WarpDoctor - General Meeting for 2003-05-18
15:09:21 <WalterOS2> This meeting of Warpdoctor is now in session.
15:10:07 <WalterOS2> I'm taking the log in the absence of a secretary.
15:12:05 <WalterOS2> Doug: Have you had a chance to look at the agenda?
15:12:15 <Doug> Looked at it yesterday
15:13:26 <Gord> My attempts to look at the agenda right now are timing out.
15:13:35 <WalterOS2> Let's go to Item A: Old Business
15:13:43 <Doug> Am I to do the report on plug-in testing?
15:14:28 <WalterOS2> Yep.
15:14:34 <KenKrchnr> Gord: try http://warpdoctor.easydns.us/agendas/warpdoc_2003-05-18.html
15:14:39 <WalterOS2> Right now, if you please. :-)
15:14:54 <Doug> Ok - Gord and Ken helped test the plug-in install and site operation last week.
15:15:13 <Doug> Gord has a dial-up connection, Ken has high speed (as we all know)
15:15:51 <KenKrchnr> Unfortunately not from home where he attends the meetings :(
15:15:52 <Doug> The install program did not find Gord's Mozilla, so he had to copy one of the DLL files manually to his Mozilla plugins directory
15:16:05 <Gord> That's better.
15:16:39 <Doug> Ok - both Ken and Gord are suffering under the slow and primative dial-up conditions
15:17:21 <Doug> Gord sent me his OS2.INI file on Monday and I think I found why the install didn't find his mozilla.
15:17:31 <Doug> Which I have corrected and reposted on the site.
15:17:50 <WalterOS2> Can you enlighten us here?
15:18:28 <Doug> Yeah - the plug-in is installed using WarpIn. In WarpIN I have Rexx routines that look for which browsers are installed on the machine
15:18:54 <Doug> For Mozilla I was looking in OS2.INI for an entry under MOZILLA - CURRENT VERSION, which existed on my machine and not on his
15:19:19 <Doug> So I changed the Rexx routine to look for MOZILLA - HOME, which exists on both Gord's and my OS2.INI
15:19:19 <WalterOS2> Why not?
15:20:14 <WalterOS2> Is there a common phrase you can look for that will catch nearly all installations of Mozilla?
15:20:30 <Doug> I don't know why my OS2.INI had that entry or why Gord's didn't. It appears that Mozilla went throught some changes for the install on the various versions
15:21:02 <Doug> I THINK that the MOZILLA - HOME entry will always be there - at least for the next couple of versions, since that identifies where Mozilla is installed.
15:21:36 <Doug> But I cannot find some browsers. For instance ver 1 of IBM browser does not make an entry in OS2.INI, or anywhere else that I can find.
15:22:03 <Doug> And I believe that earlier versions of Mozilla, like before 1.1, also don't have an entry that I can find.
15:22:27 <WalterOS2> :-(
15:22:59 <Doug> Opera - on the other hand is found in the WarpIn install database DATABAS_C, and each entry changes depending on the version.
15:23:16 <Doug> Luckly there are only two versions that I know of, at least right now.
15:23:58 <Doug> The plug-in install file (wdRexxIn.WPI) is about 580K in size. And will probably stay about that size.
15:24:23 <Doug> I will try some different compression stuff to get the size smaller, but I am not holding by breath.
15:24:38 <WalterOS2> For later versions at least, you'll always find the phrase MOZILLA_HOME in the CONFIG.SYS when either Mozilla or IBM Browser are installed.
15:24:57 <WalterOS2> I don't know how much that will help.
15:26:35 <WalterOS2> One problem is that can be easily changed by the user. :-(
15:27:51 <Doug> well - to be more specific about Mozilla. before version 1.4 OS2.INI has an entry called MOZILLA. At version 1.4 the entry changes to MOZILLA 1.4a (en)
15:28:40 <Doug> Which probably means that different language versions will have different entries. The upshot is we may have a difficult time keeping the plug-in install routine uptodate enough to find the latest version of mozilla
15:29:13 <WalterOS2> Aren't multiple browsers and multiple versions thereof fun?
15:29:29 <WalterOS2> :-(
15:29:32 <Doug> Yeah - love it.
15:30:11 <wdl> Can't the server detect from the client's page request, what browser's being used?
15:30:50 <Doug> Yes we can. The problem would be getting that information from the server into the WarpIn install file to be used by the installer.
15:31:14 <Doug> Which could be done, but we would have to dynamically generate the install package at the time the user downloaded the package.
15:31:22 <wdl> Hmm. Seems like some spammer techniques are called for???
15:31:40 <WalterOS2> How about SSI?
15:31:50 <WalterOS2> Server Side Includes?
15:32:21 <Doug> The way the WarpIn install works is that 1) you write a install "script", which in our case contains WarpIn directives and Rexx routines
15:33:01 <Doug> then 2) you generate the WarpIn install file - the *.WPI file - with some commands that tell WarpIn which files are included in the *.WPI file
15:33:48 <Doug> The script is included as one of the files in the *.WPI file. When WarpIn starts it uses the script to determine what to display on the install screens, and where to put the stuff
15:34:40 <Doug> So we would have to dynamically generate the script so that it would contain the browser type/version, then generate the *.WPI package to that it contained the script
15:35:45 <WalterOS2> I wonder if the author of WarpIn would be willing to make some changes that would make it easier to transfer the necessary information from the Server to the Rexx plugin.
15:35:52 <Doug> Another alternative is to do a disk search of the user's machine to find the Mozilla, or other browser, executable. That would tell us where the browser is located, but it would be slow.
15:36:49 <Doug> I'll bet Ulrich would make some changes. I am getting ready to ask for some in the area of deinstall.
15:37:06 <WalterOS2> That would be great.
15:37:19 <wdl> I'd think that generating the script dynamically would be the best/surest way to go.
15:38:15 <Doug> The one disadvantage to dynamically generating the script - in order to find the currently being used browser - is that leaves out any other browsers the user may have installed on his machine.
15:38:26 <WalterOS2> wdl: That's already being done, anyway. Or have I misunderstood what you're saying?
15:38:51 <Doug> Right now we attempt to install the plugin to ALL the browers we can find on the users machine.
15:39:21 <WalterOS2> Yeah - I always have at least two--Netscape and Browser. When I find the time, I want to add Mozilla as well.
15:39:49 <WalterOS2> The Plugin would have a field day with that.
15:40:37 <Doug> What I would like to do is get some other people to try installing the plugin, so that I can see if there are any other gotchas out there we need to address.
15:41:11 <wdl> I have it installed. Not sure it works quite right.
15:41:21 <WalterOS2> Put out a message to that effect on the Warpdoctor list and on the VOICE News list.
15:41:48 <Doug> BTW walter - I have been using Mozilla v 1.4a and I like it. It works very well. Well - except for cache-ing
15:42:03 <Doug> Ok - I will do that in the near future.
15:42:08 <WalterOS2> What's wrong with the caching?
15:42:48 <Doug> Mozilla does not cache the files that it downloads for plug-in. Hence it re-downloads the same file over and over again.
15:43:09 <Doug> Netscape, on the other hand, does an excellent job of cache-ing the files.
15:43:32 <wdl> WalterOS2: Re "...have I misunderstood what..." - No; semantics, maybe.
15:44:43 <WalterOS2> Doug: The problem is that I don't want to rip out my working browser that's tuned the way I like it in order to test and set up another browser. Someone told me of a way I can install both Browser and Mozilla, and I want to do that so I can set up Mozilla while I still have Browser around in case something goes wrong, as it usually does.
15:45:22 <Doug> I don't blame you.
15:45:45 <WalterOS2> Doug: re: Mozilla: Not nice. What kind of performance hit does that cause?
15:46:26 <Doug> I will write my own cache-ing stuff for Mozilla after I get everything working.
15:46:58 <Doug> Generally speaking, netscape is faster than Mozilla in almost every circumstance. Sometimes significantly so.
15:47:13 <Doug> However Mozilla has some advantages that netscape doesn't have.
15:47:52 <Doug> I think that when we do our own caching, the difference in speed between Mozilla and Netscape will not be that great
15:48:41 <MADecsSMP> The 1.3 Mozilla is much better then IWB since it has DragnDrop support though. IWB is based on a much older version of Mozilla. As to configuration you can use the same with both I believe with "SET MOZILLA_HOME= " in config.sys
15:49:07 <MADecsSMP> Doug: When you say Netscape do you mean 4.61?
15:49:13 <Doug> yes
15:49:38 <WalterOS2> Tried that. Problem is that you can't install Mozilla if it sees any part of IWB around.
15:49:41 <Doug> Some of the advantages of Mozilla over netscape are. better DHTML, and it crashes much better.
15:49:57 <WalterOS2> That *used* to work. Not any more. :-(
15:50:06 <MADecsSMP> You have to remove the browser directoris from config.sys
15:50:42 <WalterOS2> I think I tried that as well, but I'm not sure.
15:51:03 <MADecsSMP> The lastest Warpzilla installer installed in my eCS 1.1 without a problem even with IWB.
15:52:13 <WalterOS2> However, if you remove the browser directories, it will not function.
15:52:39 <WalterOS2> OK, I'll give the latest one a try.
15:53:17 <WalterOS2> Mark: Were both browsers active or selectable at the same time?
15:53:20 <MADecsSMP> If you use any Mozilla enhancers like Multizilla, there are problems with Mozilla 1.4a, so I've been staying with 1.3
15:53:59 <MADecsSMP> WalterOS2: That isn't possible, since they are the same code source. They trip over one another in memory.
15:54:38 <WalterOS2> I really do want to install both browsers on my system: but I don't want to have to sacrifice or disable IWB to do it.
15:54:51 <WalterOS2> For the reasons I stated above.
15:54:58 <MADecsSMP> Though I think there is a parameter that can tell OS/2 to load the new DLL rather then use what is in memory
15:55:30 <MADecsSMP> Your choice. Warpzilla is just a newer/better version of IWB.
15:55:49 <wdl> Multiple browsers: But it's easy to have *all* of 'em installed. Just can't use them at the same time.
15:56:14 <wdl> I have 4-5 here; all work. Just need sometimes to re-boot to get at one or 2.
15:56:26 <WalterOS2> Bug IWB is working just fine, and setup the way I like it. I want to keep it around as a backup at least until I've Mozilla running the same way.
15:57:15 <WalterOS2> IOW, if it ain't broke, don't fix it. :-)
15:57:28 <WalterOS2> And certainly don't destroy it!!
15:57:49 <WalterOS2> Doug: DO you have any more to say about the plugin?
15:58:06 <Doug> nope - done on plug-in
15:58:40 <WalterOS2> Any questions or comments about the plugin or the discussion on the plugin.
15:59:25 <WalterOS2> I encourage to try installing it on as many browsers as possible and let Doug know of the results.
15:59:58 <Gord> Doug, do I have to clean anything up before I try?
16:00:30 <Doug> Probably best to deinstall first, then install new version.
16:01:09 <WalterOS2> OK, lets move on.
16:01:17 <WalterOS2> B: New Business
16:01:21 <Doug> Currently the deinstall icon/program doesn't get rid of all the files, so you have to manually delete the directory
16:01:30 <Gord> OK
16:01:56 <WalterOS2> Item A1: DB2 Engine
16:02:20 <WalterOS2> Doug: Where do we stand on the DB2 "engine" progress?
16:02:56 <Doug> I am finishing up the part that inserts a blob from a file to the database. I HOPE to have that done Monday.
16:03:09 <Doug> If so - that will complete the DB2 engine part.
16:03:27 <WalterOS2> Great.
16:04:02 <WalterOS2> B2: What else do we need to get to Phase 1?
16:04:57 <Doug> We (i) need to finish up the screens for inputing new information. There will be one screen for each "type" of content. i envision about 7-10 content "types"
16:05:11 <Doug> plus a screen for doing shadowing.
16:05:32 <Doug> Then we have to test this all on Apache v 2, then move to real server.
16:06:19 <Doug> then done.
16:07:26 <WalterOS2> OK, I'd like to put up something on the Warpdoctor web site to give folks an indication of what we're doing and how we're doing it.
16:07:59 <WalterOS2> Realistically, how far or close are we to/from that?
16:08:23 <Doug> thinking......
16:08:27 <WalterOS2> Obviously, all I expect is an estimate.
16:09:08 <Doug> well - let me say what I think is easy/well defined and what is not.
16:09:19 <Doug> The screens will be relatively easy and well defined.
16:09:42 <Doug> I wanted to have the ability to drag a file from the WPS to an icon/area of a web page to do input.
16:10:11 <Doug> For example, when it is time to upload the IRC meeting log, someone would just drag the log file to the Meetings folder
16:10:49 <Doug> I think I am going to have trouble getting DrRexx to recognize WPS file objects. So that is not well defined - meaning I have no idea how long it will take.
16:11:11 <Doug> Well defined. I believe the screens will take about 5-7 days to build.
16:11:20 <WalterOS2> Is this a Rexx limitation?
16:11:55 <Doug> It is a DrRexx limitation. It will only recognize three different "types" of objects when allowing drops.
16:12:14 <Doug> I think there may be ways around, but I won't know until I look at it.
16:12:15 <WalterOS2> Oops!
16:13:00 <Doug> Getting a JavaScript type of folder view to work on browsers where people do not have the plug-in installed will take 1-3 days
16:13:20 <Doug> moving from my server to the "real" server will take 1-2 days.
16:13:46 <WalterOS2> Just to refresh my memory, what browsers are we initially supporting?
16:14:01 <Doug> Finishing up the triggers to buildthe CHANGES table - which keeps track of every change in the database, in order to update the mirror site, will take 1-2 days.
16:14:24 <Doug> For INPUT, we are supporting the plug-in only. For VIEWING, we are supporting all browsers.
16:14:43 <Doug> Supporting plug-in only for input in PHASE I
16:15:38 <WalterOS2> What browsers will the Plugin support?
16:15:55 <WalterOS2> I know we just talked about that, but...
16:16:53 <Doug> plugin should support netscape 4.04/4.61, Mozilla 1.1a - 1.x, IBM WEB v 2 and up, Opera
16:17:05 <WalterOS2> Doug: thx
16:18:37 <Doug> To further complicate the schedule, I will be gone 2 days this coming week, and gone the week after for the entire week.
16:19:51 <WalterOS2> Better plug that into your Gantt chart. <grin>
16:19:57 <KenKrchnr> Apache ver on the server is 1.3. Do you need ver 2?
16:20:49 <Doug> I don't know. I have seen some troubling behaviour with ver 1.3 on my machine. I was hoping that version 2.0 wouldn't have the same problems.
16:21:15 <Doug> It may be however that this is preculiar to my machine, rather than to ver 1.3
16:22:21 <Doug> I also have seen some bad things with IBM web server - right after I publicly said it was better than apache
16:23:12 <KenKrchnr> With new version of web server? That's now based on ver 2 Apache.
16:23:59 <Doug> No - with the older version. Is there a brand new IBM web server available?
16:24:14 <KenKrchnr> Yes, but not for OS/2 :(
16:25:04 <Rat-Salad> I think we need to give Apache 2.x a test run
16:25:14 <Doug> too bad
16:25:19 <WalterOS2> Good idea.
16:25:22 <Doug> I agree
16:26:16 <KenKrchnr> We can put it on "Voice2" for testing. That way it won't interfere with the running server.
16:26:30 <Rat-Salad> very well
16:28:33 <WalterOS2> BTW, for those not present at yesterday's VOICE meeting, at that meeting we passed the motion to subscribe to dyndns.org for 5 domains.
16:29:17 <Doug> good
16:34:03 <WalterOS2> Item B3: Web site
16:34:28 <WalterOS2> I noticed that Jeremy has updated the officers on the membership page.
16:34:33 <WalterOS2> Thanks, Jeremy.
16:34:54 <WalterOS2> What are the other updates, you had in mind?
16:37:46 <WalterOS2> Item B4: Status of Input Form
16:38:07 <WalterOS2> Sorry:- I put the wrong word on the agenda. :-(
16:38:27 <WalterOS2> Doug: I take it you now have the form?
16:38:46 <Doug> I don't think I do
16:39:39 <WalterOS2> After some thought, I seem to remember it got sent to Jeremy for posting on web.
16:39:51 <WalterOS2> on the web.
16:40:15 <Rat-Salad> no, I don't think it was
16:41:11 <WalterOS2> Well, it was on the web because I remember looking at it and making some comments.
16:41:25 <WalterOS2> Whose site was it on?
16:41:35 <Rat-Salad> wdl's
16:41:52 <WalterOS2> wdl: Do you have the URL?
16:41:55 <Doug> it was on Bill's site, wasn't it?
16:42:01 <Rat-Salad> yep
16:42:21 <WalterOS2> We're all ganging up on poor Bill. :-)
16:43:17 <WalterOS2> wdl: Are you there?
16:44:48 <WalterOS2> Does anyone have the URL from a previous meeting log?
16:45:19 <wdl> Ooops!!! Attention wandered. Wait one, while I read stuff...Was
16:46:24 <wdl> It's at: http://pws.prserv.net/wdl/hcl/input.html
16:47:09 <WalterOS2> thx
16:48:03 <wdl> Each of the two pages correctly links to the other...
16:48:54 <WalterOS2> Doug: You need to have this form, am I correct?
16:49:04 <wdl> And remember, the graphics are screwed-up 'cause I didn't have the whole set...
16:49:07 <Doug> I can get it from the URL
16:49:40 <WalterOS2> OK: Can I now make you the official holder of the input form? <g>
16:50:01 <Doug> yeah - go ahead
16:50:12 <WalterOS2> We need a transfer sheet for this form, or something.
16:50:39 <WalterOS2> So ordered. You're in big trouble if you lose it. <VBG>
16:51:26 <WalterOS2> Please let us know when you want us/someone to test it by inputing data into your database.
16:51:53 <Doug> OK
16:51:58 <WalterOS2> Thx
16:52:23 <WalterOS2> That's the end of what I have on the agenda.
16:52:55 <WalterOS2> Any questions or discussion relating to any of the above?
16:54:40 <WalterOS2> I guess not.
16:54:58 <Doug> move to adjourn
16:55:13 <WalterOS2> My sentiments exactly. :-)
16:55:25 <WalterOS2> All in favour, please type Aye.
16:55:36 <Doug> Bye - I mean Aye
16:55:47 <KenKrchnr> Aye
16:56:37 <WalterOS2> All opposed, pleased type Nay
16:56:59 <WalterOS2> Carried. Meeting adjourned.
16:57:16 <WalterOS2> Thanks for coming, everyone.