Subject:
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Re: Publishing DAT files (was Re: B-Wing DAT file)
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.publish
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Date:
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Mon, 12 Oct 1998 14:50:25 GMT
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Viewed:
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866 times
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legoverse@geocities.com (Terry K) writes:
> > > To put this thread back on charter, what is the best way to
> > > publish Ldraw .dat files? On my system, I have associated
> > > .dat files with the program ldlite and with the mime type of
> > > "application/x-ldraw". If someone posted a .dat file with
> > > that mime type, I *think* that when I read the article then
> > > ldlite would pop up semi-automatically, which would be
> > > really cool. For those of you with perhaps more experience
> > > doing the MIME thing with enclosures and all that, does this
> > > sound like a good idea?
> >
> > Neat idea! -- (Except all MIME posts are rejected by this newsserver...)
> >
> > Alternatively, would it be useful if there were a special area on the www
> > part of the server for uploading .dat files, and having it index them and
> > serve them back as "application/x-ldraw"?
>
> That sounds like an interesting idea, Todd. Give it a shot. I would
> like to try it.
OK, here's what I came up with (feature list):
* Storage on the lugnet.com server of LDraw .DAT files of models submitted,
and the models are identified by their author.
* Viewable by anyone with a web browser which can launch LDLITE (as Gyug
explains on his webpage). Server returns "application/x-ldraw" as
content type.
* For posterity, arbitrary comments by the author can be associated
tightly with the .DAT files submitted.
* New versions of models can be submitted by authors at any time.
* Author's comments/descriptions/questions can be addressed by other
people. That is, there is support for discussions (or idolation :)
revolving around a particular model.
* No MIMEing is required, and no fancy software is needed to submit the
.DAT files.
* Rudimentary indexing and searching is provided.
OK, now how does it work?
Well...
All you do is -- just post a .DAT file -- and dat's it! (Hee hee.)
(And you can even put a few paragraphs of text above your .DAT file in the
same post -- as long as the lines don't begin with numbers.)
Here's the magic part -- the web interface detects that the body of the
article contains LDraw content, and gives you the option to launch LDLITE
with contents of the article (after on-the-fly conversion to a .DAT file).
Then you just click on that link and up pops the file.
Er, hmm, it's probably easier just to show it action than to try to explain.
Here are two .DAT files which have been posted to this server:
http://www.lugnet.com/news/display.cgi?lugnet.publish:6
http://www.lugnet.com/news/display.cgi?lugnet.cad:20
There ya have it. :)
I thought this would be a nice hybrid approach because:
* It doesn't require any futzing around with MIME stuff anywhere on the
server (all postings are still all-ASCII)
* .DAT files can be posted from tin, trn, slrn, Pine, etc. -- any
newsreader even if it doesn't support MIME posting.
* You get to include extra info in with your .DAT file posting --
for instance, just like you did in article #6 of lugnet.publish
(linked above).
* It's very tightly integrated with news, which is good for discussions.
* It only took about 1 hour of coding (mostly refining the regex which
recognizes LDraw .DAT content in article bodies).
* Doesn't require any new "terms of use" for the site since it falls
under the whole news thing.
Disadvantages of this approach:
- You have to go to the web interface to see the visuals. That is, since
it doesn't make use of MIME, your browser can't display the .DAT files
inline.
Well, give it shot...see what you think...
--Todd
p.s. Here's the Perl5 regex I used to detect LDraw content in article
bodies:
if ($art->Body() =~ m/^\s*[1-5](?:\s+[0-9]+)(?:\s+\-?[0-9]*\.?[0-9]*){6,12}(?:\s+\S+\.[Dd][Aa][Tt])?\s*$/m)
It a trade-off between accuracy and simplicity...it would be smarter if
it knew which lines had 6, 9, and 12 extra parameters, respectively, or
maybe it could group the numbers like (?:(?:...){3}){2,4} instead of
what it does...but I think it's probably accurate enough as-is. But
comments would still be appreciated... [Yeah, it should really be a /x
regex.]
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Message has 3 Replies:
 | | Re: Publishing DAT files (was Re: B-Wing DAT file)
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| (...) I guess there's one other kinda cool feature... Authors can bookmark, trade, or publish the URLs of their submissions. For example, Terry could include the following on a web page of his: <A HREF="(URL)My B-Wing Fighter Model</A> or if he (...) (26 years ago, 12-Oct-98, to lugnet.publish)
| | | Re: Publishing DAT files (was Re: B-Wing DAT file)
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| (...) Way cool, Todd. At least it is cool in Netscape. So far IE doesn't seem to want to work right. Anyone get IE to work with this? I keep getting a dialog box claiming that the directory is invalid. The directory reference in it seems to be (...) (26 years ago, 13-Oct-98, to lugnet.publish)
| | | Re: Publishing DAT files (was Re: B-Wing DAT file)
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| Waaaay cool, Todd. Of course, now I can think of a zillion ways ldlite could work better, like putting a "Save As" option on the menu, and having the zoom factor and viewing direction be set from a menu, and Saving all the comment fields to a (...) (26 years ago, 13-Oct-98, to lugnet.publish)
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