My hobbyist coding updates and releases as the mysterious "Mr. Tines"

Friday 5 November 2004

Strict XHTML Applets

Noting that this page was reached by the search query "Strict XHTML Applets", a brief guide to what I've done along these lines.

I started with Hixie's Embedding flash without <embed>, which nests <object /> tags, but suffers from parameter duplication, and, IIRC, unless I had things back-to-front, it also leaves empty place-holders for the "other platform" applet in some browsers. By using IE conditional comments in a sneaky fashion, one only need duplicate the opening <object> as follows (code based upon that in my N-body applet page):-

<!--[if IE]>

<object archive="nbodyzip.zip" type="application/x-java-object"
code="Nbody.class" width="250" height="150" title="&lambda; Serpentis
II system simulation" standby="standby" >
<![endif]-->

<!--[if !IE]> -->
<object archive="nbodyzip.zip" type="application/x-java-object"
classid="java:Nbody.class" title="&lambda; Serpentis II system
simulation" standby="standby" width="250" height="150" >
<!-- <![endif]-->

<!-- shared parameter tags go here if needed e.g. -->
    <param name="bgcolor" value="#000000" />

<!-- followed by fallback content such as:- -->

    <p>Alas! Either your browser is not one for which I've been able to get
    XHTML object tags to work, or perhaps it's not Java enabled!</p>

<!-- finally close the one object tag -->

</object>

Here IE wants the main-class via the code attribute code="Nbody.class"; whereas Gecko browsers (Netscape, Mozilla, Firefox) want it via the classid attribute, classid="java:Nbody.class". Both use the archive attribute to show where the bytecode is to be found.

This works for Netscape 4 and up. I believe it also works in Konqueror (KHTML), and thus also Safari - but if you know different, please say.

It would be nicer if I could find one tag that would feed Java to all these browsers…

Monday 6 September 2004

XPP -- XML PreProcessor

XPP 1.0.1708.27390 — Use it to fold repeated units into static pages as a compile-before-upload step for XHTML web pages. See the ReadMe file in the archive for more details.

From the Windows page

Saturday 28 August 2004

PassiveFTP 1.6

PassiveFTP 1.6 — PassiveFTP version 1.6.1701.15662 — when XP SP2 dropped my screen depth from 32-bit to 16-bit off its own bat, all hell broke loose. Fix for the default 16-bit style, maybe all 16-bit and even 24-bit. No 8-bit or less planned.

Sunday 25 July 2004

Texture

A new background texture which is done by Noise + greyscale + invert, followed by blurring and embossing, and then tweaking the brightness and contrast to taste.

PassiveFTP 1.5

PassiveFTP 1.5 — PassiveFTP version 1.5.1667.19669 — minor bug-fix release — this fixes the 11-Jun-04 issue. This turned out to be GDI exhaustion by putting server-side icons in the client icon cache, and thus having to regenerate individual icons for each file on the server, each time the view changed!

Windows page, as usual

Sunday 18 July 2004

I like Metal

Rolled my own textures for the brushed metal look : light and dark brushed aluminium. The brushed metal trick is Noise + greyscale + invert + motion blur; then cut a chunk out the middle.

Saturday 3 July 2004

Fade to Black…

Fade To Black… — version 0.8 — dead simple image manipulation program in Java SDK 1.4. Run using


java -cp fadetoblack.zip com.ravnanadtines.FadeToBlack

(with jre, jrew or javaw instead of java as appropriate), where fadetoblack.zip is the download archive. I used it to do the fade on the top-left masthead image (of the Louvre pyramid, in Paris) on the linked sites.

On the Java page

Friday 11 June 2004

Glitches -- PassiveFTP and Janus/.Net

With Passive FTP 1.4 I've encountered a number of occasions in live use — but not, alas when running in set-up tests, where it seems that operations on a large server-side directory and shuffling that around by adding or deleting files can cause some sort of fault in the icon rendering.

In Janus.Net 1.1, I have observed that null credentials (empty username and password) will suffice to perform NTLM authentication. A little digging suggests that this is a "feature" of the protocol. Note that IE prevents you giving an empty username+password in the login dialog box by keeping the OK button disabled under those circumstances.

Sunday 18 April 2004

Janus/.Net 1.1

Janus.Net 1.1 experimental — version 1.1.1569.19993 — contains experimental code to perform HTTP Basic and NTLMv2 authentication to HTTP based proxies. The only reliance on library code by the NTLM support is for the System.Security.Crypto.MD5 class — everything else for NTLM is in-line. The code is experimental in that I've tested the authentication code against a local copy of IIS, rather than against a real authenticating web proxy.

From the Windows page.

Friday 9 April 2004

PassiveFTP 1.4

PassiveFTP 1.4 — PassiveFTP version 1.4.1560.16653 — minor bug-fix release — if a logon to a new server was abandoned by terminating the program, the current server would be set to the new one — but on restart this would cause an out-of-range error, as there would be no stored server details.

Sunday 1 February 2004

Janus/.Net

Janus for .Net — Yes, we do do requests, if not very quickly. Last August, Bob Morgenthaler asked for a Windows version of Janus, and now there is one (using the .NET framework to make things easier).

From the Windows Page.