gutenpalm-general Mailing List for Weasel Reader

Dear Open Source developer

I am doing a research project on "Fun and Software Development" in which I
kindly invite you to participate.
You will find the online survey under http://fasd.ethz.ch/qsf/. The
questionnaire consists of 53 questions and you will need about 15 minutes to
complete it.

With the FASD project (Fun and Software Development) we want to define the
motivational significance of fun when software developers decide to engage
in Open Source projects. What is special about our research project is that
a similar survey is planned with software developers in commercial firms.
This procedure allows the immediate comparison between the involved
individuals and the conditions of production of these two development
models. Thus we hope to obtain substantial new insights to the phenomenon of
Open Source Development.


With many thanks for your participation,
Benno Luthiger


PS:
The results of the survey will be published under
http://www.isu.unizh.ch/fuehrung/blprojects/FASD/.
We have set up the mailing list fa...@we... for this study. Please
see http://fasd.ethz.ch/qsf/mailinglist_de.html for registration to this
mailing list.

_______________________________________________________________________

Benno Luthiger
Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich
8092 Zurich

Mail: benno.luthiger(at)id.ethz.ch
_______________________________________________________________________

As a followup, with this in place Weasel seems to be the very nicest
ebook reader I've been able to find, bar none.

I saw lots of comments about DeepReader, but its text isn't nearly
as clear and easy to read, and it's _way_ slower.

Weasel rules.

-Bennett

Having failed to build with the Sony SDK, but having found that the
Copy Mode looks _dead_sexy_ on my 320x320, PalmOS 4.1 Sony Clie
PEG-SJ22/U with "High Resolution Assist" enabled (HiRes "category"
in Prefs), I've been going /O or sometimes using the menues for
edit/Toggle Copy Mode, every time I open an etext. When I'm going
through stacks of comparatively short articles I've downloaded, each
in a separate doc, this got sorta tedious.

A very quick peek through the code led me to try:

diff -ru gutenpalm/weasel/weasel_docview.c gutenpalm-bent/weasel/weasel_doc=
view.c
--- gutenpalm/weasel/weasel_docview.c	2003-08-18 04:20:29.000000000 -0400
+++ gutenpalm-bent/weasel/weasel_docview.c	2003-10-27 11:17:04.000000000 -0=
500
@@ -90,6 +90,8 @@
   UInt16        err;
 #endif
=20
+  gCurrentDoc.copyMode =3D 1;
+
   switch (e->eType)
     {
       case frmOpenEvent:

which works, albeit not perfectly. With this rude, revolting, and
apparently wrong hack, it does seem to nicely default to copyMode
on whenever I go into an ebook, so I'm happy, but experimenting
shows that "Toggle Copy Mode" is broken by this hack; while hitting
it once, either with /O or through the menus, will go back to the
scrofulous text, hitting it again doesn't re-enable copyMode --- the
only way I can find to get back is to close and re-open the doc, or
to exit and re-start Weasel.

So my hack is wrong, but for those of us with HiRes screens it may
be appealing. _I_ like it for my own use, anyway.

-Bennett

2003-09-15T09:54:27 Bennett Todd:
> I'm thinking about getting myself a newer, higher-end Clie w/
> high-res screen, figured I'd try and get a little closer to
> building the all-singing all-dancing weasel.

I didn't see any response, and I've not yet made time to wade into
the sources and try and guess how the Sony SDK should be installed
for compiling to work, but I went ahead and treated myself to a Clie
PEG-SJ22/U[nano-review below], and had little difficulty getting my
"basic no-frills build" of a recent CVS Gutenpalm to look very sweet
indeed.

I enabled the "Enable High Resolution Assist" in the HiRes sub-menu
of the Prefs app, then went to Weasel's Options/Display Prefs and
requested Large font, then used /O (shortcut for Edit/Toggle Copy
Mode) to get Weasel to ask PalmOS to do normal text rendering, and
voila, a sharp and clear and beautiful font. If only I could make
"Copy Mode" default all the time, alas.

But I'm willing to live with it.

nano-review of the Sony Clie PEG-SJ22/U: I like it. Cost me US$175
at the local preposterously overpriced Comp*USA, so it's probably
available for much less than that for someone with the patience to
shop around. 320x320 color screen, looks as nice as any handheld
screen I've seen, much much sharper, brighter, better contrast,
clearer than the 160x160 mono on my previous PEG-S360. Battery life
seems tolerable despite obviously more power-hungry display; I can
still spend many hours reading in Weasel between charges, all I've
wanted to in a single day, so I'm Ok with just the one charger at
home. Other than the display, the specs are nearly identical to my
older PEG-S360: 16MB RAM, memory stick slot, jogwheel. PalmOS 4.1.
It adds another button, called the "back" button, right below the
jog-wheel; a quick tap exits an app and takes you "back" to the main
"Apps" --- i.e. like hitting the Apps silk-screen. Hold it down and
it brings up the main menu in whatever app you're in. No biggie, but
does make possible a little more one-handed operation.

It's a touch thicker than the PEG-S360 it replaced, and perhaps a
touch heavier, but not really any more intrusive in a shirt pocket.

All in all I'm quite delighted; I'm into the high-priced screens on
a low-priced handheld.

And Weasel is still far and away my favourite ebook reader.

-Bennett

Hi,

I am using Weasel 1.59.3 on a Palm m105. I had nearly no problems 
(except for that small inconvenience that Weasel complains about the 
version of the zText files generated by makeztxt-1.60), but recently I 
loaded a new text on my palm...

That one I could read with Weasel, then I switched to another 
application and turned off the Palm. From that moment on, it became 
impossible to start Weasel again - it always stucks with an empty 
screen. The only way to revive the Palm seems to be a reset.

I would suggest Weasel not to start immediately with the most recently 
read text on display...

Kind regards
k.j.

I'm thinking about getting myself a newer, higher-end Clie w/
high-res screen, figured I'd try and get a little closer to building
the all-singing all-dancing weasel.

So I downloaded, updated, and converted to the PalmOS 5.0 SDK using
palmos-sdk-5.0-1.noarch.rpm and running palmdev-prep.

I downloaded cliesdk50e.zip, unpacked it in
/usr/local/palmdev/sony-sdk/, symlinked the files from
subdirectories into that directory, and edited off the carriage
returns from the files.

With that, I get as far as the build output I've put up at
<URL:http://bent.latency.net/ouch>, which gives warnings in
compiles, and a failed link.

What should I be doing different?

Thanks,

-Bennett

2003-09-04T21:06:04 John Gruenenfelder:
> On Wed, Sep 03, 2003 at 08:08:03AM -0400, Bennett Todd wrote:
> >I'm willing to turn 'em all back on again if you'd like. Where
> >should I go to get the Sony and Handera SDK headers?
>=20
> No, you might as well keep your build as it is.

Great! I'll be delighted to do so! It's working fine for me now.

> The whole point of those options is that you should be able to
> turn them off.  If Weasel stops working when you do, then that's a
> bug.

And you'll hear from me. Silence implies that all's swell.

> The Handera and Sony SDKs can be had by going to the Handera and
> Sony developer sites.  Like Palm's SDK, you'll need to register on
> the sites first.

Interestingly, I didn't have to register to pick up Palm's SDK.

-Bennett

On Wed, Sep 03, 2003 at 08:08:03AM -0400, Bennett Todd wrote:
>
>I'm willing to turn 'em all back on again if you'd like. Where
>should I go to get the Sony and Handera SDK headers?

No, you might as well keep your build as it is.  The whole point of those
options is that you should be able to turn them off.  If Weasel stops working
when you do, then that's a bug.

The Handera and Sony SDKs can be had by going to the Handera and Sony
developer sites.  Like Palm's SDK, you'll need to register on the sites first.


-- 
--John Gruenenfelder    Research Assistant, Steward Observatory, U of Arizona
                        jo...@as...
Try Weasel Reader for PalmOS  --  http://gutenpalm.sf.net
"This is the most fun I've had without being drenched in the blood
of my enemies!"
        --Sam of Sam & Max

2003-09-02T20:31:58 John Gruenenfelder:
> I am not aware of any incompatibilites in any of the database formats.  It
> *should* all work just fine.

Cool! If the problem recurs, I'll certainly report. If you want me
to reconstruct the setup that croaked I should be able to, though I
don't know how quickly I'll be able to get at that.

> Is this the CVS build with lots of features turned off?

Yes, I'm using:

        NO_VFS = 1
        NO_HELP_TEXT = 1
        NO_ROT = 1
        NO_HANDERA = 1
        NO_SONY = 1
        NO_HYPHEN = 1
        NO_DPAD = 1
        NO_SDK50 = 1

I'm willing to turn 'em all back on again if you'd like. Where
should I go to get the Sony and Handera SDK headers?

> It could be possible that this caused the problems.  Building
> Weasel in this manner should behave just fine, but it receives
> much less testing since most people download the full version from
> Sourceforge.

Well, unless asked to do otherwise, I'll keep running my oddball
miniweasel and report if I see any further weirdness.

-Bennett

On Tue, Sep 02, 2003 at 03:34:20PM -0400, Bennett Todd wrote:
>I just built myself the current CVS, and just borfed it on top of my
>1.59.3 without deleting anything else.
>
>At first things seemed fine, but then scrolling started getting
>squirrly --- scolled by odd amounts, thumbwheel on my Clie seemed to
>have its direction reversed --- then it crashed. After the reset I
>deleted absolutely everything, all the old docs, weasel, its docinfo
>db, the whole schmeer, and loaded up a doc. Seems to be stable and
>fine.
>
>If I run into anything new I'll of course post, but anybody know if
>the current CVS's expectation for weasel databases is incompatible
>with 1.59.3?
>
>Thanks,
>-Bennett

I am not aware of any incompatibilites in any of the database formats.  It
*should* all work just fine.  Is this the CVS build with lots of features
turned off?  It could be possible that this caused the problems.  Building
Weasel in this manner should behave just fine, but it receives much less
testing since most people download the full version from Sourceforge.

Please keep us posted if you have any other odd problems with the CVS code.


-- 
--John Gruenenfelder    Research Assistant, Steward Observatory, U of Arizona
                        jo...@as...
Try Weasel Reader for PalmOS  --  http://gutenpalm.sf.net
"This is the most fun I've had without being drenched in the blood
of my enemies!"
        --Sam of Sam & Max

On Tue, Sep 02, 2003 at 03:29:56PM -0400, Bennett Todd wrote:
>Anybody have any back archives in mbox (or Maildir, or any other
>format I can whack w/ perl to convert into such)?
>
>Worst comes to worst I can hack up a screen-scraper for the web
>archives interface, but that's always icky.
>
>Thanks,
>-Bennett

I have all the messages, but they are mixed in with all of my other Weasel
mail.  However, the traffic on this list has been very light and it shouldn't
take more than a few minutes to actually read ALL of the available posts.
:)


-- 
--John Gruenenfelder    Research Assistant, Steward Observatory, U of Arizona
                        jo...@as...
Try Weasel Reader for PalmOS  --  http://gutenpalm.sf.net
"This is the most fun I've had without being drenched in the blood
of my enemies!"
        --Sam of Sam & Max

I just built myself the current CVS, and just borfed it on top of my
1.59.3 without deleting anything else.

At first things seemed fine, but then scrolling started getting
squirrly --- scolled by odd amounts, thumbwheel on my Clie seemed to
have its direction reversed --- then it crashed. After the reset I
deleted absolutely everything, all the old docs, weasel, its docinfo
db, the whole schmeer, and loaded up a doc. Seems to be stable and
fine.

If I run into anything new I'll of course post, but anybody know if
the current CVS's expectation for weasel databases is incompatible
with 1.59.3?

Thanks,

-Bennett

Anybody have any back archives in mbox (or Maildir, or any other
format I can whack w/ perl to convert into such)?

Worst comes to worst I can hack up a screen-scraper for the web
archives interface, but that's always icky.

Thanks,

-Bennett

2003-02-10T13:49:37 John Gruenenfelder:
> The easy way to check is to press the "Info" button in the Weasel
> index screen.  Under flags, if you see "Random access" listed,
> then the file is -z1, otherwise it is -z2.

Ah-HAA! Thank you!

You diagnosed this one 100% perfectly, despite my lack of helpful
info.

I found an offending doc in backups, reloaded it, and checked that
info button; sure enough, unlike the docs I encode lately, it's
lacking the Random access flag in info.

I'm really delighted that this is a known and already-fixed bug.

-Bennett

>and as I'm not toggling the --random-access flag, I'd presume that
>I'm using -z1.
>
>Is there an easy way for someone to examine a .pdb file, perhaps
>using pdbdump from the p5-Palm package (provides Palm::PDB, by
>Andrew Arensburger) to check the -z option setting in a database?
>
>It's possible that this has actually only shown up with older docs
>that I encoded with makeztxt, and it's also possible that I encoded
>some with -z2, and my memory is failing me horribly. If I can easily
>check with some command, that'd be great. Otherwise I'll wait for it
>to happen again and send in the offending zTXT .pdb file.

There is a particular byte you can check in record #0 of the file, but that's
a pain.  The easy way to check is to press the "Info" button in the Weasel
index screen.  Under flags, if you see "Random access" listed, then the file
is -z1, otherwise it is -z2.  The other way to tell is that -z2 documents must
be completely decompressed when you first start reading, regardless of how you
have the "Decompress whole document" option set.


-- 
--John Gruenenfelder    Research Assistant, Steward Observatory, U of Arizona
                        jo...@as...
Try Weasel Reader for PalmOS  --  http://gutenpalm.sf.net
"This is the most fun I've had without being drenched in the blood
of my enemies!"
        --Sam of Sam & Max

2003-02-10T12:48:51 John Gruenenfelder:
> If your documents are not of the -z2 variety, please let me know.

I'm terribly sorry, I don't know for sure. I started off using
makeztxt, but the fact that I couldn't recover the plain ASCII text
from documents created with that program was always an annoyance.
When I discovered that pyrpub -P CopyDoc,TextOutput could recover
the ASCII source from weasel docs created with pyrpub -P zTXT, but
it couldn't recover the source to docs created with makedoc, that
motivated me to switch encoders.

I _think_ that pyrpub defaults to -z1. makeztxt --help includes:

        -z, --compression  method of compression (1 or 2)
                1 = allow random access (default)
                2 = one big data stream (10% more compression)

while pyrpub --help includes:

Plugin: zTXT 1.99.4 by Rob Tillotson <ro...@py...>
Outputs to a zTXT (Gutenpalm) database.

  -d, --output-directory STR Set the output directory
  -o STR                     Set the output filename
  --random-access            Toggle random access (default is on)
  -t, --title STR            Set the document title

and as I'm not toggling the --random-access flag, I'd presume that
I'm using -z1.

Is there an easy way for someone to examine a .pdb file, perhaps
using pdbdump from the p5-Palm package (provides Palm::PDB, by
Andrew Arensburger) to check the -z option setting in a database?

It's possible that this has actually only shown up with older docs
that I encoded with makeztxt, and it's also possible that I encoded
some with -z2, and my memory is failing me horribly. If I can easily
check with some command, that'd be great. Otherwise I'll wait for it
to happen again and send in the offending zTXT .pdb file.

-Bennett

On Fri, Feb 07, 2003 at 01:52:19PM -0500, Bennett Todd wrote:
>I really love this program, even with the problem I have at the
>moment --- it's a beautiful piece of work.

Thank you very much.

>I'm not at all certain that my problem is actually caused by Weasel.
>I'm not even sure it's a software problem, rather than a hardware
>problem. But if there's anything I can do to help diagnose whether
>it's a Weasel problem, and if so what, I'll be glad to try.
>
>This doesn't happen anything like all the time, nowhere near. I
>_Believe_ it tends to happen when I'm reading an etext and go
>directly to calendar, either by hitting "goto" when an alarm pops
>up, or by using the calendar hard button; and that any of a number
>of minor changes in behavior --- closing the book before switching,
>or hitting the Applications silk-screen button to get out of Weasel
>before going into calendar, suffices to prevent the problem.

Based on some other reports, I believe this is a problem with how Weasel is
treating documents that are created with the -z2 option to makeztxt.  That is,
any document that must be fully decompressed before you can read it.

This problem should be fixed in the current CVS code.  It was caused by
freeing the document list before the cached data had been dealt with.

>If there's anything else I can do to assist in debugging this (or in
>proving that it's not Weasel's fault at all) please let me know.
>
>Thanks again for the terrific ebook reader.

If your documents are not of the -z2 variety, please let me know.


-- 
--John Gruenenfelder    Research Assistant, Steward Observatory, U of Arizona
                        jo...@as...
Try Weasel Reader for PalmOS  --  http://gutenpalm.sf.net
"This is the most fun I've had without being drenched in the blood
of my enemies!"
        --Sam of Sam & Max

I really love this program, even with the problem I have at the
moment --- it's a beautiful piece of work.

I'm not at all certain that my problem is actually caused by Weasel.
I'm not even sure it's a software problem, rather than a hardware
problem. But if there's anything I can do to help diagnose whether
it's a Weasel problem, and if so what, I'll be glad to try.

I have a Sony Clie PEG-S360; very occasionally I get MemoryMgr.c,
Line:4384, Free handle reset popup. (To be more precise, very
occasionaly I get a hang crash with some kind of popup, and the last
time it happened I jotted down the above, I'm not sure it's always
exactly the same message).

The "reset" soft button in the popup is inactive, a hard reset
works, the code in Weasel to detect when this happens at startup and
give the "Unclean exit!" popup works, and I lose nothing.

This doesn't happen anything like all the time, nowhere near. I
_Believe_ it tends to happen when I'm reading an etext and go
directly to calendar, either by hitting "goto" when an alarm pops
up, or by using the calendar hard button; and that any of a number
of minor changes in behavior --- closing the book before switching,
or hitting the Applications silk-screen button to get out of Weasel
before going into calendar, suffices to prevent the problem.

At the moment I don't have an etext that provokes the problem
convenient to hand, I took down the above notes (about the popup
error) but forgot to keep a copy of the etext I was reading at the
time, I'm sorry. It was a conversion using Pyrite Publisher, rather
an old version I believe (2.0.0), generated by taking the Project
Gutenberg etext of Jules Verne's Around the World in 80 Days in the
original french, and simply going "pyrpub -P zTXT" at it. And I'm
not even sure the problem is reproduceable with a specific etext,
I'm sorry.

My Clie PEG-S360 has 16MB RAM, runs PalmOS 4.0, as 160x160
monochrome LCD, has memory stick; I disable the VFS scan in Weasel,
as I just use the Sony-provided builtin utility "MS Gate" to copy
etexts from the memory stick into ram when I want to look at them.

If I can find an etext that makes the problem seem reproduceable
I'll certainly send you a copy.

If there's anything else I can do to assist in debugging this (or in
proving that it's not Weasel's fault at all) please let me know.

Thanks again for the terrific ebook reader.

-Bennett

If someone is able to get WeaselWeb working in Linux
and has a sample ini or other changes to the code I'll
be happy to include them in the package.  (However,
I'll be going on vacation for a couple of weeks
starting July 23. B)

Also, I just wanted to see how this mailing list thing
works.  Hey, maybe there is something to it. ;)

__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Health - Feel better, live better
http://health.yahoo.com

On Mon, Apr 22, 2002 at 04:34:56PM +0200, Michael Panteleit wrote:
>Hi,
>
>is this Mailing-List still active?
>
>I found a bug in the current CVS.
>
>On compilation I get a lot of errors like
>
>Vga.h: No such file or directory
>
>I guess the '#define NO_HANDERA' line comes to late to disable the
>'#include <Vga.h>'.

Yeah, it's still active... most people don't use it though.  They post to the
SF message board (though I think the list is better for discussion).

It would appear that I need to add the line

#include "weasel_config.h"

at the beginning of a few more files.  Then NO_HANDERA will be defined early
and not cause problems.  I'll fix that when I get home.


-- 
--John Gruenenfelder    Research Assistant, Steward Observatory, U of Arizona
jo...@as...
"This is the most fun I've had without being drenched in the blood
of my enemies!"
        --Sam of Sam & Max

Hi,

is this Mailing-List still active?

I found a bug in the current CVS.

On compilation I get a lot of errors like

Vga.h: No such file or directory

I guess the '#define NO_HANDERA' line comes to late to disable the
'#include <Vga.h>'.


Greetings,
Meikel

This version incorporates VFS support for those devices with expansion memory
and VFS capabilities.

There were a number of changes to add VFS support, but the emulator seems
happy enough.  Please test and report.

To make use of the VFS support, place documents in the /PALM/Launcher
directory on your expansion card/stick.  Weasel will find them and put them in
the index.  There is a new option in the preferences menu regarding importing
DBs from expansion memory to main memory.  If you do this, the files are
writable (if allowed by the file settings on the VFS volume).  If you don't do
this, they'll be read-only.  Other than this, everything else should be
transparent.

Some other changes include much better (and accurate) measuring of free memory
on the device, and the addition of weasel_io.[ch] files.  These files make up
an abstraction layer for opening documents.  Depending on the location and
read-only status of the doc, they will either use the Data Manager API or the
VFS API to open files and handle all the other little bits.


-- 
--John Gruenenfelder    Research Assistant, Steward Observatory, U of Arizona
jo...@as...
"This is the most fun I've had without being drenched in the blood
of my enemies!"
        --Sam of Sam & Max

Hello again all.

I've finally gotten some time to work on Weasel again.  Big updates too!
You can now read PalmDoc files with Weasel!  Seems to work well with my
testing, but please give it a go.  Only partial decompression is supported
right now, but that's what most everyone will use anyway.  No bookmarks or
annotations, though.

The prefs dialogs have been overhauled and a new Scroll Preferences dialog has
been added.  You can now configure the behavior of the up/down buttons and
screen tapping all independantly.  You can also specify lines of context to
keep, and which autoscroll mode you want to use (there's two now).

The custom font support still needs testing.  It's a big hack, but it seems to
work most of the time.  If you switch between several fonts in one session, it
likes to crash.  Not sure what's causing that yet.

The category stuff isn't done yet, but hopefully soon.  I need to learn how to
use the Palm table functions.  For now, the category ID is always zero, which
effectively disables it.  Had to do this because sometimes a doc wouldn't show
up under any category.  :(

There have been a few patches submitted (see the ChangeLog) for scrolling
enhancements.  One adds a skip table to speed things up (GNU regex does
something similar).  The other adds the ability to use ^ and $ in search
strings to match beginning and end of line, respectively.

Please test all you can and let me know.  If you need a binary, I can provide
one, otherwise build from CVS.  Current version is 1.51.


-- 
--John Gruenenfelder    Research Assistant, Steward Observatory, U of Arizona
jo...@as...
"This is the most fun I've had without being drenched in the blood
of my enemies!"
        --Sam of Sam & Max

On Fri, Oct 12, 2001 at 10:41:08AM -0400, Walt Walton wrote:
>Does GutenPalm support the pdbs resident on the above cards?
>Thanks.
>
>Walt W. Walton

Currently, there is support for docs in Flash.  Flash is treated as ordinary
ROM, so the docs will be read-only.  MMC support will hopefully be added for
v1.60, since Palm has some good docs for it.

SD is not supported right now.... if it's what I think it is.  If it pretends
to be regular ROM, like Flash does, then it should be okay.  If it needs any
special support, then there currently isn't any.  But, you're more than
welcome to add this feature if you like.


-- 
--John Gruenenfelder    Research Assistant, Steward Observatory, U of Arizona
jo...@as...
"This is the most fun I've had without being drenched in the blood
of my enemies!"
        --Sam of Sam & Max

Does GutenPalm support the pdbs resident on the above cards?
Thanks.

Walt W. Walton
wa...@ww...