AltME groups: search

I had a thought about the REBOL.ORG site today that would be very 
useful to alot of people and would have been much more useful for 
me early on.  That would be to make sections for /library components 
for example a winapi section for windows and one for linux etc,  
That way someone could submit pieces of code based on a winapi function 
or linux api function and then provide an example.  It could really 
help many people that use /library component.

I think the text at the top of the rebol.org site needs arranged 
better as it has lots of punctuation and the menu on the left needs 
more alignment or something to show alignment on as its currently 
just tabbed over which isn't a problem but there is not reference 
points to the tabs making it look more thrown together.  Just trying 
to be helpful and appreciate all the work that is being done on it.

I think that what really needs to happen to REBOL.org is simply a 
redesign on the Control Panel.  I'm still playing with some ideas 
on redoing the site's CSS but I haven't created anything that is 
much of an improvement over what is currently there...

does anyone know of any site indexer or search engine script written 
in rebol or available in rebol.org?

With google, put a search phrase in quotes:
     "probe system"
that will seek the precise phrase.

To restrict google to a specific site, the syntax is:
     "probe system" site:www.rebol.org


To search only some URLs within a site, give it a characteristic 
part of the URL:
     "probe system" site:www.rebol.org inurl:thread


Note that Google has not indexed all the thread -- which is why we 
added the in-site search.

Sunanda, "probe system" site:www.rebol.org inurl:thread did not return 
what I was hoping for.  By dropping the inurl: then I was able to 
come up with one relevant thread and the rest of the results were 
talking about probing in the system object like system/script/args. 
 I can't seem to get rid of the /whatever after system with Google. 
 I was hoping that the ability use quotes to search for a specific 
phrase instead of breaking it apart and searching for multiple values 
could be added to the rebol.org search engine.

<< Is there a way to search the topic index other than by clicking 
on a letter>>
In theory:

http://www.rebol.org/cgi-bin/cgiwrap/rebol/ml-topic-index.r?i=probe

takes you straight to the entry (if any) for 'probe.  But that looks 
broken right now....I'll look into it.


Other than that, no.  Only about 80% of the threads are indexed in 
the topic index. When we get closer to 100%. we'll enhance the existing 
search to take account of the topic index.....so results will include 
and be prioritised by the topic index. 

Well, you could try, in Google:
probe site:www.rebol.org inurl:topic

But that (as with any search anywhere) is dependent on Google having 
the page indexed.

Yeah, looking at his site, it seems that he patches rebol.exe so 
that it loads an additional dll that does the work. He has another 
for FastCGI.

I also miss one other button - links ... there is plenty of sites 
you could link to .... then your site is rebol info wise complete 
...

the site is well organized... but its content isn't

Apologies -- REBOL.org was unavailable for just under a day, it's 
back now.

The problem originated with the ISP, and it took them a little while 
to work out what they'd done wrong.

Using a "non-standard" language seems to have added to their debug 
time:
Extracts from two emails from the ISP's technical support:

<<Hi, Sunanda.  Sorry this is taking a bit.  As I'm sure you know 
you have

a non-standard setup :-)  We aren't familiar with it and are puzzling 
it

out.  Am I right that you have your own scripting language?  And 
that
[snipped] is the [path to the] interpreter?>>

<<Aha!  Our web server rebooted yesterday.  It's a FreeBSD server, 
and for

a reason we haven't determined yet, the Linux compatability module

didn't load.  We loaded it and your site works again.  We'll figure 
out
why that module didn't load at boot.>>

That's true. You can mention it to BurningShadow on his live CD site. 
It's a contributed project

there's a problem with the live cd site

http://www.syllable-livecd.info/

Permission not grated to view the home page.

Hmm.  The Atheos site is worse .. none of the links work for me.

The live CD site and the other Scandinavian sites are down due to 
a double hard disk failure

What AtheOS site are you trying? The original atheos.cx domain and 
site are hijacked by some thug selling drugs. Our archive of the 
original site was on the Scandinavian server, so it's down

the iso image is compressed with bz2, and now I have to find a japanese 
web site that has lzarc to decompress the bloody thing

7Zip is only 1 MB, has a normal English web site and is open source

If they wanted to support Debian, they would have provided a .deb 
- .tar.gz packages always need a little hacking. They do document 
their restrictions on their web site.

However, the parts of the site that are not in MySQL are still functional

Or you can read it from the site:

I need to prepare some installation instructions for our polish partner. 
I will do some scripts to access mySQL on their server, using rebol, 
but I will not have access to the site. So I want to be well prepared, 
so they don't get annoyed after writing them tens of times "try that, 
try this" etc. :-)

Yep, that was it.  Mediapartners-Google/2.1 submitted the form again. 
 It looks like if you have the Google search bar, it submits all 
your internet traffic to google, who then go and try and index that 
site - including submitting your email address to a form!!

That's exactly what Google does.

It has some sites indexed purely because the developer visited the 
site while using a browser that had the Google toolbar active. Otherwise, 
the site would have remained invisible.


Of course that doesn't excuse the developer from putting up a private 
or incomplete site without password or other protection. There are 
otherways for private URLs to slip into public consciousness. The 
Google toolbar is simply the most widespread.

Good to know !!

Looking at some log on a server I have to administrate, Im affraid 
to see many request trying to find  some /ebay, /lassalebank, /admin, 
/phpmyadmin pages on the site.
Internet looks more and more like a jungle.

I am trying for first time to setup rebol for cgi on  remote Apache 
web server on Linux.
I am working from WinXP
Site management is done with EnsimPro. Ftp does not yet working.
So what is done up to now:

Uploaded file Rebol from rebol-core-2602042.tar package for Linux 
to cgi-bin directory;

Set permisions to owner read, write, execute and for group and others 
to read, execute;
Test script -> write file read file,

Test script uploaded (throught web broeser by using EnsimPro web 
interface) test script:

#!/var/www/cgi-bin/rebol -cs

REBOL [Title: "CGI Basics"]

print ["Content-type: text/html" newline]

print "Hello!!!"

to cgi-bin directory;
Set the same permisions.


Pointing to the test file I am getting "500 Internal server errror" 
What else could be wrong?


Interesting that I have interpreters directory on this web server 
where are couple files regarding php and perl.
Could it be connected with my problem?

Sounds like I should to think about other solutions of human control 
and image resizing & texts on them.
It is a pitty.

Human control could be organized by just set of image files with 
some "kidnaping" fonts letters and some simple script in Core.

Image resizing (f.ex. when uploading) theoreticaly could be done 
with Core - but it seems too much work for me now, because I dont 
know yet how image files is built and those resizing algorithms.
And about text placing on uploaded images I can forget.
All things above could be done in View just fine.
:(

It was good idea, that I made first my private blog site on Linux. 
Despite Rebol runs on so many systems - running the same things on 
other systems should be checked before. Especialy if there are no 
expierence of work on that system.


BTW I found in the google the similar response was caused from uncomplete 
View instalation: http://demo.rebol.net/list/list-msgs/34071.html
But it looks that this is not the case.

Because I don't know it.

And I whanted to use my blog site as demo for all those good things 
that could be done with Rebol.

But whell - as I undertood I can use it on Linux web server. Anyway 
thanks, Graham, I will check how can I use them.

is it possible to extract/change a cookie from the site a plugin 
is working in?


  I have embedded an app within an IIS served web site.  I must make 
  the reblet interact with the site's cookie, so it follows the rest 
  of the site's status when relaunched (browsing to/from the app from 
  other pages restarts the rebol app).

I mean - let's say I don't have telnet available - just ftp to upload 
my site ...

One of my clients updates his site via some tool, which always seem 
to add some space between the lines. After some time, the page is 
instead of 400 rows something like 13K rows - the size goes from 
cca 25KB to 100KB. So I wrote a cgi script, which reads index.html 
and removes blank lines. Everything is OK, when I run the script 
from the console. But when I run it via a browser as a CGI script 
call, it can't write the file. Dunno why - cgi-script is being run 
using -cs switch, I even put secure none in there, cgi-script has 
the same own, grp set as index.html, but I can't write it ....

some old Mozilla web building SW, don't remember its name. It was 
some three letters name. But - maybe one of my friends is doing some 
small Rebol client app edits (putting news into the main site), so 
maybe it is his script which does so. I need to check with him, it 
is an encapped app, so I can't see the sources ...

ross-gill - Chris' site ...

Max has a web site builder .. don't know how much separation he has 
achieved though as he has never released it

You can see a brief overview of Remark (Maxim's site builder) here... 
http://www.rebol.it/~steel/retools/remark/index.html

Well, there are plenty of web site building tools .. and sometimes 
a huge learning curve to get what the demos show.

practically, you could VERY easily add a tag (like in an hour or 
two or receiving remark) which lets make-doc add the content within 
your site which is comprised of m-d formated text...

I'll zip it, post it on my steel site, and I'll actually give out 
the steel web site as an example to work from... note that it has 
VERY advanced capabilites within its retags, but I guess its a good 
way to show how scalable the engine really is....

We have a template based dynamic site here at work,  we use a base 
page to define the common logic, we use CSS "templates" to define 
the areas of different pages... the above code is Template 3 area 
3, which is the body area for a page that has a header, left navigation, 
body, and footer area.

Sometimes I need to refresh twice -- but usually CSS is well cached 
(so you only have to download a stylesheet for a site once)

yes, and above site is typical css look. I am not sure the letters, 
spacing etc. are typographically correct. The same goes for most 
css designs I saw ...

re workflow - interesting - I will order Zeldman's book too .... 
Alistapart seems to be a good resource too. I never build large site, 
just few webpages, generated by script or using DreamWeaver 4 long 
time ago. My mine problem right now is - how to start to think of 
a design. From typographics area I know I should divide page into 
some sections. I did so using tables extensively, now I wonder, if 
I should use css columns, simply using "div" tags ...

The biggest advatnage you'll find in workflow is when the client 
starts making changes.


1000 pages all with <font color=blue> and they now want all <p>s 
to be green -- that's not a search and replace job -- you need to 
check the context of each <font> tag.. It might take hours. Next 
day, they ask for dark yellow.
In css:

p {color:blue} -- you can show them the whole site changed in 1 minute.


Though, of course, you need to think through the styles you need 
first. That's a big bit of the design.

Interesting that Firefox next release is intending to have a by-site 
user CSS feature. So I'' be able to personalise *any* site I view 
regularly in Firefox by simply adding some CSS.


I can see a market for customised style sheets (make MSN look good, 
or mold Google to my corporate colors, or just look funkier than 
the boring original). Afterall, websites are just about the only 
thing on my computer that I can't reskin.


In the future, sites that are easily reskinnable, may have a competitive 
advantage over those that are not. That means using CSS.  (CSS was 
always meant to make this possible. It's the browsers that have been 
slow).

in FF, there is an option that says always use my 'Fonts or Colors'... 
they probably need to extend it and says use my stylesheet. ..


and that should load your stylesheet instead of the one from the 
site

probably nothing to do with what the site 'designers' have to do.

or rather..site designers do not need to do anything to allow that

I got it working with links inside FRAME tag ... but what should 
I put into rebol cgi script to hide target site URL? I mean - <FRAME 
SRC="/cgi-bin/shop-redir.cgi"> - what should I put into rebol script 
to redirect it to target site?

sunanda: they are not meant to be published on my site, I simply 
wanted to approve them here before handing them to Carl (which I 
actually have, but he hasn't responded other than "Cool!", but hasn't 
done anything :-)).


I was thinking about a very simple extension to webserv.r which simply 
submits a form to a modified makedoc2.r processor, which generates 
a page, sectioned so that you can edit small parts of it.

Petr, that is exactly what the DOM does -- and web site elements 
*are* xml.

It's on the http://cheyenne-server.orgsite at the bottom ;-)

The new site is here: http://box.lebeda.ws/~hmm/rswf/

I have problems with update of the old site:(

New site made in Rebol/Flash dialect:   http://bonboniere.miss3.cz/

New site made in Rebol/Flash dialect http://www.miss3.cz/(still 
requires some improvements)

there is still a lot of things to do (for example usage of Func2 
action tag is not finished yet, but this is the version of the dialect 
I used to compile the flash site above and I was also able to compile 
all the old examples (except one) Some of them with a little code 
changes.

Don't want to spam Oldes site here, but VID3 will never compete with 
this.. ever.

Rebols needs to get their head out of the sand.   Not only can Rebol 
not compete now, the likes of Adobe, Google (as in Gears), Javascript, 
PHP etc etc  are accelerating away faster than the galaxies.

Pekr, what are you showing on that site: app.jsp

flash is on zero browsers until installed...I've set up machines 
at work for guys in the firehouse to use. Every computer there gathers 
so much adware/spyware/viruses that I can never keep up cleaning 
them. I've had to re-install windows so many times and each time 
I have to re-install the latest flash player. I resorted to setting 
up puppy linux and running off a bootable cd..(with the typical complaints 
about it not being windows) Anyway...rebol plug-in is easire to download 
than flash so what's the bigdeal. I install active-x controls all 
the time when I find a site that interests me and needs the control.

Hello im back,  im sending sources and demos to Anton. he's going 
to post sources and documentations on his site.

On his site, there is RebFcgi that can be interesting too. But only 
for Windows !

Any skilled Linux/C coder to addapt it for a Linux Apache Module 
???

I've added about ten newly converted demos to the site. Please send 
me any scripts you would like converted. I've done quite a few now 
so it will be easy. Then you can see the differences for yourself 
more easily, too. Graham, I'm thinking of your Skype script.

(not added to the site quite yet.)

That link is not really the best in terms of the nitty gritty. A 
search through the MSDN site will show other places to look.

the video shows the guy being able to script firefox to pickup a 
report from his online banking site.

But I found this really nice Australian site:
http://ozvoip.com/products.php

Security Issues:

- We should to be able to restrict with the secure native what files 
and dlls the plugin can access.

- The default security of the RT-provided plugin (not encapped by 
a third-party) should prohibit any access to any local files or libraries 
at all, even in the same directory as the script, and prohibit access 
to third-party network addresses as well. Or at least ask.

- There should be some way to access the site's cookies from the 
plugin, because there shouldn't be any other way to store local data 
on the client computer's hard drive. Anything short of that will 
be a security hole.

- There should be no way to reduce the default security of the plugin 
through the use of plugin params.

- Any attempt to reduce access should prompt the user for permission, 
in terms a non-technical user can understand. This means rewriting 
the security dialogs to be more user-friendly.

- Any relaxation of these default security restrictions should require 
encapping the script.

- A user (or their lawyer) should to be able to (perhaps through 
RT) track down the author of any encapped script.

- An encapped script should count as a seperate plugin as far as 
the user is concerned, at least as far as permission-to-install is 
concerned.


Basically, the default security of the plugin should not allow scripts 
to do anything you wouldn't want your worst enemy to do on your computer. 
People will try to use this plugin for advertisements, for webbugs, 
for spyware, for every nasty thing that you aren't evil enough to 
think of. Avoiding that kind of thing should be the focus of the 
default security settings. Anything less will make the plugin unsafe 
to install.

Let's see what a "neutered" plugin can do:
- REBOL/Services
- All of REBOL's GUI and graphics stuff.
- Access browser data (that is site-specific)
You can do a lot with that. Look at Flash.

Anonymous scripts should be able to read through the browser cache, 
at least for files from their own site, but should assume that those 
files won't necessarily persist beyond the browsing session. You 
don't want to give them a sandbox that doesn't have its space limited 
by the browser's existing facilities, for security and privacy reasons. 
You definitely don't want anonymous scripts to store more than cookies 
on your systems.


The guideline you should set for default behavior of anonymous scripts 
is to limit it to the activities that would be OK for deliberately 
malicious code to do. Assume that all anonymous code is out to get 
you until proven otherwise. This is a browser plugin you know - it 
will be used in banner ads.

1) Release a new "ID" for the plugin, so 1.3.3 would install side-by-side 
with 1.3.2. The problem with this approach is that the user now has 
a new plugin object in their Downloaded Program Files for every release 
of the plugin, which looks strange....not to mention problems such 
as: "does this web site support plugin version 1.3.2 or 1.3.3?" how 
do I know which version I have installed?

not just that, but there should be a ridicoulus minimum amount of 
instructions to install it. such as: 1. go to this site to observe 
the installation. 2. click here to test. and that should be it. I 
know that's very difficult to do, but it should be the goal.

Well here's a side-by-side problem scenario. Grandpa doesn't know 
anything about anything, other than how to check his e-mail. He comes 
to web site 1 which auto-installs (with his permission) REBOL 1.3.2. 
Then he goes to web site 2, which needs REBOL 3.0, and it auto-installs 
side-by-side. Then he comes to a third site, which tells him it requires 
the REBOL/Plugin. How does he know which plugin it needs?

Sure, I understand that makes sense for developers, but I can see 
real confusion. Since when does a web site tell you that it requires 
Flash version 3.0? All Flash scripts run in the latest version of 
Flash, so if you have Flash 8, you're all set on any Flash web site 
(I think...someone correct me if I'm wrong).

Our original thinking with the plugin was as follows: Web site is 
responsible for everything. If web site requires new version of plugin, 
it specifies a new CLSID and forces the user to download it. The 
problem is, then you have 5 "REBOL/Plugin" objects in Downloaded 
Program FIles. Thoughts on that approach?

Here are the scenarios with resolutions in boolean logic as I see 
them right now:

 1. web_site_required_version not found on users computer -- download 
 required version

 2. web_site_required_version = version_on_computer && security_min_version 
 > version_on_computer -- popup, request download security update

 3. web_site_required_version = version_on_computer && security_min_version 
 <= version_on_computer && latest_version > version_on_computer -- 
 not sure

Yes, we're assuming that the web site has no control over the security 
check, nor the security_min_version (that would come from RT)

Assuming the plugin will become wildly successful, maybe there should 
be a way to have the initial plugin download and subsequent updates 
come from a site other than rebol.com so that any outage there wouldn't 
affect users hitting a page calling for the plugin. I wonder how 
high load is handled for the Flash plugin?

Volker, that is true. But the problem here is not COM interface/version 
compatibility. The problem here is: "Which REBOL binary to load?" 
Very simply put, if a web site relies upon plugin version 1.3.2, 
we must make sure that 1.3.2 -- or a later version backwards-compatible 
with 1.3.2 -- loads on their computer. At the same time, we need 
to deliver critical security updates and other non-breaking updates 
to users in a seamless manner.

Should we inform the user is a new update is avalaible?

I think this should be configurable for compatible updates. I guess 
some people might become nervous, if the plugin connects to the rebol.com 
site on every invocation. Even it is only looking for updates, well, 
you'll never know ...

On incompatible updates: The user should get a message along the 
lines: "You have installed the Rebol 1.3.4 plugin, this website needs 
the 3.0 plugin" of course only, if that is true.

I would ask for "download and install" for user convenience. Ver< 
few people would want to download and check the binary before installing 
it. Maybe you _could_ add a checkbox to "only download".

Well, I hate popups, but I hate not getting inmportant info even 
more ... so, I start downloadinf a webpage, while this page is loading, 
I open another tab, and work on this. Now I return to my first page 
later, and I find an embedded message "We're sorry, you first need 
to download the new plugin version" would make me go crazy :-) So 
I would like a popup in this case. 

Well, when there is a new security update, for maximum security, 
the plugin should stop to work until the user has answered, wether 
he wants to update, or go with the old plugin.

pekr, I sort of agree with you, but it's impossible to ignore how 
widespread flash is, not for apps, but for animations, stylish pages 
and now video with youtube and video.google.com. I actually think 
the easiest way to watch video is through flash.


The point is though not really what flash does, it's how it gets 
spread. I think REBOL/Plugin should emulate that behavior as close 
as humanly possible. people who have installed flash, would know 
how to install REBOL/plugin (visit a specific site, wait for download, 
click 1-2 buttons, done). That initial "installation experience" 
is incredibly important for the widespread use of REBOL/plugin. If 
people can't use it within the first 1-2 minutes, they'll forget 
about it and move on.

don't tell me, that for each instance of Flash e.g., it uses separate 
threads? And what embedded OSes, which do not have threads? I wonder 
if it limits number of flash banners on the site displayed?

No, browsers have an inbuild firewall. look for cross-site-scripting.

Doc, I am also one of your fans. I've been going to your web site 
regularly to see if Cheyenne was released. I was excited to be able 
to download it. But I have a problem. Cheyenne loads fine, but when 
I try to test the links on the index.html page they fail. What am 
I doing wrong?

For the RSP WebApp test I get:

 The page cannot be displayed 

The page you are looking for is currently unavailable. The Web site 
might be experiencing technical difficulties, or you may need to 
adjust your browser settings.

the only thing it needs is someone to adapt it for cgi use... I have 
too little CGI practice and no real need, atm... so its hard to put 
time on this... but its a rebol script, so its easy to adapt.  all 
it would need is to check if its been started as cgi and call a different 
startup, which only prints out one file.  for static pages (which 
CAN include dynamic conent like sql queries) then its a very good 
solution which already supports site magamenent and ftp xfer.

I put 0% of time on site layout, once its done.  I just edit content 
and make the page.  its like editing make doc, but in html format... 
also, the tags are not standard html type tags  they nest directely 
 <p! text <b! is bold <i! and italic>>>

nice site Pekr :)

sorry pekr, posted the link as there is some info not present on 
the official site but that page may be more internal organization 
stuff but at least there is the list of people involved. Hopefully 
some of them are listening and will come with updates.

Still no "useful" answer on that french forum where I posted questions 
about the devcon. However, I was told that as soon as anything happens, 
the official site will be updated (http://devcon2007.rebdocproj.org/).

Well, we've got it so far :-)  


Registration is open ! 

Just move to the Registration page on the 
Devcon 2007 site and follow the instructions. Conference prices and 
payment method are detailled in the Payment page.

And remember: no information published on the site means no information 
available...

Site has been updated with maps, iCal event and more ...

no, visiting the site :-)

I'd rather have a on-site dev contest.

DEVCON SITE IS BROKEN  its asking for authentication

I remember reading on an Amiga gaming site that you can uplaod large 
files but need to go thru a process with youtube first and then all 
is good

I've set up a wiki at http://devcon2007.on-arran.com/(template to 
match the official DevCon site).  I'd be obliged if willing DevCon 
attendees would create pages with revelations and announcements from 
the conference, and also if non-attendees could help keep it organised.

Check out Cyphre's reb site too...

I must say, that the original Rebol version of the re-box is from 
Dockimbel (http://softinnov.org/rebol/rebox.shtml) I just took his 
level data and made a little bit more complicated graphics. And the 
avatar and some of the ferniture used is from one of my favorite 
Amiga games - DreamWeb - http://www.adventureclassicgaming.com/index.php/site/reviews/221/

i think altme has wonderful potential as a lobby site - we just need 
to get an altme approved api interface before making games