i of foo < char i of bar ) return (true) end repeat # we ran out of chars and there was not determinable differance return end ischrono if you are sorting large lists in interpreted languages CPU effiency is a must. this format permits quick comparisons of date strings in many environments. If you know you are staying on UNIX or UNIX compatable platforms then you can store the number of seconds into the epoch (and the epoch?) and compare them directly. Rather confusing to users, but it makes algorithmic sense if many comparisons and few displays are being done. beware the y 10k bug! = this email brought to you by AT&T system V UNIX (tm) "reach out and grep someone" RE> From: Gary Rathbone <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: Re: International date format Date: Tue, 06 Feb 2001 20:25:52 + MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit In-Reply-To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sounds familiar. Basically I ... put the date into tdate set the itemdel to "/" put item 1 of tdate into tmonth put item 2 of tdate into tday put item 3 of tdate into tyear put tday&"/"&tmonth&"/"&tyear into tdateout or convert the time to dateItems this gives a comma separated list of items which are year,month,day,hour,minute,second,day of week You can then build you own date format. As far as I know altering the date format in the Control Panels doesn't alter the way that Metacard reads the date. Just for your info the "Sunday Times Newspaper" had an article on date formats recently, citing numerous 'standard' formats for different countries and industries. I can't remember who said "Standards are the backbone of computing... every company should have their own." Bu they had a point. Regards Gary Rathbone - Robin-David Hammond KPL 25-8D Van Zant Norwalk CONN USA Gerrold's Laws of Infernal Dynamics: (1) An object in motion will always be headed in the wrong direction. (2) An object at rest will always be in the wrong place. (3) The energy required to change either one of these states will always be more than you wish to expend, but never so much as to make the task totally impossible. Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/metacard@lists.runrev.com/ Info: http://www.xworlds.com/metacard/mailinglist.htm Please send bug reports to <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, not this list.
Re: Digest metacard.v004.n179
if you want to access the VME, SBUS, NuBUS or PCI directly you are going to need a gen3 language you want C (or asm if you realy like to get dirty or C++ is you have an unhealthy obsession with mediocrity ) and probably an RTOS like LynxOS or QNX unless you want to drasticaly overpower a linux or bsd box and use POSIX 1003.b (?) alarms and the like. Drastic over-kill in the CPU department is fairly cheap these days. for the CPU power you are likly to need a lowend MIPS, PPC or early 80586. metacard may still be great choice for a front end, but i dont think it will ever be anything other than a Gen4 language and having PEEK/POKE is generaly inconcistant with gen4 languages. if you were to open a pipe into the control programme, you could use MC to feed it simple instructions. the concept of running MC setuid root, and giving it direct access to ram scares the hell out of me, a buffer overrun could have severe consequences. personly i'd be more likly to go with an embeded solution, get the MachZ x86-on-a-chip, slap the PCI card to that, and then control it via USB, Serial IO or TCP. It has been noted that when the only tool you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a nail. I myself have been guilty of this once or twice RE --- MESSAGE metacard.v004.n179.5 --- From: "Sjoerd Op 't Land" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: Re: MC, PCI & MIDI Date: Sat, 03 Feb 2001 23:03:22 +0100 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit In-Reply-To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> jbv wrote/ schreef: > Hi, > > Is there any possibility to send / receive data > to / from a board on a PCI slot through a > MC script ? I wanted to ask this very same question just when I read yours. I'm developing driver software for DMX (a system for controlling spotlights, lasers, stroboscopes etc.), and a PCI card is used here. For this purpose, I have to write to and read from the card, i.e. reading from and writing to some memory addresses. This can be done with a DOS shell, but as you may understand, timing is a very important thing at performances, and you can't manage that with a shell, which is extremely slow. > Same question about receiving / sending MIDI > via the printer or modem ports ? Well, I'm still searching for a neat external which controls MIDI via OMS, but for the moment you can write bytes to the modem/ printerport with the read and write commands: open modem: write numtochar(199) to modem: -- to write 199 to it close modem: > Thanks & Regards, > > JB Hope this helps, Sjoerd - Robin-David Hammond KPL 25-8D Van Zant Norwalk CONN USA Gerrold's Laws of Infernal Dynamics: (1) An object in motion will always be headed in the wrong direction. (2) An object at rest will always be in the wrong place. (3) The energy required to change either one of these states will always be more than you wish to expend, but never so much as to make the task totally impossible. Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/metacard@lists.runrev.com/ Info: http://www.xworlds.com/metacard/mailinglist.htm Please send bug reports to <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, not this list.
Re: Digest metacard.v004.n139
I find EPS widely supported, but i have very rarely used a win32 box.
Portable Network Graphic "PNG" is an elegant bitmap standard
>From what i remember MC supports it quite nicely and even seems to print it
okay. Unfortunately i dont have any suggestions for VECTOR graphics, but there
realy should be a public standard for VG.
From: Richard Gaskin <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Import of vector drawings
Date: Thu, 11 Jan 2001 12:57:53 -0800
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
In-Reply-To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Chris Condit writes:
> Following up Philip Chumbley comments, those of us using MetaCard as a
> multimedia presentation tool very much need to be able to import vector
> objects.
...
> With the advent of Revolution, and the migration of many folks for SC to
> MC, I hope that the need to import vector objects into MC will move this
> request up the "feature request list" - any comment on that, Scott?.
As I recall from the last time this discussion was raised, the main
challenge here is this one:
Find a multi-platform vector graphics standard that everyone
will be happy with.
PICT? Mac-only.
WMF? Win-only.
Display EPS? Rarely supported.
SWF? Privately held, changing spec, really more of an anim format
so that once you put it in for stills folks will want all of it.
SVG? So far only supported by a seldom-used Adobe plugin and a handlful
of other applications. Holds promise, but that promise has yet
to be fulfilled.
DXF? - Only for CAD, the DXF format is a confused mess encumbered with
extra crap for 3D (really poorly maintained, IMHO).
Of these, my vote would be to wait for SVG to become more widely adopted,
and if it does then pounce. Of all of them, it seems to offer the best mic
of features, while being a completely open format.
What to do in the meantime? If we were playing the numbers, I would
suggest WMF, but as a platform-specific format I would only do so if it were
as trivial to support as the Mac's PICT.
--
Richard Gaskin
Fourth World Media Corporation
Multimedia Design and Development for Mac, Windows, UNIX, and the Web
_
[EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.FourthWorld.com
Tel: 323-225-3717 ICQ#60248349Fax: 323-225-0716
Robin-David Hammond
KPL
25-8D Van Zant
Norwalk CONN USA
Gerrold's Laws of Infernal Dynamics:
(1) An object in motion will always be headed in the wrong
direction.
(2) An object at rest will always be in the wrong place.
(3) The energy required to change either one of these states
will always be more than you wish to expend, but never so
much as to make the task totally impossible.
Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/metacard@lists.runrev.com/
Info: http://www.xworlds.com/metacard/mailinglist.htm
Please send bug reports to <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, not this list.
Re: Digest metacard.v004.n139
I find EPS widely supported, but i have very rarely used a win32 box.
Portable Network Graphic "PNG" is an elegant bitmap standard
>From what i remember MC supports it quite nicely and even seems to print it
okay. Unfortunately i dont have any suggestions for VECTOR graphics, but there
realy should be a public standard for VG.
From: Richard Gaskin <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Import of vector drawings
Date: Thu, 11 Jan 2001 12:57:53 -0800
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
In-Reply-To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Chris Condit writes:
> Following up Philip Chumbley comments, those of us using MetaCard as a
> multimedia presentation tool very much need to be able to import vector
> objects.
...
> With the advent of Revolution, and the migration of many folks for SC to
> MC, I hope that the need to import vector objects into MC will move this
> request up the "feature request list" - any comment on that, Scott?.
As I recall from the last time this discussion was raised, the main
challenge here is this one:
Find a multi-platform vector graphics standard that everyone
will be happy with.
PICT? Mac-only.
WMF? Win-only.
Display EPS? Rarely supported.
SWF? Privately held, changing spec, really more of an anim format
so that once you put it in for stills folks will want all of it.
SVG? So far only supported by a seldom-used Adobe plugin and a handlful
of other applications. Holds promise, but that promise has yet
to be fulfilled.
DXF? - Only for CAD, the DXF format is a confused mess encumbered with
extra crap for 3D (really poorly maintained, IMHO).
Of these, my vote would be to wait for SVG to become more widely adopted,
and if it does then pounce. Of all of them, it seems to offer the best mic
of features, while being a completely open format.
What to do in the meantime? If we were playing the numbers, I would
suggest WMF, but as a platform-specific format I would only do so if it were
as trivial to support as the Mac's PICT.
--
Richard Gaskin
Fourth World Media Corporation
Multimedia Design and Development for Mac, Windows, UNIX, and the Web
_
[EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.FourthWorld.com
Tel: 323-225-3717 ICQ#60248349Fax: 323-225-0716
Robin-David Hammond
KPL
25-8D Van Zant
Norwalk CONN USA
Gerrold's Laws of Infernal Dynamics:
(1) An object in motion will always be headed in the wrong
direction.
(2) An object at rest will always be in the wrong place.
(3) The energy required to change either one of these states
will always be more than you wish to expend, but never so
much as to make the task totally impossible.
Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/metacard@lists.runrev.com/
Info: http://www.xworlds.com/metacard/mailinglist.htm
Please send bug reports to <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, not this list.
Re: Digest metacard.v004.n123
--- MESSAGE metacard.v004.n123.6 --- From: Sivakatirswami <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: Re: URL Exists Date: Fri, 29 Dec 2000 12:45:29 -1000 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit In-Reply-To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> on 12/29/00 10:03 PM, [EMAIL PROTECTED] at [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: >> I tried: >> exists (URL "http://www.gurudeva.org/index.html") >> but it doesn't work even if the file is on the web site. >> ??Did I do something wrong? > Try: > if url "http://www.gurudeva.org/index.html" is empty then > answer "The page doesn't exist." > end if That doesn't work either. As it turns out earlier posts covered this. . .MC http protocol downloads the whole file. . .no way to just read header or anything like that. I ended up downloading the file, if it doesn't exist, you can test for 404 from the server. put URL tLastYear into oneYearAgo if oneYearAgo contains "404 Not Found" then put "There was no page posted this day last year." into lastYearLink else buildLink end if Fortunately the app seeks only to check on the existence of very small html files. Caveat of course is that the server might send some other message and the test would be "wrong". And obviously this would not work efficiently for testing the existence of a large .mov or .mpg file that might be several megabytes in size. . .i.e. if the file exists you would download the entire thing. . . The other route would be to open a socket, use FTP and test from the directory. . .but that's more complicated. Sivakatirswami Editor's Assistant/Production Manager www.HinduismToday.com www.HimalayanAcademy.com [EMAIL PROTECTED] Close but no cigar; you must not assume that a machine set up to do web serving is also set up to do ftp servering. Nor should you assume than the FTP and HTTP ports on the SAME IPADDY even point to the same machine the router may redirect them using basic port forwarding. Even if neither of the above hold true, the base directories may be different. you want to open an HTTP socket send the GET command, read until the [end of header] then just close off the socket. Evaluate the header is it a '200' a '403' a '404' result code? the actual code to do this is being left as an exercise unto the reader. use tcpdump to catch the web client in the act, use that as a model. If you find HEX hard to read and your tcpdump cant do ascii there is a nifty utility on http://www.bestweb.net./~muaddib that might help you. Perl 5 is recomended. this should help you detect the status and size of an http served document without downloading a DVD image via a 1200 baud modem. Bonne Chance robin-david hammond lead systems engineer KPL 25-8D Van Zant Norwalk CONN USA Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/metacard@lists.runrev.com/ Info: http://www.xworlds.com/metacard/mailinglist.htm Please send bug reports to <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, not this list.
Re: Digest metacard.v004.n123
--- MESSAGE metacard.v004.n123.6 --- From: Sivakatirswami <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: Re: URL Exists Date: Fri, 29 Dec 2000 12:45:29 -1000 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit In-Reply-To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> on 12/29/00 10:03 PM, [EMAIL PROTECTED] at [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: >> I tried: >> exists (URL "http://www.gurudeva.org/index.html") >> but it doesn't work even if the file is on the web site. >> ??Did I do something wrong? > Try: > if url "http://www.gurudeva.org/index.html" is empty then > answer "The page doesn't exist." > end if That doesn't work either. As it turns out earlier posts covered this. . .MC http protocol downloads the whole file. . .no way to just read header or anything like that. I ended up downloading the file, if it doesn't exist, you can test for 404 from the server. put URL tLastYear into oneYearAgo if oneYearAgo contains "404 Not Found" then put "There was no page posted this day last year." into lastYearLink else buildLink end if Fortunately the app seeks only to check on the existence of very small html files. Caveat of course is that the server might send some other message and the test would be "wrong". And obviously this would not work efficiently for testing the existence of a large .mov or .mpg file that might be several megabytes in size. . .i.e. if the file exists you would download the entire thing. . . The other route would be to open a socket, use FTP and test from the directory. . .but that's more complicated. Sivakatirswami Editor's Assistant/Production Manager www.HinduismToday.com www.HimalayanAcademy.com [EMAIL PROTECTED] Close but no cigar; you must not assume that a machine set up to do web serving is also set up to do ftp servering. Nor should you assume than the FTP and HTTP ports on the SAME IPADDY even point to the same machine the router may redirect them using basic port forwarding. Even if neither of the above hold true, the base directories may be different. you want to open an HTTP socket send the GET command, read until the [end of header] then just close off the socket. Evaluate the header is it a '200' a '403' a '404' result code? the actual code to do this is being left as an exercise unto the reader. use tcpdump to catch the web client in the act, use that as a model. If you find HEX hard to read and your tcpdump cant do ascii there is a nifty utility on http://www.bestweb.net./~muaddib that might help you. Perl 5 is recomended. this should help you detect the status and size of an http served document without downloading a DVD image via a 1200 baud modem. Bonne Chance robin-david hammond lead systems engineer KPL 25-8D Van Zant Norwalk CONN USA Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/metacard@lists.runrev.com/ Info: http://www.xworlds.com/metacard/mailinglist.htm Please send bug reports to <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, not this list.
Re: Digest metacard.v004.n106
Hmm SQL support, nice. don't use "Skull" much, but seen cool things done in it? Do we have DBM support too? rdh Proposed Additions to the PDP-11 Instruction Set: PI Punch Invalid POPIPunch Operator Immediately PVLCPunch Variable Length Card RASCRead And Shred Card RPM Read Programmers Mind RSSCreduce speed, step carefully (for improved accuracy) RTABRewind tape and break RWDSK rewind disk RWOCRead Writing On Card SCRBL scribble to disk - faster than a write SLC Search for Lost Chord SPSWScramble Program Status Word SRSDSeek Record and Scar Disk STROM Store in Read Only Memory TDB Transfer and Drop Bit WBT Water Binary Tree Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/metacard@lists.runrev.com/ Info: http://www.xworlds.com/metacard/mailinglist.htm Please send bug reports to <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, not this list.
Re: Digest metacard.v004.n078
It has been asked how to run MC cgi on a web server. if your isp wont let you try www.your-site.com. its run by some cool guys who know what they are doing on genuine SUN hardware and Solaris 8. rdh. "What the hell are you getting so upset about? I thought you didn't believe in God." "I don't," she sobbed, bursting violently into tears, "but the God I don't believe in is a good God, a just God, a merciful God. He's not the mean and stupid God you make Him out to be." -- Joseph Heller, "Catch-22" Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/metacard@lists.runrev.com/ Info: http://www.xworlds.com/metacard/mailinglist.htm Please send bug reports to <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, not this list.
Re: Digest metacard.v004.n032
The problem here is not in windows or mac its in the operating system on which windows is running, typicaly MS-DOS. The problem only occurs with some dos FAT->ISO conversion utilities. you best bet is to simply try to find a better file system converter. No other operating system has this problem that i am aware of. And by hi-ascii i presume you mean chars of values less than 32 (including negatives) ? On Fri, 27 Oct 2000 [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > Subject: Digest metacard.v004.n032 > Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > > > -- BEGIN metacard.v004.n032 -- > > 001 - "Claude Lemmel" 002 - Scott Rossi 003 - [EMAIL PROTECTED] - RE: File Names > 004 - Kevin Miller 005 - Craig Spooner 006 - [EMAIL PROTECTED]- Re: File Names > > This is the MetaCard mailing list. > Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/metacard%40lists.runrev.com/ > Info: http://www.xworlds.com/metacard/mailinglist.htm > Please send any bug reports to <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, not this list. > > > --- MESSAGE metacard.v001.n002.1 --- > > From: "Claude Lemmel" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > Subject: Re: File Names > Date: Thu, 26 Oct 2000 08:09:03 +0200 > MIME-Version: 1.0 > Content-Type: text/plain; > charset="iso-8859-1" > Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit > References: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > > > From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > > Subject: File Names > > > > I'm developing a program to be cross platform and I want to access a > common > > set of files. I use more than 8 letters in the name and then the Windows > > extension. I need the extra letters to clarify the files for end users. > The > > problem is that when I try to read these files from my Mac, it truncates > them > > to 8 letters (as in the 8 + 3 extension scheme). Thus "PROJECTION" > becomes > > "PROJEC~1". The program then does not recognize the file because the name > is > > changed. Is there a way to tell the Mac to not do this? > > > > Philip Chumbley > > I guess you developp on Windows. If you burn a cdrom from Windows, Mac is > too stupid to read the long filenames of a iso9660 CD. > You have to transfert all the files on the mac and to burn from the mac > > A painfull way, but i dont know an other one : > - compact all your windows files with some zip utility into a big pc2mac.zip > file > - copy the pc2mac.zip zip file on a cdrom > - copy the cdrom on the mac > - decompress on the mac (a recent version of alladdin or unstuffit do the > job) : the long names and the hierachy of the folders are OK > - burn from the mac an hybrid CDROM (ie mac partition + iso9660) with Toast. > > You get a cross platform cd-rom what accept long names on both mac and pc. > > Be carefull : do not use high ascii characters in the file names ; both mac > and windows accept that, but the high ascii characters are not the same from > one platform to the other one. > > If you plan to use also a linux version, convert all the filenames to > lowercase in your soft (including filename properties) and on your disk. > > Hope it helps. > > Claude > Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/metacard@lists.runrev.com/ Info: http://www.xworlds.com/metacard/mailinglist.htm Please send bug reports to <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, not this list.
Re: Digest metacard.v004.n032
The problem here is not in windows or mac its in the operating system on which windows is running, typicaly MS-DOS. The problem only occurs with some dos FAT->ISO conversion utilities. you best bet is to simply try to find a better file system converter. No other operating system has this problem that i am aware of. And by hi-ascii i presume you mean chars of values less than 32 (including negatives) ? On Fri, 27 Oct 2000 [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > Subject: Digest metacard.v004.n032 > Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > > > -- BEGIN metacard.v004.n032 -- > > 001 - "Claude Lemmel" 002 - Scott Rossi 003 - [EMAIL PROTECTED] - RE: File Names > 004 - Kevin Miller 005 - Craig Spooner 006 - [EMAIL PROTECTED]- Re: File Names > > This is the MetaCard mailing list. > Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/metacard%40lists.runrev.com/ > Info: http://www.xworlds.com/metacard/mailinglist.htm > Please send any bug reports to <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, not this list. > > > --- MESSAGE metacard.v001.n002.1 --- > > From: "Claude Lemmel" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > Subject: Re: File Names > Date: Thu, 26 Oct 2000 08:09:03 +0200 > MIME-Version: 1.0 > Content-Type: text/plain; > charset="iso-8859-1" > Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit > References: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > > > From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > > Subject: File Names > > > > I'm developing a program to be cross platform and I want to access a > common > > set of files. I use more than 8 letters in the name and then the Windows > > extension. I need the extra letters to clarify the files for end users. > The > > problem is that when I try to read these files from my Mac, it truncates > them > > to 8 letters (as in the 8 + 3 extension scheme). Thus "PROJECTION" > becomes > > "PROJEC~1". The program then does not recognize the file because the name > is > > changed. Is there a way to tell the Mac to not do this? > > > > Philip Chumbley > > I guess you developp on Windows. If you burn a cdrom from Windows, Mac is > too stupid to read the long filenames of a iso9660 CD. > You have to transfert all the files on the mac and to burn from the mac > > A painfull way, but i dont know an other one : > - compact all your windows files with some zip utility into a big pc2mac.zip > file > - copy the pc2mac.zip zip file on a cdrom > - copy the cdrom on the mac > - decompress on the mac (a recent version of alladdin or unstuffit do the > job) : the long names and the hierachy of the folders are OK > - burn from the mac an hybrid CDROM (ie mac partition + iso9660) with Toast. > > You get a cross platform cd-rom what accept long names on both mac and pc. > > Be carefull : do not use high ascii characters in the file names ; both mac > and windows accept that, but the high ascii characters are not the same from > one platform to the other one. > > If you plan to use also a linux version, convert all the filenames to > lowercase in your soft (including filename properties) and on your disk. > > Hope it helps. > > Claude > Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/metacard@lists.runrev.com/ Info: http://www.xworlds.com/metacard/mailinglist.htm Please send bug reports to <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, not this list.
Re: Digest metacard.v004.n032
Recently, Claude Lemmel wrote: > A painfull way, but i dont know an other one : > - compact all your windows files with some zip utility into a big pc2mac.zip > file > - copy the pc2mac.zip zip file on a cdrom > - copy the cdrom on the mac > - decompress on the mac (a recent version of alladdin or unstuffit do the > job) : the long names and the hierachy of the folders are OK > - burn from the mac an hybrid CDROM (ie mac partition + iso9660) with Toast. Long file names beyond 32 characters won't stay intact on the Mac. Unless someone has found a magic way to this, it is supposedly impossible to create hybrid CDs with long filenames (according to the people at Adaptec). For cross platform use, best thing to do is make sure all filenames are no longer than 32 characters total. FWIW, Scott --- the MacOS ( version less than X) are restricted to 15 character volume names and 31 character file names. and may not include the ":" character, and should not include the "/" (for reasons of UNIX(TM) compatability or the down-slash "\" for the sake of the VMS(TM) and *-DOS systems) nor should they include any character whose value is less than 0x20. There are also restrictions on how long a total file name should be in macOS, sensably organised projects not run into this (several thousand character?) limit. rdh If all these sweet young things were laid end-to-end, I wouldn't be a bit surprised. -- Dorothy Parker Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/metacard@lists.runrev.com/ Info: http://www.xworlds.com/metacard/mailinglist.htm Please send bug reports to <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, not this list.
