AltME groups: search

I tried to make a face with text and invisible boxes

No real argument from me, though, since I don't know and have never 
used 'form or simply printed blocks

However, I keep bumping into this problem and so it wastes my time 
continually. I also imagine it's a small confusion for beginners.

So, I would like:
print ["" "hello"]
; hello  ; <---- 1 leading space
form ["" "hello"]
;== " hello"  ; <--- 1 leading space
form ["" "hello" ""]
;== " hello "  ; <--- 1 leading and 1 trailing space
And similar results for PRINT.
Anyone have any objections ?

Perhaps form is just waiting until there's a value before it adds 
stuff?
>> form [{} {} {} {Hi} {} {}]
== "Hi  " ;2 spaces, and only after string w/value found
>> form [{} {} {} {Hi} {} {} {Hi} {}]
== "Hi   Hi " ;2 spaces and 1 space..


But yes, there probably ought to be a space in fron like you said 
before.  If the behavoir I think is happening, then 'trim should 
just be used, not letting it be automatic

Anton - it does not matter imo. It is design of 'form or 'print, 
that those add spaces between chars, but once you put empty string 
into block, it is value, and the value is empty string, so it is 
imo incorrect to want it represent space

Gabriele, I see #3455 and #3576 are basically identical. I think 
#3576 is more accurate, so older #3455 should be removed.

If you paste the above code straight into your console, the problem 
is present in the first VIEW as well as the second VIEW.

If you type/paste each line individually into your console, the problem 
is only present after the network access.

Once a console has the problem, it remains "contaminated", and you 
will need to open another console to continue testing.

try to paste that into a string and then try to DO the string. the 
problem is only there after the OPEN. so, OPEN does trigger it anyway.

Gabriele, about detect:  Yes, perhaps the console input is similar 
enough to a network access (a port access ?).   And, amazingly, doing 
from a string after "contamination" does *not* show the problem.

And yet more amazingly, doing from a string in a fresh rebol console 
*does* show the problem at the first VIEW.

and so "make integer!" should never return a decimal!, in my opinion.

Gabriele: Carl thought it was a possibility,  and asked me to add 
the request ro rambo so it did not get lost.

Gmail is an IMAP server.  Its free.

The answer is, annoying and hard!  We are doing it right now (finally!). 
 
Should be done in about 30 days.
We plan to support Gmail's tags (which are cool).

Phil if you need an IMAP account on a server to test with, we can 
give you access to the one we set up to test Qtask's new Webmail 
interface.  The account contains lots of examples like large attachments, 
deep folders.  As we learn more, we fill it with ore examples.  Just 
shoot me a private message, and I will get you name and password.

One thing I'm focused on is creating lots of examples of problems 
in IMAP.  Special charaters (languages), emails with lots of odd 
things about them.  No return address, etc.

We want to try to come up with every problem.  All info and examples 
are welcome.

Over 4 years, no? There is Exchange 2003 and Exchange 2007 is the 
latest. We wanted to upgrade too, but our management thinks otherwise 
:-)

Well, it is 2007 + Service packs that work with 2007....so, I will 
vote this is 6 years...


There are a LOT of holes in 2003, and the new version supports WebDAV, 
iCal, and other "friendly" features...

What I found that Rebol could be used with Exchange by using IMAP 
protocol, but only with some authentication methods.
In my case it is NTLM and it it not supported by Rebol.

I posted scripts on rebol.wik.is for working smtp and pop for gmail

To discuss Ajax development and potential opportunities for REBOL 
in this area.

Variants:
AHAH -- http://microformats.org/wiki/rest/ahah
* Async HTML and HTTP, less subtle but widely supported
AFLAX -- http://www.aflax.org/
* Async Flash and XML (?), uses Flash

Really the whole buzz is focussed around the XmlHTTPRequest object 
that Microsoft, then others added to their Javascript environment. 
 It isn't pretty (by Rebol standards) and has some limitations, but 
is effective enough to have opened new avenues in what one can do 
in creating web applications.  **cough** Squigglz **cough**  You 
can tell this is a Microsoft 'innovation' by the awful name 'XmlHTTPRequest' 
(XML not required), but there it is...

From Wikipedia -- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AJAX
* Apple Safari 1.2 and above
* Konqueror

* Microsoft Internet Explorer (and derived browsers) 5.0 and above
* Mozilla/Mozilla Firefox (and derived browsers) 1.0 and above
* Netscape 7.1 and above
* Opera 7.6 and above
* Opera Mobile Browser 8.0 and above.

The only relation I can see of Ajax and Rebol, is a rebol server 
spitting out Javascript.

Qtask is both a framework, and an example of REBOL<>Ajax crossover. 
 It's a web (and Ajax) app, and will be one or many more Rebol apps. 
(including AltME).  But you don't need a large framework to piggyback 
on Ajax implementations.

Petr: at devcon we discussed how you find a good programmer and work 
with them, and it turned out we did that more or less the same.

Maarten - never studies Ruby on Rails, but isn't IOS good framework 
at itself? (of course without web templating) .... I still can see 
IOS as powerfull, and imo things like Qtask, or Beer + some templating 
+ IOS-like app protocol, could be stronger ....

Oldes (David?), you make a good point, but think of it the other 
way around.

As the web moves to the X-Web (even this silly Web 2.0), Google's 
life as a search engine will end.


I'm pro google, and I think they offer a GREAT service. But take 
most companies off the web and Google is a lot less interesting, 
and it becomes a glorified Yellow Pages.


Of course it will still be filled with open information, but I suspect 
it will lose its shine.

Interesting, bever thought about that. Seems Google has thought about 
that too. Because with firefox they can build spiders which press 
buttons, read the results from the dom etc. Means you may get some 
robot-users which try mad input..

And they have this new traffic-tools for webmasters, where you can 
see what is searched, how yoursite is ranked etc. So everyone can 
tune his ajax enough to be googable too.

If you don't need it, why would Rebol need one? Also I think if it 
was needed, more people would have asked for it and someone would 
have made attempts at writing one. Still, it could be interesting 
with a code generator to other languages that way...

The google issue is a good one, search engines are the reasons that 
previous things like frames and iframes failed. As Neilson often 
states, since the advent of powerfull search engines like google, 
there is no longer a real concept of websites..rather from a web 
user point of view, it is just a search box and a list result web 
 pages with what they want to find

Actualy I dont understand a bit of the principle and functionality 
of AJAX, is there someone here who can explain me the extra value 
of AJAX? (it looks all like a very old priciple that was put in a 
jacket with strange programming languages..)

And when is the Comet coming?

Yep. And Microsoft accidentally did that. How sad is that?

We are activily working on Comet, and the framework.  We should see 
the first hints of the framework on Qtask in about 2 weeks is my 
guess.  The lead of the FRamework just finished the full Contact 
Manager which is live on Qtask now.

Our plan is actually to split off a page and start the UI from scratch 
for the Framework.  it will be fun.  We will simply do everything 
one step at a time, and correctly.

now the browser works like it should have in the first place


Now? getElementById has been around since 1998.. IFRAME-based JSRS 
library from 2000, Image/Cookie technique in 2000 and XMLHttpRequest 
since 2002

And java since 1996 or so?

And juice.

Websites are just babysitting databases, so tehy invented RubyOnRails 
to make that easier

. I saw this on the web somewhere, and it is true (both in terms 
of RoR qualities and limitations)

This is a pretty bizarre program .. I tried loading a word doc from 
my docs, and it loads a completely different one.

It's not AJAX based but XUL based and XUL is Mozilla-specific.

And it always loads the same document regardless of what I choose.

I still don't understand why so many people are so excited with Ajax, 
from my point of view it's just the getXMLHttpRequestObj() function, 
which started to work after many years in more than one browser, 
and which enable us to load something without need to reload all 
the page.

I just recently held discussion with my old amiga friend, and I reminded 
him of Rebol 3.0. He seemed really confident, that ajax ends most 
of private, non open sourced technologies ....  and that View with 
ajax has no sense anymore :-)

He suggested me to watch - http://www.techcrunch.comand http://www.netvibes.com
sites for e.g.

I just would like to ask, if there is any perspective for rebol - 
e.g. that we could have core in browser (not view) and do ajax too? 
:-)

funny How I coded such a thing myself 5 years ago though (floating 
divs with title bar and internal scroll bars I guess its shadow effects 
make it worthy of a patent.  ;-)

The client can recognise phone numbers and bring up Skype to dial 
numbers, recognises addresses and popups yahoo maps etc.

And then there's access -- being able to use Ajax apps without owning 
a computer...

Flash is starting to catch up on the GUI part and they are much more 
light weight than Java, but I'm not sure how easy/hard they are to 
do

I agree with Brian.  LiveScript was a better name, and reduced confusion. 
 I have never like Rebel, but really like the idea of Rebel.

There are so many exmaples of name space conflict where there does 
not need to be.


And on the topic of AJAX:	http://www.macworld.com/news/2006/04/21/ajax/index.php

You know how when something new comes along they give it a new word, 
and it really just does what the old thing did? 

For me this means we have to learn a new word, when in reality it 
is just the same thing. 


 AJAX is the "concept" that a browser can talk to the server and ask 
 for a little information, instead of loading the whole page again 
 and again and again! 


This is a Technology!?!  This is "all" that AJAX is, nothing more. 
 It is the "concept" that we are finally doing something the way 
it should have been done in the first place. 


I'm coming out with a new technology next year, I'm working with 
two doctors on it.  It is called SBYNH: 

Stop Banging Your Nuts with a Hammer. 


We expect quite a turn out.  We will have medical professionals on 
hand to explain the long term affects of failing to use SBYNH.

and obviously the surgery procedures already worked out to fix failed 
SBYNH  ;-)

its funny how people constantly mixup java and javascript.   :-(

I really don't understand all the buzz about Ajax. About 1998/1999 
a friend of mine and I made a remote Javascript debugger that used 
IFrames to update the client page without reloading. And we were 
able to remote debug the client side. The problem was, that we really 
drove the Javascript and DOM engines to the limit...

I guess it's really just because most people (me included) didn't 
know about it until recently. :-) And it's so nice, because (as Reichart 
said) it's for some things the way it should have been done in the 
first place. (it's nice for me, because in a small project I'm doing 
right now, I can skip almost all PHP coding, because I can do most 
stuff in Javascript and just let the PHP do the database handling)

(although java made that possible for years, and the fatness of a 
comparable ajax-browser is the same)

There are three aspects that make Ajax apps compelling: 1) distribution 
is easy, with no installation, one click away from any web site; 
2) the environment is consistent, rich and predictable; 3) Remotely 
accessible, one does not have to own a computer, or even have disk 
access,  to resume using an app (classic example, using a library 
to use a web mail app).

Of course there are glaring drawbacks, but they don't matter enough. 
 Widgets (read Reblets) do have a niche -- eg. Apple's Dashboard 
is a far better experience than Windows Live and its ilk -- but we're 
not in that space, Reblets are still too tricky to deploy...

standard Windows user type designing,  bad layout, bad looks, cramped, 
and very inconsistent with itself in the first look!

an example to be site in courses about how NOT to design a UI.

For all Yahoo!'s talk about web UI patterns and best practise, I 
still required User Agent Spoofing (through Camitools) to get it 
working...

http://blog.kevinhoyt.org/2007/05/21/file-upload-with-apollo-and-javascript/

Does anyone has a good overview about current Ajax frameworks and 
pros/cons about these?

And using this site you can compare, how much the frameworks use 
the global variables (the less is better I think) http://mankz.com/code/GlobalCheck.htm

Robert - Microsoft.cz guys visited me last month, and we talked about 
some 2 - 3 years future, about SharePoint portal. They told me one 
thing towards AJAX - MS is going to adopt jquery, without any changes. 
But of course, I would not consider it being set-in-stone. So maybe 
a jquery?

Not everyone can or will install Silverlight, and not every site 
can insist that their customers do so. MS developer tools division 
tries to support whatever their developers want to do on MS development 
platforms like ASP.NET. AJAX needs JS frameworks.

So they adopted JQuery *and* push Silverlight where they can, even 
if that means supporting the Moonlight project like they did for 
the inauguration stream. I think that Silverlight has more potential 
than Flash, but I am not Flash's target market :)

I don't think that Silverlight has more potential than Flash. From 
what I've seen, Flash is still much more better. And you have IDEs 
to make graphics for Flash which almost every designer is using now. 
I've dowloaded one MS tool to try to make Silverlight graphic app 
(to test if it would be possible to make a Silverlight version of 
the game we are making in Flash) and I must say, that I have a problems 
to use it. I cannot imagine how not programmers can use it.

I don't know which is better, or which will win, but both systems 
are not the best or desired final design in my opionion.


We need a completely open/free base that is a webased standard all 
devices can and do support by default.

Why don't we just take PS, and simply move what NeXT did over to 
the web 15 years ago?
Worked well there.

I think that Flash is *currently* better than Silverlight, but Silverlight 
has more *potential* because of the system model and such. It would 
be relatively easy to change the tools around Silverlight and add 
new capabilities to it, but it would be hard to change the entire 
semanitc model and system structure of Flash without breaking all 
Flash code in existence. That is what I mean about more potential.

I was amazed at how well video runs in Silverlight on my Mac. But 
I'd still like to see a separation of video from Flash to get a simpler 
and truly optimized video player.

I'd like to see HTML5 video, and not use Flash or Silverlight for 
video at all.

The ability for either Flash or Silverlight to improve in an open/free 
way, in the areas where they are currently strong - multimedia and 
video - is very limited because of all of the patents on multimedia 
codecs. In other ways, Silverlight has more potentiial right now 
for open/free development because MS actually provides developer 
support to the Mono/Moonlight project.

Check the demos on that one. 3D cube is nice. And this works cross 
browser...

With Silverlight is a problem,that maybe it may be used for simple 
GUIs, but not for animations. Here are SWF and XAML versions to compare 
http://theconverted.ca/demo.html

as for me personally, I first met with syncing with IOS, and I have 
to say, that I was hooked! It was really nice to watch, connecting 
even month later from my notebook, to sync properly what was missing 
.... However, later on, I found some limitation to such aproach. 
I don't want to talk about the speed - that could be corrected by 
using different technique for local storage, e.g. RebDB, but about 
following two problems:

- red-icons problem - untill particular rambo ticked is resolved, 
rebol's windows time-zone can't be in any way be regarded as being 
correct. and it does not depend if it is the bug of the OS, or rebol 
somehow ommits summertime adjusting flag of OS (if there is any under 
Windows)

- the problem of IOS syncing is, that it can't work in sync-and-forget 
mode - simply put, once you delete your file locally, there is no 
simple solution of how to tell server, that it is still ok

Because there were some licensing issues with SyncML, it was taken 
over by http://www.openmobilealliance.orgor so ... it seems to me 
that OMa DS and DM replace SyncML or so ...

Currently my intention is not to sync with various devices. It is 
simply kind of attempt to improve on IOS syncing, allowing sync-and-forget, 
or even not syncing (typical remote/server only access) and to improve/support 
off-line working reblets ...

I would like to have answered:


1) what technique to use for "timestamping" - do we continue with 
timestamps against one central time, or do we use hashes, or sequencing 
numbers, or mixture of mentioned techniqueues? We might look how 
others do it ...


2) better support for possible conflicts - imagine following scenario 
- you have some reblet, e.g. Contacts - one person starts editing 
it, then another person starts editing it too. First one syncs (saves 
changes), then second one does the same - changes of first ones are 
lost. How to aproach this - introduce some kind of resources locking? 
(not real locking, but we are message based, so could be queued)


It could work as follows - person 1 wants to edit some record. Edit 
button posts request-for-lock. Lock is assigned. I other person tries 
to edit, it will not obtain lock. We could even introduce protocol 
level support, so that the person is informed, who has the lock, 
and how long. The trouble usually comes, when person goes off-line 
after the edit started - we need to remove dead-locks, so by default, 
I would lock for 20 minutes e.g. and the lock would have to be renewed, 
if person 1 wants to work longer with the given document ...


another scenario is, when you actually start editing something which 
might require locking, but you start already being off-line. We could 
create lock-request, just not synced yet. Once you go on-line, you 
simply check seqno, if the lock is possible, and the given record 
not modified. But what if it was modified in the meantime? e.g. you 
might be working with stock system and someone else in the office 
sells few units, for which you may start writing offer for to another 
customer. Tough scenario - would like to know your opinion. Maybe 
some things simply need to be done on-line only?


3) I needed small file-sync scenario - could use IOS, but IOS can't 
sync and "forget". Simply idea is to have different kind of syncing 
techniques, so e.g. for file transfer you have dir to sync, if correctly 
synced, log it, forget it, delete it on client and or server (or 
not, it depends)


as for IOS, local storage could be encrypted (or not), imported into 
RebDB (no single better solution so far introduced for rebol), sync-per-record 
or record-set could remain (record=document). RebDB on Serve would 
speed things up significantly too ...


another possibility is to think outside the IOS terms, in more general 
way - simply thinking about world of objects, being in various states, 
with various life-time around internet and on-line or off-line devices. 
I think that maybe we could find some simpler solution than SyncML 
and the likes ...


another point - such techniques should be transport independent, 
so I would not like to hear that it needs this or that ;-)

So, anyone?

I have got competition here though, guys try to write it in delphi 
- it looks ugly and sucks (they would take years to even aproach 
IOS level), yet they refused to even look into IOS, which would be 
better fit for our company right fromt he start ...

I might try to better earn some money, then finding free time and 
struggle implementing it myself. I could become CZ implementator, 
if I like the product :-)

well, if multilanguage, I am in and we can talk privately ...

In theory, timestamp syncing can be done by asking the server for 
its current time or time zone, comparing against your own, and then 
adjusting your timestamps for comparison by the difference. I'm not 
sure how well this would handle latency issues (we should look at 
time protocols), but it would handle the client's computer clock 
being wrong. This would have to be done at the beginning of each 
syncing session, incase the client moves time zones or otherwise 
adjusts their clock between sessions.

By "for comparison purposes", I mean don't change the file date, 
just subtract the diff between you and UTC to get the adjusted file 
date in memory and then compare against the adjusted file date from 
the server.

one problem is summertime and windows.

the problems is reported in rambo ticket, will find it for you - 
it can report two zones +1 or + 2 here, and it is a problem - it 
depends if you skip the time the time is switched on, or if you go 
thru it ...

Basically the filedates reported by windows are not adjusted to summertime. 
so after summertime-change the older files are one hour off. sometimes. 
depends on things like partition-types and dont know what else.

FAT also stores file dates in 2-second increments, so file times 
can adjust up to two seconds when copied between FAT and NTFS. File 
times in ZIP files have the same restriction because of ZIP's DOS 
origins.

using tortoise SVN, how can I checkout just a single file?  here 
it complains about only wanting to checkout directories.... which 
is a bit dumb IMHO.


note, this checkout occurs in a new checkout area, the directories 
on the repository aren't anywhere else.  I just want to pick out 
one file from a repository and use just that elsewhere.

try svn cat   and copy /pipe the result where you want

ended up with scroll panes, menues, tree views, all matter of buttons 
and fiels.

now you see, since the structure of dependencies and synchronisation 
actually define the system... what you connect to what will basically 
define how  much flexibility you have in your system.

Now they want me to add proxy handling to the rooms but the proxy 
should be handled only by some users (that's why I plan to have a 
controll room and not an extra button in computer rooms)

I've added flexybility putting the rooms in separate files and not 
in the script (as two school are using the same program), than I 
check the user of the LAN (I use the environment variables)

REBOL [
	File: %scramble.r
	Author: "Ammon Johnson"
	Email: [ammon-:-johnson-:-gmail-:-com]
	Version: 0.0.1
	History: [
		0.0.1 31-Mar-2009 "scrambles and descrambles code"
	]
]

scramble: context [
	words: []
	load-words: does [
		foreach word first system/words [
			add-word mold word
		]
	]
	add-word: func [
		word
		/local chars length
	][
		chars: charset word
		unless found? find words chars [repend words [chars copy []]]

  unless found? find words/:chars length: length? word [repend words/:chars 
  [length copy []]]
		length: select words/:chars length
		unless found? find length word [insert tail length word]
		word
	]
	get-word: func [
		word
		/local chars length
	][
		chars: charset word
		unless chars: select words chars [return "UNKNOWN"]
		unless length: select chars length? word [return "UNKNOWN"]
		random/only length
	]
	scramble: func [
		txt
		/local result
	][
		result: parse/all txt " "
		forall result [

   unless empty? trim copy result/1 [change result random add-word result/1]
		]
		form result
	]
	
	descramble: func [
		txt
		/local result
	][
		result: parse/all txt " "
		forall result [

   unless empty? trim copy result/1 [change result get-word result/1]
		]
		form result
	]
]