POFFS v1.0, offline forum search..

[Borje Hagsten]

Okay fellows, this is a very un-official release, but I took the
day off to finish up this project - started in another thread, and
have now uploaded the files to my site. The code became a bit too
big for the source code section, so downloading it is the only way
to see what it is. Download and unzip to a new directory, preferably
called "Poffs". Total file size 1.8MB
(mostly databases - this is pure PB, so the exe is only ~60 KB..

Address: http://www.tolken99.com/program/poffs.zip

What it is? Well, this is a complete program, written in PB/DLL 6.0,
for offline searching of these messages. It includes a lot of useful
tips and tricks for listboxes, combolists, the tab control, database
indexing and searching, rich edit syntax coloring, etc. It's not
quite complete yet - I have only had time to download and compile
the following forums:

  'forum1 = Product Announcements       - about   10 pages  OK
  'forum2 = Frequently Asked Questions  - about   32 pages  OK
  'forum3 = PowerBASIC for DOS          - about  820 pages  missing
  'forum4 = PowerBASIC for Windows      - about 2400 pages  missing
  'forum5 = PowerBASIC Console Compiler - about  950 pages  missing
  'forum6 = Programming                 - about 1100 pages  missing
  'forum7 = Source Code                 - about  640 pages  OK
  'forum8 = Third-Party Addons          - about  380 pages  OK
  'forum9 = Programming the Internet    - about  160 pages  OK
  'forum10-12 - archives                                    missing

However, the source code forum itself is enough to make this program
extremely useful. Many thanks to Semen for downloading and making
those files available to me/us. More than 600 samples available,
without having to go online and sometimes have to wait for more
than a minute for each page to load..

I think the following header from Poffs.bas says it better:

'¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤
' POFFS v1.0, Power Basic OFF-line forums Search program
' By Borje Hagsten, released into Public Domain in June 25, 2000
'
' Files: Poffs.exe - compiled exe, 60KB raw Power Basic power.. :-)
'        Poffs.bas - comlete source file
'        Poffs.pbr - resource file
'        Pbpad.ico - program icon
'        Forum 1, 2, 7, 8 and 9.IDX - database index files
'        Forum 1, 2, 7, 8 and 9.DAT - database files
'
' Some forums are still missing. I have no possibility to download
' them all, due to the amount of files and my own slow connection.
' If the Power Basic staff think it could be a useful resource for all
' PB users, maybe someone there can zip up the HTML files in Forum 3-5 (+ archives)
' and tell me where I can download them from. I have the compiler for
' creating the databases and index files here - not yet released,
' since I don't know what the PB people will think of this. If they
' disapprove of the concept, I will of course withdraw it, since I
' don't want to upset anyone. I only did this one to help those of
' us with slow, or no, Internet connections..  :-)
'
' Summer and holidays will prevent me from doing much more with this
' program for a while now, but I'll try to keep up with any eventual
' responses from time to time. PB staff - in case you're interested,
' you may find me at  [email protected]
'¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤

[Florent Heyworth]

Borje

you are a scholar and a gentleman! What a great idea - and an excellent implementation. This is definitely finding a place of honour on my desktop - Thanks

BTW - on line 545 of POFFS.BAS the url you define for your website has a dot instead of a column which means users can't access your website from the tab dialog. The culprit is here:

SELECT CASE CBCTL
           CASE %IDTAB5_URL1
              IF HIWRD(CBWPARAM) = %STN_CLICKED THEN      '<- Clicked on URL label
                 url = "http.//www.tolken99.com" 'should be [url="http://www.tolken99.com"]http://www.tolken99.com[/url] 
                 Msg = "Would you like to visit Borje Hagsten's web-site at [url="http://www.tolken99.com"]www.tolken99.com[/url]  now?"
                 CALL GotoUrl(url, Msg)
                 FUNCTION = 0 : EXIT FUNCTION
              END IF

Cheers and many thanks again

Florent

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[Borje Hagsten]

Thank you for tip and the fine words, Florent. Glad to hear you
like it. I have fixed the error and a new file has been uploaded
now.


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[This message has been edited by Borje Hagsten (edited June 25, 2000).]

[Gregery D Engle]

This is an awesome program, I like very much!

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-Greg

[Patrice Terrier]

Hello all,

POFFS is a MUST you should give it a try, rated *****

Congratulation Borje.


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Patrice Terrier
mailto[email protected][email protected]</A>

[Erwin van de Wiel]

Perfect!

Compliments for the program Borje and everyone who helped.

Erwin

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[Semen Matusovski]

Folks --
Borje did a great work. But it's necessary to support a data base in real-time regime.
Guys, which are ready to support this project, should declare about it, and Borje will divide duties.

So, a list of volunteers is opened. I'm first. Who next ?


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[Florent Heyworth]

Hi Semen

could you explain a little more about supporting the project - I assume you mean helping out with the downloading of the files on a regular basis? I take it this project needs people with high bandwidth connections?

Cheers

Florent

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[Semen Matusovski]

Florent --
Yes, of course. For example, Source code forum now is about 10Mb (in HTML).I guess that total size is not less than 100 Mb.
Borje should give a program, which deletes not necessary HTML tags.
As I understand - for example - Source code forum could be compressed to 600 Kb (probably, less).
So, should be persons, which download (for example, one time per week) separate part of forum, compress it and put on own Web-Site.
In Borje's program will be a special button "Update" + configuration file with description, where files are located.

[This message has been edited by Semen Matusovski (edited June 26, 2000).]

[Patrice Terrier]

Semen,

I forget to thank you for your contribution to the POFFS project.
Thus, here I go THANK YOU


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Patrice Terrier
mailto[email protected][email protected]</A>

[Bradley Callis]

Borje,

First, Very nice.

But if you want to make it the best off-line reader on the web then I will let you or anybody reading this topic in on something that has tremendous potential. "Why not make a program that replicates UBB forums to usenet news groups?" I am starting to work or should I say attemping to work on one. HUGE POTENTIAL. The ultimate bulletin board has a large user base. Any takers? Has it already been done?

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[Wyman A Belts]

If I can be of assistance, let me know. I've got a DSL connection at home and a T1 at work.

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[email protected]

[Troy King]

Same here. I have 600K at home and 1.5M at work. I'll help.

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Troy King
[email protected]

[Jim Huguley]

Borje..

A superb gift to the users/members of this board.

In addition, a wealth of excellent code for folks needing
examples and a testament to what can be done with PowerBasic.

Thank you for you time and efforts..



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Jim..
[email protected]

[Gregery D Engle]

Borje Hagsten,

I would be glad to help keep the database files up to date. I have a cable modem and I download rather fast from this BBS so I can update them in a few minutes.

let me know.

[email protected]




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-Greg

[Jim Karabatsos]

Borje (and others),

I have a cable modem and am more than happy to help. Let me know what I can do.

Oh, and good work. Thanks!

[email protected]

[Borje Hagsten]

Thank you, fellows. Well, the best solution would of course be if
someone with access to the server simply could zip up the files in
forum 3 to 6, plus the archives, and tell me where to download them
from.

This would save the server from a lot of extra traffic. Still no
word from the PB people, so we don't know what they think of this.

I actually had an "Update" button in mind, but decided not to add it
at this stage. It would put an extra strain to the PB server, so
it is better to let one person handle this and then let people download
the stripped and compiled databases. The best solution would of
course be if someone at PB could do it.

One must always be careful. Just checked and more than hundred
people have already downloaded POFFS. Imagine what would happen
if this catches on and thousands of people click on an "Update"
button each day, to download all the latest HTML files from the
PB server. Not good..

As I said in another thread - I don't feel it's important that the
files are up to date. There's already so much valuable knowledge
to get from here, the current contents is more than enough.

It's a bit important to get the current contents of forum 3-6 and
the archives though, to make it complete, but let's wait until we
hear what the PB staff thinks. They may be able to provide a better
solution than having to download thousands of files.

In the meantime I'll add a "Find in text" function to the program.
Just discovered that would be handy to have. Also discovered I have
forgot to mention Semen Matusovski in the About box. Sorry Semen,
your contributuions really helped me to get started with this project
so this will be changed in version 1.1, soon to be released..


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[Lance Edmonds]

Folks, at this stage, we have no real objection to what you have achieved to date. Rather, we are quite impressed by the rapid deployment and innovative spirit being displayed!

However, we do have an objection to this application being able to update itself directly from the PowerBASIC web site - we would prefer a 3rd-party (such as Borje, who initiated this project) to act as the "archivist" and make update packets available to the others from another server, rather than the PowerBASIC server. We cannot support any scheme that severely impacts our server's performance more than it is already.

The reason for this is simple - there are many [more] folks that just visit and lurk on the BBS than actually ever make posts. Even if some of these folks want to use this application to download messages, our hosting provider is likely to get a tad upset at the massive upsurge in traffic, more than might be imagined.

I hope this explains our position, and we hope that this project is successful for you. We look forward to watching it's progress.



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Lance
PowerBASIC Support
mailto:[email protected][email protected]</A>

[Semen Matusovski]

To decrease traffic from PB site data files should be located on own Websites or servers similar virtualave.net, fortunecity.com, geocity.com (not paid).

Borje --
I have an utility, which updates itself through Internet.
On Web server there is a description file (Ltr32.Pkg) with a list of files and dates.
On local PC there is a file Ltr32.Nfo, which includes the same info after last download.
When you start this utility, it reads Ltr32.Pkg, compares with Ltr32.Nfo and download updated files only.
Because utility assumes that all files are located in the same place, it's necessary to modify it a little.
Probably, at the end of week I will have time to correct it (1-2 hours maximum).
If you are interesting, E-Mail me [email protected] and I will send you actual release for analyze.
(it's enough big to post here and includes additional code, which isn't necessary for your project).



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[Borje Hagsten]

Lance, is it possible to get some help from PB with zipping up the
remaining forums, 3 to 6 and the archives? It's no disaster if not,
because we have a bunch of helping hands here with fast connections,
but it would be better if someone with access to the machine that
carries those files could do it, at least this one time.

Semen, a nice offer, but really not necessary. I feel it would be
enough for me to download and update the databases once a week, or
maybe even once a month. I'm already running a double fulltime
business here, so I don't want to take on too much daily work.

I can manage the handling of updates though, and keep the updates
on my server, no problems. Some day, maybe PB will realize this is
a good utility for both old and new users and take care of it, maybe
even polish it up and include it with their installation (yes, it's
public domain - anyone is free to do what they like with it, this
of course including our friends at PB) but we have at least got it
on the road now..

Fellows, let's await and see if we can get help zipping up the
remaining forums. It's no distaster if they can't help us - they
may be very busy with other things right now, so I don't want to
put any strain on them. If PB can't do it right now, we'll take it
from there.

IMPORTANT NOTICE:
POFFS v1.1 is hereby released. You can either download the complete
1.8 MB package from http://www.tolken99.com/program/poffs.zip
or a small update file, containing only the exe and the source code
from http://www.tolken99.com/program/poffsupd.zip (54KB)

POFFS v1.1 includes "Find in text", a complete search dialog and
function for searching a rich edit control up/down, match case,
whole words only, etc. Probably good for other rich edit projects
too.

It also includes a few minor fixes and of course, Semen Matusovski's
name in the about-window. Without Semen, this wonderful programmer,
there would have been no POFFS at this stage, so..


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