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Date:Mon Aug 7 10:46:19 2003 
Subject:Re: poplog interactive mode - PS [jpop] 
From:A . Sloman 
Volume-ID:1030807.04 

On Thu, 7 Aug 2003, David Young wrote:

> If it's useful at all, I have code that does a reasonable job of
> converting REF, HELP etc. files to HTML, including the control codes
> for bold, italic etc. You can find it at
>
>     http://www.cogs.susx.ac.uk/users/davidy/poplog

Anthony Worrall at Reading University also has programs to do the
conversion, used to produce this web site:
    http://www.poplog.cs.reading.ac.uk/poplog/

> I haven't found where the file representation of Ved's special
> characters is documented,

I don't think this ever was documented (I suspect this was partly
to stop people depending on the implementation, which might later
have been changed).

However Brian Logan worked out the conventions empirically and used them
in his Emacs package for viewing poplog documentation:

    http://www.cs.bham.ac.uk/research/poplog/emacs.tar.gz

I don't know how easy it would be to convert the emacs lisp code to
java code (or jedit rules).

> However, it shouldn't matter, as you can just read the
> files with vedfile_line_repeater, which reads the codes into dstrings.
> No need to write your own procedure to do what the system already does.

Alas, this will not help someone who is trying to make the files
viewable in a different editor?

It would be possible to run the undocumented (!) utility
    LIB stripvedfile

to convert ALL the files to plain ascii text. This is how I produced the
universally viewable versions of poplog documentation files here using
no Ved characters and no html, just plain text:

    http://www.cs.bham.ac.uk/research/poplog/doc/

(the structure of the directory could be improved).

I have been tempted to do this to the standard poplog distribution,
so that by default everyone gets ALL documentation files in plain text
format.

Then all the files can be read in any editor or browser.

People who want to read the fancy versions with ved graphics,
colours, etc. could then download a tar file and unpack it, with
suitable extensions to search lists (using a pop11 file provided).

But I have given this low priority.

Some ved users would be made unhappy, but if poplog/pop11 really becomes
popular, the proportion of users who access it via their favourite
editor other than Ved must increase.

[DY]
> DOC, HELP, TEACH and REF files are linked in different ways. The basic
> system is that a search for a document name is done in directories
> specified in veddoclist, vedhelplist, vedteachlist and vedreflist. This
> is activated when you do <ESC>H. On top of this some files allow you to
> follow a link using the mouse - I think this is done using the "hidden
> data" mechanism described in REF * STRINGS/10 and REF * ITEMISE/4.7 but
> I don't know how it works in detail.

This is the mechanism that once made Steve Leach object that poplog is
now as dangerous as windows, since malicious hackers can use this to
install horrible traps for the unwary just by providing an innocent
looking documentation file. None of my online documentation uses this
mechanism. So you have to type ESC h to follow links and you see exactly
what you are invoking.

Of course a malicious person could also supply a program that shadows
vedgetsysfile, but that requires explicit changes to code libraries.

Aaron