AltME groups: search

directory opus 8 has as similar function and is scriptable, I believe, 
but I can't be sure if it can be run from a cli

There's no list traffic either, and no blog update

My friend and I are not necessarily sticking to France or Italy, 
but I would love to hear suggestions of places to see.

IMO making a xxcopy clone can't be that hard but of course it takes 
some time... BTW: xxcopy is sold for 40 EUR per license and it seems 
to be the only tool with such a feature set.

Has anyone thought about advertisement kiosk  network? Maybe kiosks 
are not the correct word. Let me explain. Some time ago I watched 
Scala Multimedia and how it is used, mainly in US. It can take sources 
from various parts and play them. The, when we at Xidys paid for 
one local media advertisement, it was some 5x7 cm and it costed us 
5K CZK = 218 USD. Quite a lot of money, as it was just local paper, 
issued weekly. Then I visited other town and saw one advertisement 
pannel of one computer shop, it was that typical rolled kind of equipment, 
like watching panel at airport telling when planes take-off ....

I also found that each reality selling companies has own panels, 
just static, behind some window, mounted or wall etc. Then I got 
the idea of network of kiosks or at least LCD panels (they will be 
cheaper and cheaper), wi-fi connected. Then IOS could be used, some 
reblet produced, so that various companies could buy their advertisement 
time ...

yes, and enhanced show.r makes this an easy project to compete with 
things like Scala InfoChannel, esp. what REBOL networking does.  
 Anyway, REBOL compositing engine was originally targeted for interactive 
televesion /video.

the thing is - will it pay off? The cose of LCD, small PC, wi-fi, 
IOS ... and you need several places ....

Steve: I am not sure I agree on Scala part. Until View parts are 
opened and more multimedia friendly, so better sync is possible, 
I will not use rebol for presentation. Still single Scala demo can 
cause wow effect when showing it to ppl in comparison to whatever 
else - I want smoothness, and that is unachievable using Rebol

Typical Scala systems cost between $500 (CPU), $650 (Scala License), 
and $$$$ for the LCD (A 50" can cost $10K).

No. Free Player. At least not until last year. I had all the reseller 
docs, but didn't become one. As I thought we could build something 
similar, and a lot cheaper.

LCD cost is the biggest problem imo ... still most LCDs are really 
badly visible during the day. We investigate destroying one and produce 
high bright, adding some additional lamps into it ....

BTW. I think rebol can be used for making a product similar to Scala. 
Using the proper libraries to control WMP or Quicktime. Rebol will 
be in charge on syncing with the Contente Manager, and Scheduling 
the Player.

Rebol will always be weak on smooth scrolling thing. It uses double 
buffering and it still can't compare even at 10% to what Scala is 
able to do fast and smooth ...

But we need queality of output, which View does not have. AGG is 
big step forward, but for vectors ... I want transitions though and 
that is - I want pixel VM or other goodie. But imo without some kernel 
changes, we will never be smooth enough.

Chris - for presentations there is not much need of vectors ... I 
watched Scala and it is very often done with really nice background 
image, plus font scrolling and transitions ... but it has to be smooth

And if you like -- you can start here: http://www.ross-gill.com/r/anim/

I remember talking to Dave Haynie. He told me, that working at Scala, 
they wrote small OS upon Windows, to get proper timers and to achieve 
smoothness ... if Rebol will be limited to Win32, I am not sure we 
can do better than today no matter how we try. I would go for DirectX 
dependant rebol. Show me one machine, where DirectX is not present 
...

Jaime - the thing is - we are very near with Rebol, but not there 
yet, and that is a pity. Dunno what would be neede, but IIRC even 
Carl told us, that better granularity for events is needed and it 
was his plan, but not high on priority list. Dunno if opening View 
would help here ...

I played few presentation for ppl using ppt and than few ones using 
Scala ... I did it on intention and I do remember those reactions 
...

but why not be kings, if we could be kings ... how would you do image 
transitions, if we will not have fast means of pixel changes? Pokeing 
at image is not the way to go ... hopefully Cyphre has something 
in mind and will influence Carl a bit as he did with AGG ....

you rounded the corners, you made it more tween a movie and a presentation...nice 
blend.

OK, my main point was - why use rebol for presentation, if 1) it 
can be used only by me, and adv company can't deliver its own content 
2) no Authoring tool exists (although dialect is a good start) 3) 
it will hardly produce better output that Scala

some may even want static presentation using html and few flash anims 
... I just need to be able to script/navigate/kill it ....

and that is a salient point which I make in sales pitches.

(and I AM working on them)

This is another:
#section-1 header "design and the x-internet"

but I do wish on better multimedia engine, and we know View can be 
optimised .... I already asked Carl to blog more on opening rebol, 
he agreed, but he told me first things first, so I expect him to 
do so once rebservices etc. are out ...

Once Carl opens View, we need to invite Dave Haynie and Paul Nolan 
;-)

There you got it. PSX 3 great hw for what you need. Pekr, if what 
you want is to be able to display some flash and other type of static 
content. I already have a rebol remote controller for Firefox. With 
full screen support. I had work flawlessly for us. So content is 
product traditionally. We just let rebol synchro the files and tell 
the browser to display them.

Graham: Here are the basic funcs. Enjoy. I had used and tested it 
on unix platforms only.

browser-pid: none
browser-path: %/home/mbaki/MozillaFirebird/
default-url: http://www.linkspot.com/
current-url: none

start-browser: has [command result] [

 command: rejoin [ {./MozillaFirebird -fullscreen -url } default-url 
 { &}]
	result: call/info command
	browser-pid: result/id + 7
	current-url: copy default-url
]

stop-browser: has [command] [
	command: rejoin [ {kill -9 } browser-pid]
	call/info command
	browser-pid: none
	current-url: none
]

visit-site: func [
	"Sets the site displayed by the browser."
	site [url!] 
	/local command result
][
	current-url: copy site

 command: rejoin [ {./MozillaFirebird -remote "openurl(} site {)"} 
 ]
	call/info command
]

active-site?: does [ current-url ]

browser-pid?: does [ browser-pid ]

change-dir browser-path
start-browser

Enter this into the address bar of Mozilla, and hit enter.. 

7 Carl's Blog

Here's how to set up the bookmark.. 

1.) Open up Mozzila and under Bookmarks, hit "manage bookmarks"
2.) Click on "New Bookmark", 
	for name put "7"
	for location, enter "http://o7o.org/7=%s"  (without quotes)
	for keyword, use "7"
	click "OK"

Charles, I was looking at ConQuery for Mozilla and I'll definitely 
add a 'search plugin' for °7°.. looks handy.

Ok Charles, here's your 7 search plugin for moz...  http://powerofq.com/o7oCGR.zip

Unzip that into your mozilla/searchplugins folder.. restart Moz.


To use it, you can highlight any word, phrase or °7°, right click 
 and choose °7° (you can't miss it :)  This will perform a query 
on what you have highlighted.  For example, if you highlight "Carl 
Sassenrath" you will get all of the details regarding him.  Same 
goes for °Carl Sassenrath°  Of course, the result will be empty if 
there is no matching °7°.. have fun.

I'm skimming and skipping a lot to try and keep up.

There is nothing standard when it comes to ascii.. bin version, hex 
version, oct version, binary version, windows 2k version, windows 
XP version, IBM PC version, and many others, no doubt.  I have more 
lines of code dealing with ascii, then all the rest combined :(

I have a block of value pairs, and can do a foreach [ascii chara][replace/all 
..] but that seems rather crude

Most of us just need to do it the other way around -- and that's 
automatic:
>> to-url "carl S"
== carl S

hmm.. and if Prince Charles ascends the throne in due course, he 
will head of the church of england?

We just love acronyms in this day and time don't we? ;-)

so are Brian and I athiests for not knowing what XG means, or is 
the PM of NZ an athiest?

and if you hit a website that is cgi based...you will be downloading 
from an infinite space.

Don't find it there.  Oh well, I've got to log off and get some sleep. 
 I'll look better tomorrow.  Thanks, Graham.

Here's a definition from http://biology.usgs.gov/nbs/meta/metadata.htm
:


-- Metadata describe the content, quality, condition, and other characteristics 
of data. Metadata help a person to locate and understand data.

In the context of UNIX, we talk about meta characters. That's characters 
with special meaning to the shell. Examples are *, ?, [ and ].
I agree with the metadata definition above.

And then we have the Metabaron! Ah yes! :-) But then we're in the 
comics context of Moebius and Jodorowsky.

Vincent, Thank you, I wasn't aware of the 'extract function and  
never used forskip till now. Now I wonder if it takes more resources 
to update the index or use the extract when I need the index.

Help: after 6 hours configuration I couldn't run rebol/pro on my 
dedicated webserver (IIs6). does anybody have a install tip ?ps: 
the taskmanager shows reppro.exe running but did'nt terminate the 
exe nor deliver the page. I tried also different script header and 
examples from the docs.

The thing is that I have a pane that's 200x20 in size. Within these 
200 pixels, I'm positioning 5 faces that have a with of 30 each. 
So there are areas where my function doesn't return a face for. And 
these areas are not cleared by View. So if I hit the older text, 
it's overwritten, if not it stays there.


The problem is, that the box, where the iteration function is used, 
isn't cleared before doing a refresh.

I think you must display iterated face in the whole box area, but 
you set the text and color of some of them to clear "what was here 
before".

I think it is strange that you are iterating different faces. That 
seems to defeat the purpose of iterating to start with. You should 
iterate one face. It is a single face which changes its position, 
shape and contents rapidly when it is asked for. You have to ensure 
that the face always has the correct information when it is asked 
for. But anyway, we can't make good suggestions unless we see a more 
complete demo that we can run.

Hmm... the thing is that the faces must have different positions. 
So it's not distributed evenly. The apps is this:

I have day numbers 1-30/31 from left to right. And now at each Monday 
position, I want to draw the week-number. So x-positions shift.

and each month has it's own iteration face.

The problem looks like it is that you are only updating one of the 
faces and returning it per call of the function. So any faces which 
weren't updated stay where they were.

ie. 
	1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 .... 
or
	1 2 3 4 5 6 7
	8 9 ...
Perhaps you can draw and show us a picture of it ?

I think you need 2 main faces:
- A normal iterated face for days.

- A classic face with 5 subfaces to display week. You just have to 
change offset, size and text according the monday location.

So there are areas where my function doesn't return a face for. And 
these areas are not cleared by View.

 Thats why i said "show parent-face". then the whole background face 
 is redrawn, then the iterated faces in its pane-function.

there is no parent-face. It's the whole layout and I need to do an 
initailize while layouting ;-)

Look at get-style 'button and its 'init method. Imo button is colorized 
in terms of effect block, so face/font/colors, nor face/color does 
apply ... and don't be confused by face/multi part ... it is imo 
used when multiple facets of the same kind are used, as e.g. "button 
red green ...

IIRC I once did such trick and I used to redefine 'effect part, but 
it was long time ago ... it is imo pity that such stupid simple things 
require hacker aproach to styles

that is also why I propesed more of usage of "accessors", simply 
to have face/something, where that "something" would be handler, 
which would take care of everything needed in terms of style. Currently 
View/VID does not provide us with proper encapsulation in terms of 
OOP - while we have complete freedom, non experienced user can be 
confused and mess things ...

Thanks Petr ... I was hoping it was something simple that I was doing 
wrong.  


I have been probing the face objects for awhile and looking at the 
new View documentation.   I used the new View doc to get this to 
work 
face/color: get pick [green red] face/color = red 


from the example in a face but can't get the same satisfaction under 
VID layout button.

With oops i would look at the docu now.
with /view i look at
  echo on
  probe get in get-style 'button 'feel,
the redraw, and see there face/color is set from face/colors.
trying to change that,
 face/colors/2: red

does not work. Hmm, face/colors is none. i guess i give button two 
colors immediate.
  button "Test" gold gold
yup, now it works.

Since some betas (arround 1.2.30, 1.2.40), the face/init style has 
evolved, and now, the face/colors are used to generate two gradient 
effects during the creation of the button.
So it's way more difficult to change it later.

You can compare the init code of 1.2.1 and 1.3.1 for button like 
this :

because i am not a graphics person ;) with default colors an effect 
looks like this: [gradient 0x1 66.120.192 44.80.132] and without 
[gradient 0x-1 32.32.255 173] . in first case last value is a color, 
in second an integer. seems the integer filters face/color, while 
the color-tuple overrides it.

Thanks Volker et al.   I am using VID for a quiz for my kid's grade 
school studies - mostly history and science questions.  In this humble 
attempt, the button label is the answer to a multiple choice question. 
When an answer button is clicked it changes from a default color 
to green if it is a correct answer or red if it is a wrong answer. 
 This might offend UI experts but the button color change (when it 
works) gives immediate feedback.  Repeating the drill seems to bring 
the number of wrong clicks down until they get toward zero and grades 
seem to go up accordingly.

just as a side-effect i have discovered that buttons can blink. just 
set face/rate and show the face.

view/new layout [across
	button with [
		source init
		source feel
		init: [copy needed stuff from init]
		feel: [copy and edit functions from feel]
	]
]

He created his own grid and he would like to have more than one grid 
on-screen and would like to switch between them by tab. Can I make 
my own style being of 'tab-stop type? And how to let arrows etc. 
to works in terms of focused grid, not whole screen?

Volker - good point - I looked into new Doc and it does seem to be 
the most complete and nice doc ever! Maybe small section of how to 
start add own styles would fit it well?

and strip out all this "if color", since you know you if you have 
color or effect. May simplify code and give you better control. OTOH 
better come here and ask for special effects, if you need results 
instead of studying arcane view-magic :)

doc - i think the combination of view/vid would be a good start. 

one thing to know is the facets. when you know them, all this magic 
in button-code suddenly looks lots simpler. all this ifs read like 
"turn on/off" in oops-doc then.

the other is how to get arguments from vid (that face/colors etc 
where they hide, and how to make face-specific words). when you can 
make a color-changing face and pass the colors thru vid that should 
give a cool feeling for the beginning :)

multi-grid - i have done that, but in a "hardwired" way. all the 
lists are in a global block, and tab knows about that.

then using hotkeys in the parent-face of the lists IIRC. Maybe you 
friend and me can start a thread somewhere to work on that? discussing 
ideas, me answering technical questions?

Thanks again... my plan on the VID quiz was to post it on the script 
library when I get it working in 1.3.  

Then if it is worthwhile some new special effects can be added like 
blinking or sound or some graphing of results and journalling of 
scores.   


The hard part is still looking at the subject material and extracting 
questions that lead to some understanding of the material.
     

But once that is done, a student can review  dozens or hundreds of 
questions repeatedly in a different order each time.  


And a new quiz can be added just using a text file in rebol block 
format.  

And of course, the VID script and the data files could be internet 
read instead of being local.

Cool :) And then we make a rebol-quiz? :)

Volker: I suggested my friend to use rebol community resources, so 
he promissed me to get GPRS card (as he is travelling) and join altme 
or ml later ...

I was used to change "private" to "public" in such frameworks first, 
to be allowed to change something. ok, that was years ago. Know i 
see cmplex things like swing, which allows to change anything, if 
you understand all the concepts. The docu is a few times bigger than 
the whole vid-source. But then, i am using rebol a few years now 
and swing or whatever a little. Though, such guis look so similar 
that i doubt they are really customisable ;)

I would prefer them being used as not only abstraction for setting-getting 
data, but also for other possible arguments! We admitted there was 
mess with obtaining data from style in unified way, and I say there 
is mess with other possible things, as colors etc. User should not 
be pushed to know, there is gradient effect, whatever, involved .... 
I would prefer set-face, get-face being extended for something like 
set-fac/extended 'back-color red .... nothing would happen, if such 
"handler, method", would not be exposed by style author ... or something 
like that :-)

In a way i agree. but my prefered way is a dialect, and there is 
one: vid. It would be muach easier if one could say
  set-face button-f[ blue green "you got it" ]
instead of

  bf/set-fore-color blue  bf/set-back-color green  bf/set-text "you 
  got it"

Or that. more to type, more code to read, and to learn two apis: 
vid for creation, whatever for changing later.

the data-thing is ok for me. I think its more like you often argue: 
there is a programmer and a designer. the designer chooses colors 
etc. In styles. the programmer provides values. and the interaction 
is done through set-face/get-face

what two apis? set-style/get-style is cool api, I just say it should 
be extended. If designer asks me to expose change of backcolor, I 
will do internally to my style whatever is needed, and expose it 
via set-style 'back-color value. Facets are different thing - they 
are dialect related, you can (or don't need to) expose 'back-color 
as a facet to allow its usage directly via VID code ...

Yes. You can pass a vid-block to an existing face and update the 
face. the face then knows what to do with a string, a clolor etc. 
not yet, but would be doable.

VID works like "customize at creation-time". thats enough for simple 
things. other guis even do not allow" more. If you could change the 
color of a button, they say about "user-guidelines" and "l&f", and 
that a red button is absolutely not discusable.

simple vid-styles are basically a wrapper around view-faces. they 
add a simple behaviour (pressed-flag and action/colors based on that) 
an some smartness about vid-args. if you want customisation, its 
nearly as easy to write an own style. surely docu, examples, vid-source 
with comments public would help.

most important are examples IMHO, where you can play with, add probing 
content and flow etc.

barebones of a button, one with behavior and simple look (two colors), 
another shows smart vid-arguments (all this "if color if effect" 
etc).

Right. And it helps. If you say "i like the pure OO way because of 
..", i start saying "Noo, our way is better because of - because 
of - " and then i have to dig out something. Only that i always forget 
to make notes..

faces with state do not work with list. because all the displayed 
faces are the same face internally, and share that state. if you 
change state of one, say toggling, all toggles have that state.

Remember they are all one face, a face which is changing its position 
rapidly.
Now look at the cell face's feel:
	layout [toggle with [?? feel]]

In this code, if you see facets which are modified then those need 
to be stored and restored by the SUPPLY code. (ie. just like the 
list data goes to face/text.)
But wait, let me look for an iterated checkbox example.

Yes there is. After all vid-styles are faces, and can be used at 
that level, means put in a face/pane.

the easiest way imho is to make the button in a layout and throw 
the layout away.
  layout/tight[my-button: button "test" [..]]

and now you have a button in 'my-button, which you can use in another 
face/pane

Hmm, Antons way works too. He has all face-states extra in a block. 
In supply he puts it in the face, and in action-block, when it is 
changed, he puts that value back in the block. That could be used 
now with set-face/get-face with some styles.

Cyphre, my compliments on the nice demos on your site... I like SWIS 
and the vconsole rocks :)

(essentially the same.) More fiddling involved with a list of buttons, 
though. The button style feel must be modified to save the state 
when it changes in engage, such as when the mouse drags off the button 
(and then perhaps back on again.)...

Anton, I thought your example was superb. I started to adapt it to 
my "grid" of toggles but as usual I'm not thoroughly understanding 
what's going on and I can't make my 4 x 48 grid without the rows 
being the same toggle.

http://www.rebol.com/docs/view-system.html#section-5.10- look at 
scroll-line and scroll-page events ...

Does anyone have a good performance with Rebol/view and i.e. Hummingbird 
Remote Desktop?  Seems Rebol is quiet slow here where GTK GUI is 
flashing over my screen my Rebol gui's do need far more time..
Any hint of tip is welcome..