Subject: MN: RE: Re: HTML ruleset...

From: "Wayper, Paul" <WayperP@p...>
Date: Fri, 31 Jul 1998 08:49:06 +1000

On Thursday, July 30, 1998 11:40 PM, Kevan Davis
[SMTP:kdavis@i...] wrote:
> miKi gave me a few comments on the HTML ruleset, via private email - I
> thought I'd reply to them on-list, to see what the rest of you think
> about my thoughts...

If I may also add my congratulations for the HTMLised ruleset as well.
It's much easier to read, and I'm tending to follow hyperlinks around a
lot more (and that way you don't have to step through all the other
references to, say, "Block").

> Yers. I'll be overhauling my entire page at some point in the
probably-
> not-too-distant future - people have tsked my main pages for their
> darkness, in the past. I really need to draw some graphics and think
of
> a new name for it.

What _would_ the world be without Darker Street? I must say I always
liked the Perhaps Gate, with its nice thematic moai (sp?) and tiled
background. But I think you've got a lot more creative artistic talent
than me, who just puts up a very simple rendered picture (I'm still
thinking about how to do the picture for an image-map, but fitting that
in with the rest of the stuff I do here is difficult at best.)

> "_Hat_ton Cross" is an entertaining one, too. Just a matter of telling
> it which exceptions to make, really; although I've reformatted the
> Ruleset to make it easier to interpret, rewording it just to keep the
> software happy is perhaps a step too far.

Just make sure you search for words - e.g. use " Block " instead of
"Block".

> 
> >4. My only criticism is that the opportunity could be taken to split
the
> > HTML version into many smaller files. It make sense to have one
large
> > text formatted version, but FAQ's and such, when converted to HTML
> > usualy split each section up placing "Previous (Section title) | 
> > Up (Contents) | Next (Section title)" links at the top and bottom
of
> > each individual page to help navigation. I like the this format.
> >
> > This also allows one to easily print out an individual rule and
> > pour over it with pen, useful when trying to work out the exact
> > meaning of a rule...
> 
> This was something I dithered over quite a bit - although having
multiple
> pages permits the printing of particular sections, and saves you from
> having to load the whole page in when you only want to check one
thing,
> the single-file approach allows the reader to search for things which
> might not be in the index (even with the best index, people will still
> wonder things like "Hmm - I wonder how many things Terminus Stations
> affect?" and want to search for the string), and to just save the
entire
> ruleset onto their hard drive for perusal at off-line leisure, or for
> printing in one go.

I don't mind the large page - although my internet connection is good
and fast and therefore easier for me to load. You could, however, do
both - just run a script over the single-page ruleset to generate the
page-per-section version.

> Perhaps I'll just tinker the software so that it produces both a split
> and a single ruleset; I'll probably rewrite the thing in C or
something
> (it's in - horrors - QBasic at the moment, since I had no other
languages
> to hand) when I can get my claws on a decent compiler and whatnot.
> Shouldn't be too nightmarish.

I'd recommend Perl here, but then I'm totally biased, because I love how
hackish it is. Searching for distinct patterns is simple, and you get
lots of flexibility in the search-and-replace, and the whole 'read each
line of a file doing X to it' is so much easier to code in Perl. You
can get Perl for Win95 and various other 32bit OSs...

obPerl - how do I convert a series of filenames in the form
messages.day.month.year.ext to an 8.3 format? With one Perl line:

s/messages\.(.*)\.(.*)\.(.*)\.ext/$3$2$1.ext/

Obscure, but it works a treat and is so much quicker and neater and
easier to debug (once you understand it).

PaulWay - JAPH :-)

Paul Wayper -- DPI ITS Computer Systems Officer
_____________________________________________________________________
SigClean 1.5a prevents all errors in transcription, transmission, and
reception of eMail, destroys sig and email viruses, and stops flames.
If it doesn't seem to work, contact me and I'll fix it. (c) 1998 PJW

---

From: Kevan Davis <kdavis@i...>
Date: Fri, 31 Jul 1998 10:15:34 +0100 (BST)

>What _would_ the world be without Darker Street?

Arguably a better place. I currently aim, with difficulty, for some sort
of new Web page theme that isn't going to make potential employers follow
the links from my CV and quietly cross my name off in case I resign or
kill myself a few months into a major project. A Tube-map style thing
seemed reasonably neutral, but I'm not sure I can match up enough station
names to pages.

>Just make sure you search for words - e.g. use " Block " instead of

I suppose, yes. It is, of course, handy to have it pick up on "Blocks",
"Blocked", "Blocking" and whatnot, but there are only a small number of
such variations.

>page-per-section version.

Probably easier, actually, yes.

>hackish it is.

I nearly, nearly got into it a few times, at the suggestion of ex-Thring
Speaker Anthony, who swore by it. Never quite got around to downloading
it, though. Perhaps I'll have a look today.

Kevan

--
kdavis@i... - http://www.innotts.co.uk/~elusive/kevan - UIN: 5998366
"Drinking different-coloured wines or beers,
just quite frankly leaves me bored to tears."
-- The Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band, "I'm Bored"