Start Multiview on a give Aguide node

Posted on: 2012/6/6 14:47 #1

Just can't stay away

Is it possible to start Multiview directly on a given node of an Aguide document?

Re: Start Multiview on a give Aguide node

Posted on: 2012/6/6 18:39 #2

Amigans Defender

You can open an AmigaGuide document programmatically on any node through amigaguide.library. I think the old AmigaGuide program can do it too.

With MultiView, however, I can't see any way of doing it. You can probably open the document and then send an ARexx command to change the node, but I can't find a list of MultiView ARexx commands to check. There's a "bookmark" feature too, but God only knows how that works. I don't think I've ever seen any documentation for MultiView!

abalaban

Re: Start Multiview on a give Aguide node

Posted on: 2012/6/7 10:14 #3

Quite a regular

It depends from where you are trying to do that.
IIRC from an AmigaGuide document you can link to another using hyperlink and there you can specify the node to open, I can't check right now but I think it's something like
"mydoc.guide@mynode" but this need check (maybe it's a slash but it seems suspect to me because of possible confusion with the path separator).

Back to a quiet home... At last

Re: Start Multiview on a give Aguide node

Posted on: 2012/6/7 10:40 #4

Just can't stay away

@abalaban

I am trying to open the doc & a selected node directly from CLI.
If Amigaguide.library allows it, it seems to be just the matter to write a CLI command that does exactly that.
I would be surprised if nobody ever wrote that & of course expected multiview could do it.

Elwood

Re: Start Multiview on a give Aguide node

Posted on: 2012/6/7 12:52 #5

Just can't stay away

It's not possible and a bugreport exists in OS4 Bugzilla (bug 2997).
As Multiview may be ditched in future releases, I guess nobody wanted to do such enhancement.

Philippe 'Elwood' FERRUCCI
Sam460ex 1.10 Ghz
http://elwoodb.free.fr

Re: Start Multiview on a give Aguide node

Posted on: 2012/6/7 19:11 #6

Amigans Defender

@abalaban

It's a slash, but it only works when interlinking AmigaGuides.

@Elwood

Why would MultiView be ditched? It's a simple DataTypes viewer which is all it purports to be. Writing a replacement would be a complete waste of developer's time, when there are far more important things to be done (eg. an overhaul of DataTypes themselves)

Re: Start Multiview on a give Aguide node

Posted on: 2012/6/7 21:18 #7

Just can't stay away

@JosDuchIt
Quote:

If Amigaguide.library allows it, it seems to be just the matter to write a CLI command that does exactly that.

That sounded like a good idea and a simple task so I wrote a command that does what you want. However, in the process I discovered a bug or autodoc error and didn't want to release a binary that uses a workaround for error reporting. I reported the bug in the "General Developer Forum" at the Hyperion forums. The source is included if you want to copy it and apply an error reporting workaround. As it is, it will not show a failure if the amigaguide file doesn't exist or if the node/screen don't exist.

Amiga X1000 with 2GB memory & OS 4.1FE + Radeon HD 5450

Elwood

Re: Start Multiview on a give Aguide node

Posted on: 2012/6/7 23:02 #8

Just can't stay away

@Chris

Quote:

Why would MultiView be ditched? It's a simple DataTypes viewer which is all it purports to be

Yes "simple" whereas we need to display HTML, pictures, videos... I'm not sure MV is up to the task

Anyway, as you say the datatypes system first

Philippe 'Elwood' FERRUCCI
Sam460ex 1.10 Ghz
http://elwoodb.free.fr

Re: Start Multiview on a give Aguide node

Posted on: 2012/6/7 23:52 #9

Amigans Defender

Quote:

Elwood wrote:

Yes "simple" whereas we need to display HTML, pictures, videos... I'm not sure MV is up to the task

My MultiView is displaying HTML fine (well, as long as there's no CSS or anything else marginally complicated)

Videos are another matter of course, but the problem is more that the base animation/movie class isn't really up to the job. CDXLs play quite well, but anything bigger... no chance.

Re: Start Multiview on a give Aguide node

Posted on: 2012/6/8 15:24 #10

Just can't stay away

@Xenic
Quote:

The source is included

i will have a look at it surely. I did look intothe amigaguide.doc autodoc before posting and did not feel i could do this myself easily

I did find in the doc for the old Amigaguide reader that you could specify the LINE to position AGuide on.
I would prefer the node ID of course..

I also rediscovered in the Gui4Cli archive a set of 2 usefull CLI commands
GetNodes which delivers an ascii file containing the nodes names the position of their first & last characters
WriteNode can extract that node with this info
There is also a Gui4Cli 'node reader' FastRead.gc that represents an extracted node rather well (the links etc) & let you browse or select a node in a list.
WriteNode works OK under OS4 , GetNodes chokes on some guide documents (it works OK under classic OSes.)

I am writing a replacement for the first in Gui4Cli.
Together with the above i will be able to do my planned presentation
If you feel very helpfull, i would be glad with a CLI replacement of course.

2 other CLI commands in the archive are

SplitGuide (node files into a given directory) & JoinGuide
I did not test them recently, and the source is missing too.

I am surely not pushing you but ?? :)
(give a finger, they say)

trixie

Re: Start Multiview on a give Aguide node

Posted on: 2012/6/8 15:50 #11

Amigans Defender

Quote:

Chris wrote:

(...) there are far more important things to be done (eg. an overhaul of DataTypes themselves)

+1 +1 +1 +1!

The Rear Window blog

AmigaOne X5000 @ 2GHz / 4GB RAM / Radeon RX 560 / ESI Juli@ / AmigaOS 4.1 Final Edition
SAM440ep-flex @ 667MHz / 1GB RAM / Radeon 9250 / AmigaOS 4.1 Final Edition

Re: Start Multiview on a give Aguide node

Posted on: 2012/6/8 16:45 #12

Just can't stay away

@JosDuchIt
Quote:

SplitGuide (node files into a given directory) & JoinGuide
I did not test them recently, and the source is missing too.

I am surely not pushing you but ?? :)
(give a finger, they say)

Simple DOS commands are fun & easy to code. Even with a workaround for the fact that OpenAmigaGuide() doesn't work as described and demonstrated in the Autodoc, the sources to implement opening a guide at a specified node are only 85 lines (counting empty lines). AmigaGuide doesn't interest me enough to attempt much more complicated commands like the ones you mentioned. Just merging the indexes and table of contents of 2 Amigaguides with a join command would be daunting to me. Sorry.

Amiga X1000 with 2GB memory & OS 4.1FE + Radeon HD 5450

Re: Start Multiview on a give Aguide node

Posted on: 2012/6/8 17:23 #13

Just can't stay away

@Xenix
No problem & thanks for your attempt

Now the JoinGuide had better been callled JoinNodes, because in fact it just joins text files in a directory into one guide document. (exactly the opposite of SplitGuide) I think there might be alternatives in Aminet. Will do some searching

Re: Start Multiview on a give Aguide node

Posted on: 2012/6/8 17:24 #14

Just can't stay away

@Chris
Quote:

My MultiView is displaying HTML fine (well, as long as there's no CSS or anything else marginally complicated)

Sending HTML files to a browser works even better. It would be nice if we had a stripped down browser that would open seperate windows on specified screens. My only complaint about sending an HTML file to one of our current browsers is that you can't open multiple instances on seperate screens. Sometimes it helps to have HTML docs open on the same screen as the documented program. I really don't see the need to have an HTML doc in a Multiview window. Maybe we could have a "dummy" datatype that would send an HTML file to a browser if you try to open it with Multiview.

Amiga X1000 with 2GB memory & OS 4.1FE + Radeon HD 5450

Re: Start Multiview on a give Aguide node

Posted on: 2012/6/8 17:29 #15

Just can't stay away

@JosDuchIt
Quote:

Now the JoinGuide had better been callled JoinNodes, because in fact it just joins text files in a directory into one guide document.

That would be simpler but not of much use unless it creates a table of contents and/or index so you can access the nodes in the combined guide.

Amiga X1000 with 2GB memory & OS 4.1FE + Radeon HD 5450

Re: Start Multiview on a give Aguide node

Posted on: 2012/6/8 17:50 #16

Amigans Defender

@xenic

Quote:

Sending HTML files to a browser works even better.

Well, obviously. But then you're opening a web browser just to view an HTML email which is probably going to be looked at for less time than the browser takes to load (well, that's what I use the HTML datatype for anyway)

Quote:

It would be nice if we had a stripped down browser that would open seperate windows on specified screens. My only complaint about sending an HTML file to one of our current browsers is that you can't open multiple instances on seperate screens. Sometimes it helps to have HTML docs open on the same screen as the documented program. I really don't see the need to have an HTML doc in a Multiview window. Maybe we could have a "dummy" datatype that would send an HTML file to a browser if you try to open it with Multiview.

I can probably add multiple screen support to NetSurf. The latter I don't agree with; why not just send the file to a web browser instead? You've already lost any chance of embedding that DataType object anywhere so doing this via a DataType is pointless (and counter-intuitive).

The advantage of having an HTML datatype in your example, is that a program can easily create a Multiview-esque window with just the datatype object embedded, on their own screen, to display the documentation (amigaguide.library might even be able to do this for you for non-AmigaGuides; not entirely sure). If you're using a web browser for this it isn't exactly instant context-sensitive help.

Actually I disagree with using HTML for program documentation but that's another discussion.

Re: Start Multiview on a give Aguide node

Posted on: 2012/6/8 18:46 #17

Just can't stay away

@Xenix
Quote:

That would be simpler but not of much use unless it creates a table of contents and/or index so you can access the nodes in the combined guide

Which it obviously does being the exact opposite of SplitGuide.

In the mean time i have found on Aminet only one alternative to splitguide :
AGSplit by Jason R Hulance (probably written in Amiga E)I does not seem to work(does not freeze, but can't get it to accept my command line args & no source.

I also found on OS4Depot GuideML which transfroms a guide document in a html doc & where all nodes correspond to a fhtml file that can be addressed individually. The results could be better visually, but all the links work & the traditional browsing , index & content 'knobs' are simulated as links.

The source is in the archive. (It does not make use of Amigaguide.library)
Hope Chris Young will get to grips with it again: for a long Amigaguide document brushing up the layout is too timeconsuming.

In principle AGSplit (also having the links still working,) does exactly the same job & creates a set of amigaguide docs, in a directory. Here there should be no problem with the node's lauout.

Re: Start Multiview on a give Aguide node

Posted on: 2012/6/8 22:29 #18

Amigans Defender

Quote:

JosDuchIt wrote:
Hope Chris Young will get to grips with it again

What's wrong with the layout? Maybe it isn't terribly visually pleasing, but as AmigaGuides are just plain text there's not much you can do to pretty them up.

Have you tried the "use proportional font" and the various wrapping options? Or is that not it?