> David, is the pdf converter on the site working?
Yes, it has always worked. Well, ok it broke when I moved everything
from plucker.gnu-designs.com to plkr.org, but it's working now. From the
logs, 1,239 different PDF files have been converted using the tool since I
created it.
> I put this url in: http://www.therationaledge.com/content/nov_01/PDF/The
> Rational Edge - November 01 Issue.pdf and hit the button. A little
> while later it wants me to download pdf2pl.pl, but it doesn't have
> anything in it. Is this the actual perl code to parse it? Do I need
> Perl installed locally? I was expecting to get a pdb file back.
You must be using some form of IE. It's been a known bug in IE for
quite some time, and still exists in IE6 (with the .NET client lib
infrastructure underneath it).
http://support.microsoft.com/support/kb/articles/Q267/9/91.asp
http://support.microsoft.com/support/kb/articles/Q281/1/19.asp
http://support.microsoft.com/support/kb/articles/Q279/6/67.ASP
However, you did uncover two problems I had, which I managed to fix.
In fact, I am going to gut and rewrite that so it can handle Word as well as
PDF, with a file-upload function so users can upload, then delete the file
after conversion (uploading it for conversion is the only way to handle
local documents, server-side, but a URI reference to the doc will work
also).
1.) I was using a very stupid insecure manner of parsing scalars.
2.) Filenames with spaces in them must be urlencoded first before
conversion. I really can't stand when people (improperly) use a
space as a character in a filename. I blame Windows for
propagating that gross misconception that a space is a delimiter
as well as a syntactical character in a filename. Ugh. In any
case, a space in a filename in a URI is an illegal character,
and it must be escaped to be %20 and so on. Your filename in
this case, escaped, turns out to be:
http%3A%2F%2Fwww.therationaledge.com%2Fcontent%2Fnov_01%2FPDF%2FThe%20Rational%20Edge%20-%20November%2001%20Issue.pdf
This is now being escaped automagically (URI::Escape, three lines of
code total to do this part of the chop, escape, convert, gotta love perl)
> Also, it was kind of hard to find the link to do the pdf conversion (I
> found it in the old news articles). Perhaps it should have a link or
> section on the test drive or samples page? Perhaps also the samples
> page should have a link to a site that collects e-texts in plkr format?
I will take a look. I'm thinking of beefing up the "Build It" page a
bit, making the site "flow" a bit better. Under the hood, it's running well,
but could be optimized a bit more, more interactivity. I have a few post-it
notes up for some lingering issues. The PDF/Word conversion is one of them,
and you're right... it needs to be more prominently figured on the website.
> I know you're busy this week & weekend. Just some thoughts, no rush.
Busy? BAH! I'll have lots of spare time soon.
Incidentally, I'm flying out to CT for two weeks to hang out with my
girlfriend and her parents over Turkey Day, so I may be in and out of email
for a bit, depending on the dialup situation there. After I return from this
"Sabbatical", I will have a lot of time to devote to building, fixing,
solving these issues.
/d
