Little Girl's Mostly Linux Blog

Book on a Stick updated to v0.7

mostlylinux — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 02:11:07 +0000

Book on a Stick has been updated to v0.7 with more changes than you can shake two sticks at:

Interface:

Added a comment to the source code on whether the Tagged:: namespace should be deprecated.
Added a customizable New page template provided by FBnil.
Added a sort button to the editor, thanks to code provided by FBnil.
Added the code for code blocks with syntax highlighting provided by FBnil.
Added the CSS entry for code blocks with syntax highlighting provided by FBnil.
Added the table.text_area caption CSS entry so table captions can be styled.
Added the expanddiv(div) function to be used in dynamic block text areas.
Added the expandspan(span) function to be used in dynamic inline text areas.
Added the setImageLocal(starttag,endtag) function to customize the prompt you get when clicking the Image button in the editor for embedding images.
Performed all sorts of code cleanup contributed by FBnil.
Removed the Embed file into wiki option from the Special::Advanced page.
Removed the MAIN TEXT AREA FOOTER 2 CSS entry.
Renamed the MAIN TEXT AREA FOOTER 1 CSS entry to FOOTER.
Renamed the Images namespace to Wiki.
Repaired the search box focus, thanks to code provided by FBnil.
Replaced the banner icons and the icon images used in [[Images::]] namespace pages with Tango icons.
Updated the code for function setImage(starttag,endtag) so it’s more obvious what the Image button in the editor wants of you when you click it.
Updated the styling for the Help and Delete this page buttons in the editor to give them a bit of padding on the right.

Content:

Added instructions for delayed page redirection to the Help::JavaScript page.
Added instructions for dynamic block text areas and dynamic inline text areas to the Help::Spoilers page.
Added instructions for the sort button to the Help pop-up in the editor.
Added the About button to the menu.
Added the Add expanding menu entries section to the Help::Edit the menu page.
Added the Examples, Help, Images, Syntax, and Utilities pages so the pages they link to can be hidden, making the list of all pages shorter and easier to navigate.
Added the Help::Change wiki settings page.
Added the Help::Include text file page.
Added the Help::New page template page.
Added the Help::Navigation page.
Added the Help::Spoilers page.
Added the Help::Syntax page.
Added the Utility::Word frequency page.
Removed the About this wiki footer.
Removed the Help::Embed a file page.
Removed the Images::Help page.
Removed the spoiler content from the Help::Text formatting page.
Removed the Utility::Creative Commons License page.
Removed the Word count button page.
Renamed the Help::Footers page to Help::Footer.
Renamed the Help::Page tags page to Help::Tags.
Renamed the Links for writers page to Utility::Links for writers.
Renamed the Main Page to Main page (changing its case).
Renamed the Said page to Utility::Said.
Updated the content of the footer.
Updated the Example::Overview page.
Updated the Getting Started page.
Updated the Help::Bugs page.
Updated the Help::Code blocks page, adding instructions on how to use code blocks with syntax highlighting from code provided by FBnil.
Updated the Help::CSS page.
Updated the Help::Delete a page page.
Updated the Help::Edit the menu page.
Updated the Help::Erase all pages page.
Updated the Help::Footer page.
Updated the Help::Headers page.
Updated the Help::Images page with instructions on how to use the image embedding interface, which has been fixed by FBnil.
Updated the Help::Include web page page.
Updated the Help::Include wiki page page.
Updated the Help::Lists page.
Updated the Help::Page creation page.
Updated the Help::Requirements page.
Updated the Help::Table of Contents page.
Updated the Help::Tables page.
Updated the Help::Transclusion page.
Updated the Help::Word count page.
Updated the History page.
Updated the layout of some of the help pages.
Updated the Special::About page.
Updated the Special::Advanced page, adding the Edit the new page template entry provided by FBnil to the Advanced section.
Updated the Special::Search page with code provided by FBnil.
Updated the text on menu buttons so the letters are mixed case.
Updated the Utility::Buttons page.
Updated the Utility::Links for writers page.

Posted in News Tagged: author, book, cross-platform, free, GNU/Linux, JavaScript, Linux, NaNoWriMo, open-source, portable, wiki, writer, writing, XHTML

Book on a Stick updated to v0.6

mostlylinux — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 21:48:22 +0000

Book on a Stick has been updated to v0.6 with more changes than you can shake a stick at:

Interface:

Added a Delete page function from Wiki on a Stick v0.9.7b.
Added a Go to function from Wiki on a Stick v0.9.7b.
Added a Help button to the editor to explain all the editor functions.
Added footer areas beneath the main text area.
Added the CSS code for the new footer areas so they can be styled from within the wiki.
Added the CSS code for the new div.debug_console class so the debugger can be styled from within the wiki.
Added the open_editor_help() function to be used by the Help button in the editor.
Changed the size of the help pop-up that displays when the Table button is clicked in the editor.
Updated my comments in the source code for clarity.
Updated the code for the debug console layout, removing the empty line between the console and the Clear button, and changing the text of the Clear button to say Clear Debug console instead.
Updated the code for the Main Page menu button so that if you rename the main page, the button will still work.
Updated the CSS code for buttons in the editor and menu so they change color and the cursor changes to a hand when the mouse hovers over them.
Updated the CSS code for spoilers so that they can now be used not only for span tags, but also div, p, td, and possibly other tags as well.
Updated the wiki erasing function so the menu buttons are preserved when the wiki is erased.

Content:

Added a Delete page button to the menu.
Added instructions for using Go to and Delete page links to the Help::Links page.
Added the Example::Table of Contents page.
Added the Help::Footers page to explain footers and how to work with them.
Added the syntax tag to the Help::Include web page, Help::Page tags, and Help::Table of Contents pages.
Moved the code for the menu buttons to the Utility::Buttons page.
Renamed the Word Count page to Word count button.
Renamed the Word Count 2 page to Word count utility.
Replaced the code for the buttons in the menu with an include link to the Utility::Buttons page.
Updated the Getting Started page.
Updated the Help::Bugs page.
Updated the Help::Code blocks (preformatted text) page.
Updated the Help::CSS page.
Updated the Help::Delete a page page.
Updated the Help::Edit a page page.
Updated the Help::Edit the menu page.
Updated the Help::Erase all pages page.
Updated the Help::Horizontal rules (lines) page, adding a custom width horizontal rule aligned to the right.
Updated the Help::Images page.
Updated the Help::Import pages page.
Updated the Help::Include wiki page page.
Updated the Help::JavaScript page.
Updated the Help::Links page.
Updated the Help::Lists page to include instructions for various types of HTML lists.
Updated the Help::Non-breaking spaces page.
Updated the Help::Page creation page.
Updated the Help::Page name too long page.
Updated the Help::Page scrolling page.
Updated the Help::Page tags page.
Updated the Help::Page with no name page.
Updated the Help::Parent and child pages page.
Updated the Help::Publish wiki online page.
Uodated the Help::Rename a page page.
Updated the Help::Table of Contents page.
Updated the Help::Text formatting page.
Updated the Help::Transclusion page.
Updated the Help::Wiki is read-only page.
Updated the Help::Word count page.
Updated the History page.
Updated the Special::About page.
Updated the Special::Advanced page.
Updated the Special::Options page.
Updated the text on menu buttons so the letters are upper case and use a smaller font.

Posted in News Tagged: author, book, cross-platform, free, GNU/Linux, JavaScript, NaNoWriMo, open-source, portable, wiki, writer, writing, XHTML

Book on a Stick! updated to v0.5

mostlylinux — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 17:56:05 +0000

Book on a Stick! has been updated to v0.5 with more changes than you can shake a stick at:

Interface:

Added a CSS entry for code blocks (preformatted text) and labeled the entry for in-line code blocks more clearly.
Added a CSS entry for images in the main text area.
Added CSS entries for menu buttons.
Added a Delete this page button to the editor.
Added a Table of Contents button to the editor.
Added menu buttons for Main Page, All pages, Back links, New page, Search, Help, and Edit menu.
Added Online tools: text in front of the buttons in the editor that require internet access.
Changed the color of the Page title: text in the editor to MediumBlue to match the text on the editor buttons.
Changed the help pop-up that displays when the Table button is clicked in the editor.

Content:

Added a link to the Help::Edit the menu page on the Help::Delete a page page.
Added a Plans for the future section to the History page.
Added Help::Page with no name for those times when you forget to name a page or accidentally delete its name.
Added Word Count 2 page with a utility for counting words as an alternative to the word count button.
Added Spoilers (text hidden in a box until you hover your mouse over it).
Changed the layout of the Help::Headers page.
Fixed the example code on the Help::Include wiki page page.
Fixed the example code for the bottom two entries on the Help::Images page.
Fixed the excess punctuation after two of the example links on the Help::Links page.
Fixed an example link that said MyReport.log to the correct MyFile.log on the Help::Embed a file page.
Moved the Help link from the main body of the menu to the menu footer.
Updated the content of the Help pages to include graphics.
Updated the content of the Help::Edit the menu page.
Updated the content of the Help::Encrypt a page page to include instructions rather than just a reference to the default description.
Updated the content of the Help::Pages linking to this page page.
Updated the content of the Help::Word count page.
Updated the content of the Sandbox page.
Updated the content of the warning when the wiki cannot be loaded because JavaScript is not enabled.
Updated the Help::Code blocks (preformatted text) page.
Updated the Help::CSS page with a current copy of the default CSS code.
Updated the Help::Import pages page, numbering the steps.
Updated the Help::Include wiki page page.
Updated the Help::Join lines of text page.
Updated the Help::Pages linking to this page page.
Updated the Help::Page tags page with a detailed description of why you might wish to use tags on your pages.
Updated the Help::Text formatting page.

Posted in News Tagged: author, book, cross-platform, gnome, GNU/Linux, JavaScript, Kubuntu, Linux, NaNoWriMo, portable, Ubuntu, writer, writing

Book on a Stick! updated to v0.4

mostlylinux — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 15:40:44 +0000

Book on a Stick! has been updated to v0.4 with more changes than you can shake a stick at:

Interface:

Added buttons to the editor for creating unusual lists on request by a user. The buttons are not enabled by default, but can be enabled by uncommenting them in the source code.
Added the FullSpecialTagThis function to be used for HTML list buttons in the editor so their line height will match that of wiki lists.
Added the ListTagThis function on special request so that unusual list item styles can be made into editor buttons.
Commented out the part of the code that caused the wiki to add extra slashes to certain parts of its code during wiki self-clean on save. (This causes the wiki to no longer be proper XHTML, but until that part of the code is fixed, I’m leaving it commented out. You can undo my comment marks to re-enable it if you like.)
Fixed the code for the Table pop-up in the editor so extra slashes won’t be added when the wiki does self-repair.
Fixed the DivTagThis function so that the Left, Center, Right, and Justify buttons in the editor will now create code with proper closing tags.
Fixed the FullTagThis function so that the Strike, Superscript. Subscript, and Blockquote buttons in the editor will now create code with proper closing tags.
Reorganized the center row of buttons in the editor.
Replaced the Fixed menu and banner option with Fixed banner on the Special::Options page. This prevents the menu from becoming inaccessible if it becomes too long to fit on the screen.
Updated the Special::Advanced page, replacing Edit the custom script run once when this wiki is being loaded with Edit the bootscript – add some custom JavaScript to be executed when the wiki is being loaded.

Content:

Added a link to current version of Wiki on a Stick online demo on the welcome page.
Added a Known bugs section to the Help::Page creation page.
Added dates to the versions on the History page.
Added instructions for recalibrating the Word Count button to the Help::Word count page.
Added instructions for using the default alert image to the Help::Images page.
Added the contents of the Example::External JavaScript page to the Help::JavaScript page.
Added the Help::Backup page.
Added the Help::Delete a page page.
Added the Help::Edit a page page.
Added the Help::Edit the menu page.
Added the Help::Page scrolling page.
Added the Help::Print a page page.
Added the Help::Rename a page page.
Added the Help::Table of Contents Page.
Added the Help::Word count page.
Added the Images:: namespace to the reserved namespaces.
Changed the logo.
Made the Help:: pages static to preserve them when deleting all pages from the wiki.
Moved the contents of the Example::JavaScript Temporary Page to the Help::JavaScript page.
Moved the contents of the page creation sections in the Getting Started page to the Help::Page creation page.
Removed the Cleanup tag search from the Special::Advanced page.
Removed the Example::Creole Syntax page.
Removed the Example::Bold Font In Lists page.
Removed the Example::External JavaScript page.
Removed the Example::Infinite Recursion Template page.
Removed the Example::JavaScript Temporary Page.
Removed the Example::Mixed Headers page.
Removed the Example::Syntax Parsing page.
Removed the Example::Test Template 1 page.
Removed the Example::Test Template 2 page.
Removed the Example::Word Count Text Area page.
Renamed many of the Help pages.
Renamed the Example::Bootscript page to Help::Bootscript.
Renamed the Example::Custom JavaScript page to Example::JavaScript.
Renamed the Example::Search Box page to Help::Add a search box.
Renamed the Help::CSS settings page to Help::CSS.
Renamed the Help::Transclude pages page to Help::Transclusion.
Replaced the page creation sections in the Getting Started page with a link to the Help::Page creation page.
Updated the comments on a couple of CSS entries.
Updated the Help::Page name too long page to reflect the change to the Fixed banner option.
Updated the Help::Transclusion page contents.
Updated the History page contents and corrected some errors.
Updated the Help::Images page contents, fixing the instructions for adding a local image from your hard drive.
Updated the Links for writers page contents.
Updated the Menu contents, adding a Search section.
Updated the Special::About page links.

Posted in News Tagged: author, book, cross-platform, GNU/Linux, JavaScript, Kubuntu, Linux, NaNoWriMo, portable, Ubuntu, wiki, writer, writing, XHTML

Book on a Stick! updated to v0.3

mostlylinux — Sun, 02 Aug 2009 03:25:21 +0000

Book on a Stick! has been updated to v0.3 with lots of changes:

Content:

Added a History page.
Created the Links for writers page for inclusion in the menu.

CSS:

Added an entry for editor buttons.
Added an entry for editor special buttons.

Editor:

Updated, reorganized, and renamed the editor buttons.
Added button links for dictionary, Google, thesaurus, and Wikipedia to the editor.
Customized the look of the buttons.

General interface:

Changed the color scheme.
Modified the content of the About this wiki link beneath the main text area.

Help section:

Corrected incorrect examples for external and internal links on the Help::Add a link page.
Updated all the Help pages, adding lots of new content.

Menu:

Removed the search box.
Added the Word Play link to the Fun section of the menu.
Added the Backlinks link to the Administration section of the menu.

Options:

Added descriptions to the Options page.
Removed the Options explanation page, which had some unused options.
Added links to these pages in the Pages section on the Options page:

Cleanup
Create new page
Tagged::Help
Syntax pages

Modified the AES Encryption page.

Enjoy! (:

Posted in News Tagged: author, book, cross-platform, GNU/Linux, JavaScript, Kubuntu, Linux, NaNoWriMo, portable, Ubuntu, writer, writing, XHTML

Update

mostlylinux — Sat, 25 Jul 2009 08:16:31 +0000

The Universal Backup Script has been updated to version 2. This version creates a temporary directory to do its work in, and the format of the include file has been simplified. Examples are on the Universal Backup Script page.

Posted in News Tagged: backup, commandline, GNU/Linux, Kubuntu, Linux, script, Ubuntu

Book on a Stick!

mostlylinux — Fri, 24 Jul 2009 07:22:48 +0000

I added the Book on a Stick! page so that you can write a book in one self-contained file that runs entirely in your browser and can be kept on portable media you carry in your pocket. It runs on any platform, has a customizable appearance, is fully searchable, is network independent, can be exported to individual XHTML files, and doesn’t need to be installed. Enjoy!

Posted in News Tagged: author, book, cross-platform, GNU/Linux, Kubuntu, Linux, NaNoWriMo, portable, Ubuntu, writer, writing, XHTML

Update

mostlylinux — Sat, 18 Jul 2009 15:25:11 +0000

I added the CheckMyIP page to the Network section. It contains commands to quickly find your internal or external IP.

Posted in News Tagged: commandline, gnome, GNU/Linux, Kubuntu, Linux, Networking, Ubuntu

Updates

mostlylinux — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 03:02:50 +0000

These pages got updated today:

Posted in News Tagged: commandline, GNU/Linux, Kubuntu, Linux, Networking, Ubuntu

Another voice in the Mono crowd

mostlylinux — Sun, 05 Jul 2009 19:14:37 +0000

Today I decided to formally add my voice to the many that are debating the topic of Mono in Linux. To prevent this from being just another declaration of emotions, some research was in order. The results were kind of surprising! Here’s what I found:

What is Mono?

The answer can be found on Mono’s FAQ: General page:

The Mono Project is an open development initiative sponsored by Novell to develop an open source, UNIX version of the Microsoft .NET development platform. Its objective is to enable UNIX developers to build and deploy cross-platform .NET Applications. The project implements various technologies developed by Microsoft that have now been submitted to the ECMA for standardization.

Also on that page is an answer to the question of whether Mono is a free implementation of Passport:

No. Mono is just a runtime, a compiler and a set of class libraries.

What is .NET?

My understanding is that the .NET Framework is a Microsoft platform that’s an an integral Windows component for building applications and XML Web services (distributed computing) with the code being built to industry standards to ensure that it can integrate with any other code, and either stored and executed locally, distributed on the internet and executed locally, or executed remotely.

What’s the difference between Mono and .NET?

The answer can be found on Mono’s FAQ: General page:

The “.NET Initiative” is a somewhat nebulous company-wide effort by Microsoft, one part of which is a cross-platform development framework. Mono is an implementation of the development framework, but not an implementation of anything else related to the .NET Initiative, such as Passport or software-as-a-service.

What kind of licensing does Mono use?

The answer can be found on Mono’s FAQ: Licensing page:

We use three open source licenses:

The C# compiler is dual-licensed under the MIT/X11 license and the GNU General Public License (GPL).
The tools are released under the terms of the GNU General Public License (GPL).
The runtime libraries are under the GNU Library GPL 2.0 (LGPL 2.0).
The class libraries are released under the terms of the MIT X11 license.

Both the Mono runtime and the Mono C# Compiler are also available under a proprietary license for those who can not use the LGPL and the GPL in their code.

For licensing details, Contact the Mono team at Novell.

When do I need a license from Novell for Mono?

The answer can be found on Mono’s FAQ: Licensing page:

We only require licensing for uses of Mono and Moonlight on embedded systems, or systems where you are unable to fulfill the obligations of the GNU LGPL.

For example, if you manufacture a device where the end user is not able to do an upgrade of the Mono virtual machine or the Moonlight runtime from the source code, you will need a commercial license of Mono and Moonlight.

Or if you ship an application that requires to statically link the Mono runtime and you are not able to provide the object code to relink Mono, you must obtain a commercial license from Novell.

How is Novell involved in all of this?

The answer to whether Microsoft is helping Novell with Mono can be found at Mono’s FAQ: General page:

Until September of 2007 there was no no high level communication between Novell and Microsoft, but engineers who work on .NET or the ECMA groups have been very friendly, and very nice to answer our questions, or clarify part of the specification for us.

In September 2007 an agreement between Microsoft and Novell opened the doors to collaboration specifically on the implementation of open source implementations of Silverlight 1.0 and Silverlight 2.0.

Silverlight 2.0 contains a subset of the virtual execution engine, and a subset of the class libraries that are designed to write rich web applications.

Microsoft is interested in other implementations of .NET and are willing to help make the ECMA spec more accurate for this purpose. Novell participates in the ECMA committee meetings for C# and the CLI.

Microsoft Silverlight is a runtime that delivers video across multiple platforms and browsers using the .NET framework.
C# is a programming language for applications that run on the .NET Framework.
CLI is Common Language Infrastructure, which is an archive of a large subset of the source code available in the .NET Framework.

The announcement on Novell’s page makes no mention of Mono.

Novell has a page for answering questions from the community. At the bottom of the page, Novell tries to reassure the community that Mono doesn’t infringe any Microsoft patents and that the agreement Novell reached with Microsoft doesn’t impact the rights and abilities of other distributions to bundle or ship Mono.

Can Mono be rendered useless by patents?

The answer can be found on Mono’s FAQ: Licensing page:

First some background information.

The .NET Framework is divided in two parts: the ECMA/ISO covered technologies and the other technologies developed on top of it like ADO.NET, ASP.NET and Windows.Forms.

Mono implements the ECMA/ISO covered parts, as well as being a project that aims to implement the higher level blocks like ASP.NET, ADO.NET and Windows.Forms.

The Mono project has gone beyond both of those components and has developed and integrated third party class libraries, the most important being: Debugging APIs, integration with the Gnome platform (Accessibility, Pango rendering, Gdk/Gtk, Glade, GnomeUI), Mozilla, OpenGL, extensive database support (Microsoft only supports a couple of providers out of the box, while Mono has support for 11 different providers), our POSIX integration libraries and finally the embedded API (used to add scripting to applications and host the CLI, or for example as an embedded runtime in Apache).

The core of the .NET Framework, and what has been patented by Microsoft falls under the ECMA/ISO submission. Jim Miller at Microsoft has made a statement on the patents covering ISO/ECMA, (he is one of the inventors listed in the patent): here. Microsoft’s letter to ECMA is here.

Basically a grant is given to anyone who want to implement those components for free and for any purpose.

For people who need full compatibility with the Windows platform, Mono’s strategy for dealing with any potential issues that might arise with ASP.NET, ADO.NET or Windows.Forms is: (1) work around the patent by using a different implementation technique that retains the API, but changes the mechanism; if that is not possible, we would (2) remove the pieces of code that were covered by those patents, and also (3) find prior art that would render the patent useless.

Not providing a patented capability would weaken the interoperability, but it would still provide the free software / open source software community with good development tools, which is the primary reason for developing Mono.

The patents do not apply in countries where software patents are not allowed.

For Linux server and desktop development, we only need the ECMA components, and things that we have developed (like Gtk#) or Apache integration.

According to Ecma International’s What is Ecma page, “Ecma International is an industry association founded in 1961 and dedicated to the standardization of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) and Consumer Electronics (CE).”

Can Mono be rendered useless by Microsoft changing the spec?

The answer can be found on Mono’s FAQ: General page:

No. Microsoft proved with the CLI and the C# language that it was possible to create a powerful foundation for many languages to inter-operate. We will always have that.

Even if changes happened in the platform which were undocumented, the existing platform would have value on its own.

Will the patent policy change with the new agreement between Novell and Microsoft?

The answer can be found on Mono’s FAQ: Licensing page:

Mono is a community project, and as such, we will continue to implement the policy of not integrating knowingly infringing code into Mono.

And we will continue to follow the steps outlined in the previous topic if code that potentially infringes is found: finding prior art, finding different implementation techniques, or if none of those are possible, removing the code from Mono.

Where does Ubuntu currently stand on the issue of Mono?

Ubuntu released a Mono Position Statement on Jun 30, 2009 in which it makes it clear that the Ubuntu Technical Board “sees no reason to exclude Mono or applications based upon it from the archive, or from the default installation set.”

What does all of this mean?

From the information above, I have to admit that Mono seems to be genuinely interested in creating a trustworthy platform for cross-platform programming that protects the rights of the users, with a plan in place in the event that anything changes to make it necessary to ensure that protection. It also means that nothing illegal has been proven to have occurred.

The wrap-up:

Despite the fact that my findings don’t support my initial belief that Mono is evil and dangerous, I still personally prefer to go with my gut feeling to distrust it and not have it on my machine. (:

Obligatory Happy Ending

And they all lived happily ever after. The end.

Except where otherwise noted, content on http://mostlylinux.wordpress.com is Copyright © 2007, 2008, and 2009 by Little Girl and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License. The author disavows any potential liability for the content. Use of the content is entirely at your own risk.

Posted in News Tagged: .net, c#, gnome, gtk, Linux, microsoft, mono, novell, Ubuntu