I've just shipped a prototype of an application. The prototype is in Rebol, and consists of about 45K of code. Tiny by any standards.
But it shipped with a 3 meg PDF consisting of 6000 words of text and a load of screen shots. Once I congratulated my self for getting out the door--and on deadline day too--I started thinking there has got to be a better way. Suppose I redid those 6000 words of text in (say) make-doc format. And embedded in them was a "click-stream" to run the application, add data, scroll, etc; and then capture the screen image and insert it in the printed document. If I had been able to do that, the whole shebang would have been under 100k. I've got no idea how to go about doing something like this, but I would suggest it would need something like: -- Some way to "play" a script from a "make-doc" script. I've got no idea how this could be done. -- Some re-engineering of the target application to make it "make-doc" friendly (perhaps giving a name to every Layout and VID element that is to be "clicked" so we can dispense with simulating mouse moves). -- Some re-engineering of the target application (or the shipping of a special "documentation" copy) because I don't want to be running keystrokes into someone's live data. -- The ability to capture screen shots in Rebol of VID windows. (This bit's not so hard) If this was possible, the same code base could also: -- run demos -- automate data entry -- allow the end user to record "macros" for any Rebol application. So if anyone has any idea of how to play a script from another, feeding it keystrokes or equivalent, and capturing all or part of its VID windows, I for one would be grateful for some help.... ....I have another iteration of the prototype in a few weeks and I'd much rather be impressing the world with a 100K download that apologising for what will be closer to a 6meg monster. Thanks! Sunanda. -- To unsubscribe from this list, please send an email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with "unsubscribe" in the subject, without the quotes.
