Re: exporting audio
Scott Raney [EMAIL PROTECTED] said, on 3/8/00 3:36 PM: Bad news: the export command actually only supports exporting images (a fact documented in the Reference). You actually can export videoClips and some image formats by getting the "text" property and writing that to a file, but even this doesn't work for audio data because because the engine strips off the header and other important stuff to save space and processing overhead. So there is no way recover the original data in an audio clip once it's been imported... Regards, Scott I haven't tried this, but there is at least one program (SndSampler for the Mac) that has an option to try to import just such headerless sound data. They don't promise success, but do point out that sound data is relatively simple, and can only be represented so many ways. In any case, if it's important, that might be worth a shot. gc Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/metacard%40lists.best.com/ Info: http://www.xworlds.com/metacard/mailinglist.htm Please send bug reports to [EMAIL PROTECTED], not this list.
Re: Load url reprise
On Thu, 9 Mar 2000, Jacqueline Landman Gay wrote: Scott Raney wrote: It maybe a bit terse for your tastes, but this exact behavior is documented on the "load" command page in the Reference. No, it isn't. This is the only pertinent statement I could find on the "load" command: This command downloads the file specified by url into a local cache. The file can then be used in a url expression, or with the go, play, or set commands. After that there is a statement about how you don't have to load a file to get it, that you can check its status while loading, and then a suggestion to unload when you are done. No behaviors are explained. There is a brief reference to "load" in the concepts stack, where it mentions that a url can be a container. Here are the things I needed to know: Why is a url placed in the cachedURLs whether it was actually downloaded or not, and whether the file exists or not? Because the engine can't tell this: the HTTP server sends some data and the engine caches that. It's up to the developer to determine whether or not that data is the data they wanted. Why does "URLStatus" only give information about what is in the cache? The cache is wrong sometimes. Shouldn't it be tracking the download? If not, what's it for? The cache isn't ever "wrong", nor is the urlStatus: it just says whether something has completed downloading, not whether what was downloaded is what you're waiting for. How can I find out whether the download actually was successful? None of this was addressed. Because this is an HTTP protocol issue, not a "load" command issue or a "urlStatus" issue. We could have documented HTTP too, but that's not really our job. What you may be lacking is an understanding of the HTTP protocol, which unfortunately you really have to have if you're going to do much work in this area. Probably. I don't really want to do much in this area though; actually, all I want to do is see if there is an online connection. I asked about that a while back and the answer was that you can't find out, except maybe to check for a known file on the remote server. But the url is cached whether it is there or not, whether it downloads or not, and there are lots of different error messages I might get, depending on what happens. I'd hate to have to learn http protocol, open sockets, download files and check their contents, just to find out if a user has a connection open. This seems like a roundabout way of detecting a connection, and unreliable at that (you can't tell if there is no connection or just no route to whatever site you're trying to download from or maybe a firewall stopping you from connecting to that site). There must be some better way to do this, if in fact it's even necessary. What use is knowing whether or not a "connection is open" if you're not actually going to do something that requires transfering data? Pierre's solution may work. Meanwhile, I have stumbled across this: while checking the URLStatus, you can also check "the result". If the URLStatus contains an error, and the user is not connected, the result contains "Can't open endpoint". Here is an outline of what I have so far: on loadURL theUrl put "" into theStatus load url theUrl repeat until theStatus = "cached" put urlStatus(theUrl) into theStatus switch case (theStatus is in "error,timeout,not found") GET THE RESULT -- contains "Can't open endpoint" if not online exit repeat break case (theStatus contains "loading") -- other stuff here break default -- other stuff end switch end repeat -- more stuff; handle errors end loadURL I don't know if this is bullet-proof. Is it? Not for just testing whether there is a connection. You'd be better off using raw sockets for this, or even better, something like using shell() to run ping or traceroute. Regards, Scott (who will be glad when the day comes when primitive dialup-based Internet connections go the way of "party line" phone systems...) -- Jacqueline Landman Gay| [EMAIL PROTECTED] HyperActive Software | [EMAIL PROTECTED] Custom hypermedia solutions | http://www.hyperactivesw.com 612.724.1596 | 612.724.1562 - fax Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/metacard%40lists.best.com/ Info: http://www.xworlds.com/metacard/mailinglist.htm Please send bug reports to [EMAIL PROTECTED], not this list. Scott Raney [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.metacard.com MetaCard: You know, there's an easier way to do that... Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/metacard%40lists.best.com/ Info: http://www.xworlds.com/metacard/mailinglist.htm Please send bug reports to [EMAIL PROTECTED], not this list.
Re: Dumb download question...
Am I right in thinking that a MetaCard file saved as a Mac file, and the right extension will open without any problem on all platforms? If so does it not make sense to make this the default behaviour for saving on all platforms? From: psahores [EMAIL PROTECTED] Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Date: Thu, 09 Mar 2000 13:34:43 +0100 To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: Dumb download question... Kevin Miller wrote: On 8/3/00 5:31 pm, David Bovill [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Tried again to download the mchttpd stacks to my mac, cos I was thinking of replacing Apache. It's a nice little zip file, which transfers fine. I unstuff the thing and I get the folders and files all nicely arranged on my desktop. OK, so the stacks look like text files and I need to convert the file and creator types for the Mac, which i do with the nice "mcstack_importer.mc" utility. But I can't open it from within Metacard, and if I try to go to the stack I get: "stack was corrupted by a non-binary file transfer" Anyone know what's up? I generally don't have a problem unzipping files... At some point during the transfer, whether by your zip package or subsequently after moving the files around, something has translated the files from binary to text. There are actually several packages that will do that by accident (the "auto detect" options in some ftp packages will always upload MC stacks as text for example). You'll have to try to find out where that happened and prevent it. Regards, Kevin Kevin Miller [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.xworlds.com/ Cross Worlds Computing, MetaCard Distributors, Custom Development. Tel: +44 (0)131 672 2909. Fax: +44 (0)1639 830 707. This is the MetaCard mailing list. Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/metacard%40lists.best.com/ Info: http://www.xworlds.com/metacard/mailinglist.htm I had the same problem by pressing the "alt" key or using various FTP clients... After that, i found the solution in using Netscape+Suffit-Expander do all the job, automatically and without any keydown ;-) Hope this help, Regards, Pierre Sahores Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/metacard%40lists.best.com/ Info: http://www.xworlds.com/metacard/mailinglist.htm Please send bug reports to [EMAIL PROTECTED], not this list. Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/metacard%40lists.best.com/ Info: http://www.xworlds.com/metacard/mailinglist.htm Please send bug reports to [EMAIL PROTECTED], not this list.
Re: Load url reprise
Hoh, hum... From: Jacqueline Landman Gay [EMAIL PROTECTED] Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Date: Thu, 09 Mar 2000 00:47:38 -0600 To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: Load url reprise Scott Raney wrote: It maybe a bit terse for your tastes, but this exact behavior is documented on the "load" command page in the Reference. No, it isn't. This is the only pertinent statement I could find on the "load" command: Software documentation, who ever thought of such a thing! Pierre's solution may work. Meanwhile, I have stumbled across this: while checking the URLStatus, you can also check "the result". If the URLStatus contains an error, and the user is not connected, the result contains "Can't open endpoint". In general there is no information about "the result" of a command (there is nowhere to put this in the "Index" stack just a description field). It does make sense to add this and update all the help entires to include this information, if only to save Scott's time in the long run. But then again in the short run... Also I couldn't find anything documenting the sytax: put url "http://whatever was cached" into field 1 I thought spaces weren't allowed in URL's. Well, well, live and learn -:) Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/metacard%40lists.best.com/ Info: http://www.xworlds.com/metacard/mailinglist.htm Please send bug reports to [EMAIL PROTECTED], not this list.
Re: Load url reprise
Scott, thanks for the answers to a lot of my questions. It's stuff I need to know and your response helps, but my primary complaint is that it is so hard to find out about MetaCard's behaviors in the first place. I know you have documentation on your list of things to do -- I should be patient, but I get very frustrated. I spend too much time dead-ending and running in circles. This seems like a roundabout way of detecting a connection, and unreliable at that (you can't tell if there is no connection or just no route to whatever site you're trying to download from or maybe a firewall stopping you from connecting to that site). There must be some better way to do this, if in fact it's even necessary. What use is knowing whether or not a "connection is open" if you're not actually going to do something that requires transfering data? I agree, there has got to be a better way to do this -- but I guess no one knows how. The only suggestion I got from the list was to check for a known file on the server. Here is the scenario: There is a stack we want to run off the web. The client wants to charge for usage by the hour. Users will be provided with a small MC application that simply opens the web stack. They will log into the web site when they start, and log out when done. The application needs to check regularly to see if there is an online connection, and if the user goes offline without logging out of the site, then the application on disk needs to quit so that they cannot continue to use the stack without incurring charges. So that's why I need to know. No real data will be transferred after the initial stack download, unless it is true that I need to read a known file online in order to see if the user is still connected. That's why I can't just "ask the user", as was suggested here, and that's why I need to use the "load" command so that I can do the checking in the background without interrupting stack usage. If there is a better way to accomplish any of this, I'm open to suggestion. -- Jacqueline Landman Gay| [EMAIL PROTECTED] HyperActive Software | [EMAIL PROTECTED] Custom hypermedia solutions | http://www.hyperactivesw.com 612.724.1596 | 612.724.1562 - fax Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/metacard%40lists.best.com/ Info: http://www.xworlds.com/metacard/mailinglist.htm Please send bug reports to [EMAIL PROTECTED], not this list.
Re: Dumb download question...
Got you. In my case ZipIt tries to convert CR to LF, and I had to turn this option off... Does this mean that for disk based transfers, the file/creator types will be set correctly, whichever platform the movie is saved on? From: Scott Raney [EMAIL PROTECTED] Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Date: Thu, 9 Mar 2000 09:55:03 -0700 (MST) To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: Dumb download question... On Thu, 9 Mar 2000, David Bovill wrote: Am I right in thinking that a MetaCard file saved as a Mac file, and the right extension will open without any problem on all platforms? Yes, assuming you get it to those other platforms using a binary-mode transfer. If so does it not make sense to make this the default behaviour for saving on all platforms? There seems to be some confusion here: the problem is that many programs try to be "smart" and autodetect what kind of file is being transferred (or decompressed) and do the appropriate conversions (CR to LF or CRLF plus character set conversions in some cases). As it turns out, the header on MetaCard stacks is plain text (required so you can run them from the command line on UNIX systems), which confuses those "smart" programs. So you have to out-smart them and force them to not do any sort of conversion on the files. Regards, Scott Scott Raney [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.metacard.com MetaCard: You know, there's an easier way to do that... Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/metacard%40lists.best.com/ Info: http://www.xworlds.com/metacard/mailinglist.htm Please send bug reports to [EMAIL PROTECTED], not this list. Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/metacard%40lists.best.com/ Info: http://www.xworlds.com/metacard/mailinglist.htm Please send bug reports to [EMAIL PROTECTED], not this list.
re: exporting audio
Does anyone know the syntax of the "export" command to write a AudioClip to a file? Bad news: the export command actually only supports exporting images (a fact documented in the Reference). Based on everyone's input (thank you very much!) I will look for other options. Since I am on a Windows machine I will try to record it off somehow, or dig deeper into my archives to see if I can't actually locate the original file. Thanks again! -- Leston Drake LetterPress Software, Inc. http://www.lpsoftware.com -- Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/metacard%40lists.best.com/ Info: http://www.xworlds.com/metacard/mailinglist.htm Please send bug reports to [EMAIL PROTECTED], not this list.
Re: Load url reprise
On Thu, 9 Mar 2000, David Bovill wrote: Ping? It's a standard tool on UNIX and Windows systems. You supply a host name or IP address and it tells you whether that host is alive. By specifying the IP address of a known router or root DNS server (which are actually redundant and so always available) you can about guarantee whether or not the host can get to the Internet. It's fast, too, because it avoids a DNS lookup. Scott Scott Raney [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.metacard.com MetaCard: You know, there's an easier way to do that... Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/metacard%40lists.best.com/ Info: http://www.xworlds.com/metacard/mailinglist.htm Please send bug reports to [EMAIL PROTECTED], not this list.
Metacard List server anyone?
Now that's a thing... From: andu [EMAIL PROTECTED] Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Date: Wed, 8 Mar 2000 23:21:39 -0500 To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: Broken records -:) Maybe a good, flexible MC-list server should be on the to-do list of those experts out there ;-) Does anyone have any experience with interfacing MetaCard and sendMail, or other email devils? Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/metacard%40lists.best.com/ Info: http://www.xworlds.com/metacard/mailinglist.htm Please send bug reports to [EMAIL PROTECTED], not this list.
Re: Dumb download question...
On Thu, 9 Mar 2000, David Bovill wrote: Got you. In my case ZipIt tries to convert CR to LF, and I had to turn this option off... Does this mean that for disk based transfers, the file/creator types will be set correctly, whichever platform the movie is saved on? No: There is no support for file or creator types in the media used on UNIX and Windows systems. But at least you have to work harder to get a program to screw it up in this case (Easy Open and MacLink will still do this, if somehow the Finder gets the idea that the file needs to be "translated" before sending it to some word processor). Scott Scott Raney [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.metacard.com MetaCard: You know, there's an easier way to do that... Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/metacard%40lists.best.com/ Info: http://www.xworlds.com/metacard/mailinglist.htm Please send bug reports to [EMAIL PROTECTED], not this list.
Re: Load url reprise
Scott Raney wrote: On Thu, 9 Mar 2000, David Bovill wrote: Ping? It's a standard tool on UNIX and Windows systems. Could this be done via MetaCard scripts? -- Jacqueline Landman Gay| [EMAIL PROTECTED] HyperActive Software | [EMAIL PROTECTED] Custom hypermedia solutions | http://www.hyperactivesw.com 612.724.1596 | 612.724.1562 - fax Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/metacard%40lists.best.com/ Info: http://www.xworlds.com/metacard/mailinglist.htm Please send bug reports to [EMAIL PROTECTED], not this list.
Re: Load url reprise
Jacque, Hopefully these will help... The following scripts work well for me in local one-machine tests. They require two stacks: a metacard "server" stack and the client stack. You will, of course, need to replace the "1.1.1.1" with your actual IP/domain name... In the server, I put: on openCard accept connections on port 8080 with message gotOne end openCard on gotOne theSocket write "OK" to socket theSocket close socket theSocket end gotOne In the client: on openCard checkOnline end openCard on checkOnline open socket to "1.1.1.1:8080" with message gotcha send "checkOnline" to this card in 10 seconds end checkOnline on gotcha s read from socket s for 1 line if (it = "OK") then put "Looks like we are online at"(the long time) else answer "Looks like the server is not responding." close socket s end gotcha on socketError answer "Looks like we are offline." end socketError Regards, Brian Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/metacard%40lists.best.com/ Info: http://www.xworlds.com/metacard/mailinglist.htm Please send bug reports to [EMAIL PROTECTED], not this list.
Re: submenu items
On second thought, am I asking for something that would violate user-interface guidelines? It seemed to me like a feature I've seen before, but I can't seem to think of an actual example... Craig Is there a way to control which menu item gets hilited when you select a submenu from an option menu button? The menuHistory of such a button seems unaffected by the selection of a submenu item, and setting the label to the submenu item doesn't affect what gets hilited when you click on the button. /\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\ \/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/ Craig Spooner Office of Instructional Services Colorado State University Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/metacard%40lists.best.com/ Info: http://www.xworlds.com/metacard/mailinglist.htm Please send bug reports to [EMAIL PROTECTED], not this list.
Re: Load url reprise
On Thu, 9 Mar 2000, Jacqueline Landman Gay wrote: Scott Raney wrote: On Thu, 9 Mar 2000, David Bovill wrote: Ping? It's a standard tool on UNIX and Windows systems. Could this be done via MetaCard scripts? Other than running these programs with shell(), no. It requires access to low-level socket features that aren't available via MetaCard's high-level socket interface (specifically the IP header which is only available via "raw" mode sockets. MetaCard only supports stream and datagram sockets). Same for traceroute. These two are relatively unusual cases, though, because they're designed to work with the "plumbing" of the Internet rather than with the hosts at the ends like everything else (e.g., HTTP, FTP, SMTP, etc.) does. Regards, Scott -- Jacqueline Landman Gay| [EMAIL PROTECTED] HyperActive Software | [EMAIL PROTECTED] Custom hypermedia solutions | http://www.hyperactivesw.com 612.724.1596 | 612.724.1562 - fax Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/metacard%40lists.best.com/ Info: http://www.xworlds.com/metacard/mailinglist.htm Please send bug reports to [EMAIL PROTECTED], not this list. Scott Raney [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.metacard.com MetaCard: You know, there's an easier way to do that... Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/metacard%40lists.best.com/ Info: http://www.xworlds.com/metacard/mailinglist.htm Please send bug reports to [EMAIL PROTECTED], not this list.
Re: submenu items
On Thu, 9 Mar 2000, Craig Spooner wrote: Hi everyone, Is there a way to control which menu item gets hilited when you select a submenu from an option menu button? The menuHistory of such a button seems unaffected by the selection of a submenu item, and setting the label to the submenu item doesn't affect what gets hilited when you click on the button. Here's what I have so far, just to set the label to the submenu item: on menuPick whichPick set the itemDelimiter to "|" set the label of me to the last item of whichPick end menuPick Any suggestions? One: don't use submenus from option menus. They aren't supported on Windows at all, and AFAIK violate the GUI style guides on the other two platforms... Regards, Scott thanks, Craig /\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\ \/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/ Craig Spooner Office of Instructional Services Colorado State University Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/metacard%40lists.best.com/ Info: http://www.xworlds.com/metacard/mailinglist.htm Please send bug reports to [EMAIL PROTECTED], not this list. Scott Raney [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.metacard.com MetaCard: You know, there's an easier way to do that... Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/metacard%40lists.best.com/ Info: http://www.xworlds.com/metacard/mailinglist.htm Please send bug reports to [EMAIL PROTECTED], not this list.
Re: submenu items
On Thu, 9 Mar 2000, Craig Spooner wrote: On second thought, am I asking for something that would violate user-interface guidelines? It seemed to me like a feature I've seen before, but I can't seem to think of an actual example... Damn, you beat me to it. I guess it's just another example of the MetaCard motto: MetaCard: more than enough rope ;-) Scott Craig Scott Raney [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.metacard.com MetaCard: You know, there's an easier way to do that... Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/metacard%40lists.best.com/ Info: http://www.xworlds.com/metacard/mailinglist.htm Please send bug reports to [EMAIL PROTECTED], not this list.
Re: Load url reprise
On Thu, 9 Mar 2000 [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Hopefully these will help... I'm impressed. A complete client/server application in one message, and it even fits under the free Starter Kit limits ;-) Regards, Scott The following scripts work well for me in local one-machine tests. They require two stacks: a metacard "server" stack and the client stack. You will, of course, need to replace the "1.1.1.1" with your actual IP/domain name... In the server, I put: on openCard accept connections on port 8080 with message gotOne end openCard on gotOne theSocket write "OK" to socket theSocket close socket theSocket end gotOne In the client: on openCard checkOnline end openCard on checkOnline open socket to "1.1.1.1:8080" with message gotcha send "checkOnline" to this card in 10 seconds end checkOnline on gotcha s read from socket s for 1 line if (it = "OK") then put "Looks like we are online at"(the long time) else answer "Looks like the server is not responding." close socket s end gotcha on socketError answer "Looks like we are offline." end socketError Regards, Brian Scott Raney [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.metacard.com MetaCard: You know, there's an easier way to do that... Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/metacard%40lists.best.com/ Info: http://www.xworlds.com/metacard/mailinglist.htm Please send bug reports to [EMAIL PROTECTED], not this list.
Re: Load url reprise
Well, you deserve the credit on that... I wish I had about a month to do nothing but play with all of the sockets programming that I never wanted to deal with in C. Brian I'm impressed. A complete client/server application in one message, and it even fits under the free Starter Kit limits ;-) Regards, Scott Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/metacard%40lists.best.com/ Info: http://www.xworlds.com/metacard/mailinglist.htm Please send bug reports to [EMAIL PROTECTED], not this list.
