From pterjan at linuxfr.org  Sat Oct  1 09:26:20 2005
From: pterjan at linuxfr.org (Pascal Terjan)
Date: Sat, 01 Oct 2005 15:26:20 +0200
Subject: [Alexandria-list] alexandria crash
In-Reply-To: <1be7247c0509300326o5d47069bp25cbee76d35e456d@mail.gmail.com>
References: <1127635881.4080.3.camel@localhost>
	<loom.20050929T053032-537@post.gmane.org>
	<1be7247c0509300326o5d47069bp25cbee76d35e456d@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <1128173180.4688.11.camel@plop>

Le vendredi 30 septembre 2005 ? 12:26 +0200, Laurent Sansonetti a
?crit :
> Good catch!  I did not know YAML is not able to store Bignums, mmh... 
> I will probably need to serialize the date using a string.
> 
Looks like it was in 1.8.2 and is not anymore with 1.8.3

With 1.8.2 YAML.dump(1234567890) produced :
--- 1234567890
With 1.8.3 we get :
!ruby/object:Bignum 1234567890

YAML.load can load "--- 1234567890" or "--- !ruby/object:Bignum
1234567890" but not "!ruby/object:Bignum 1234567890"


From pterjan at linuxfr.org  Sat Oct  1 09:41:53 2005
From: pterjan at linuxfr.org (Pascal Terjan)
Date: Sat, 01 Oct 2005 15:41:53 +0200
Subject: [Alexandria-list] alexandria crash
In-Reply-To: <1128173180.4688.11.camel@plop>
References: <1127635881.4080.3.camel@localhost>
	<loom.20050929T053032-537@post.gmane.org>
	<1be7247c0509300326o5d47069bp25cbee76d35e456d@mail.gmail.com>
	<1128173180.4688.11.camel@plop>
Message-ID: <1128174113.4688.13.camel@plop>

Le samedi 01 octobre 2005 ? 15:26 +0200, Pascal Terjan a ?crit :
> Le vendredi 30 septembre 2005 ? 12:26 +0200, Laurent Sansonetti a
> ?crit :
> > Good catch!  I did not know YAML is not able to store Bignums, mmh... 
> > I will probably need to serialize the date using a string.
> > 
> Looks like it was in 1.8.2 and is not anymore with 1.8.3
> 
> With 1.8.2 YAML.dump(1234567890) produced :
> --- 1234567890
> With 1.8.3 we get :
> !ruby/object:Bignum 1234567890
> 
> YAML.load can load "--- 1234567890" or "--- !ruby/object:Bignum
> 1234567890" but not "!ruby/object:Bignum 1234567890"

Sorry I'm wrong, even if I'm pretty sure the --- is missing, "--- !
ruby/object:Bignum 1234567890" produces the same error :/


From laurent.sansonetti at gmail.com  Sat Oct  1 11:57:03 2005
From: laurent.sansonetti at gmail.com (Laurent Sansonetti)
Date: Sat, 1 Oct 2005 17:57:03 +0200
Subject: [Alexandria-list] alexandria crash
In-Reply-To: <1128174113.4688.13.camel@plop>
References: <1127635881.4080.3.camel@localhost>
	<loom.20050929T053032-537@post.gmane.org>
	<1be7247c0509300326o5d47069bp25cbee76d35e456d@mail.gmail.com>
	<1128173180.4688.11.camel@plop> <1128174113.4688.13.camel@plop>
Message-ID: <1be7247c0510010857p23ec9425he840ef611a7297ae@mail.gmail.com>

Hi,

On 10/1/05, Pascal Terjan <pterjan at linuxfr.org> wrote:
> Le samedi 01 octobre 2005 ? 15:26 +0200, Pascal Terjan a ?crit :
> > Le vendredi 30 septembre 2005 ? 12:26 +0200, Laurent Sansonetti a
> > ?crit :
> > > Good catch!  I did not know YAML is not able to store Bignums, mmh...
> > > I will probably need to serialize the date using a string.
> > >
> > Looks like it was in 1.8.2 and is not anymore with 1.8.3
> >
> > With 1.8.2 YAML.dump(1234567890) produced :
> > --- 1234567890
> > With 1.8.3 we get :
> > !ruby/object:Bignum 1234567890
> >
> > YAML.load can load "--- 1234567890" or "--- !ruby/object:Bignum
> > 1234567890" but not "!ruby/object:Bignum 1234567890"
>
> Sorry I'm wrong, even if I'm pretty sure the --- is missing, "--- !
> ruby/object:Bignum 1234567890" produces the same error :/
>

You're right, with ruby 1.8.2 (2005-05-10) [powerpc-darwin8.1.0]:

$ ruby -r yaml -e "p YAML.dump(1234567890)"
"--- 1234567890"

But with ruby 1.8.3 (2005-09-21) [i486-linux]:
"!ruby/object:Bignum 1234567890\n"

I just mailed a report to ruby-core.

Anyway we will need to ship a workaround for this issue...

Laurent


From afb at paradise.net.nz  Sun Oct  2 03:10:58 2005
From: afb at paradise.net.nz (Adam Bogacki)
Date: Sun, 02 Oct 2005 20:10:58 +1300
Subject: [Alexandria-list] A successful 0.6.0-2 install !!
In-Reply-To: <mailman.9978.1128090870.30948.alexandria-list@rubyforge.org>
References: <mailman.9978.1128090870.30948.alexandria-list@rubyforge.org>
Message-ID: <20051002071058.GB8367@paradise.net.nz>

Laurent,

	I wish to report a successfull install of

alexandria_0.6.0-2_all.deb

	I deleted all references to 'alexandria' then, having followed
the list, installed dependencies rubyzoom and something called yaz 
followed by a ceremonial opening of the deb. 

	It works ! I can change libraries although I have also noticed
a bit of instability (crashing when I return to one previously opened)
but first impressions are all good.

	An 'undo' button or buttons would give people confidence that
painfully entered booklists would not vanish after a keyboard accident.

Grazie, guys !

Adam Bogacki,
afb at paradise.net.nz
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From lrz at gnome.org  Sun Oct  2 16:06:18 2005
From: lrz at gnome.org (Laurent Sansonetti)
Date: Sun, 02 Oct 2005 22:06:18 +0200
Subject: [Alexandria-list] A successful 0.6.0-2 install !!
In-Reply-To: <20051002071058.GB8367@paradise.net.nz>
References: <mailman.9978.1128090870.30948.alexandria-list@rubyforge.org>
	<20051002071058.GB8367@paradise.net.nz>
Message-ID: <1128283578.5694.2.camel@localhost.localdomain>

Hi Adam,

On Sun, 2005-10-02 at 20:10 +1300, Adam Bogacki wrote:
> Laurent,
> 
> 	I wish to report a successfull install of
> 
> alexandria_0.6.0-2_all.deb
> 
> 	I deleted all references to 'alexandria' then, having followed
> the list, installed dependencies rubyzoom and something called yaz 
> followed by a ceremonial opening of the deb. 
> 
> 	It works ! I can change libraries although I have also noticed
> a bit of instability (crashing when I return to one previously opened)
> but first impressions are all good.
> 

Cool!  Did you record the crash somewhere BTW?  As you might know, it
should not crash :)  Providing the crash log would help me to fix these
kind of instabilities :)

> 	An 'undo' button or buttons would give people confidence that
> painfully entered booklists would not vanish after a keyboard accident.

I do also agree.  This is something quite important that I would like to
work on soon.

Glad you enjoy the program :)

Laurent


From lrz at gnome.org  Sun Oct  2 17:41:58 2005
From: lrz at gnome.org (Laurent Sansonetti)
Date: Sun, 02 Oct 2005 23:41:58 +0200
Subject: [Alexandria-list] [ANN] Alexandria 0.6.1
Message-ID: <1128289318.5671.6.camel@localhost.localdomain>

Hi,

Alexandria 0.6.1 has just been released.

Alexandria is a GNOME application to help you manage your book
collection.

You can get more information (screenshots, features, download links,
packages...) on its web site:

    http://alexandria.rubyforge.org

This release ships a workaround for a Ruby 1.8.3 bug with YAML
serialization of big numbers.  The data model has been modified to
serialize the loaning dates differently and Alexandria should also be
backward compatible with libraries generated by previous versions.

Enjoy!

Laurent


From lrz at gnome.org  Sun Oct  2 18:09:42 2005
From: lrz at gnome.org (Laurent Sansonetti)
Date: Mon, 03 Oct 2005 00:09:42 +0200
Subject: [Alexandria-list] [ANN] Ruby/ZOOM 0.2.1
Message-ID: <1128290982.5668.12.camel@localhost.localdomain>

Hi,

I am happy to announce the 0.2.1 release of Ruby/ZOOM.

Ruby/ZOOM provides a Ruby binding to the Z39.50 Object-Orientation Model
(ZOOM), an abstract object-oriented programming interface to a subset of
the services specified by the Z39.50 standard, also known as the
international standard ISO 23950.

You can get more information from the home page:

        http://ruby-zoom.rubyforge.org

This release fixes a possible crasher when rubyfying the case of options
names, discovered and fixed by Pascal Terjan.

Enjoy

Laurent


From john at stoffel.org  Mon Oct  3 17:10:11 2005
From: john at stoffel.org (John Stoffel)
Date: Mon, 3 Oct 2005 17:10:11 -0400
Subject: [Alexandria-list] Alexandria 0.6.1 + all dependencies for
	Ubuntu breezy
In-Reply-To: <1128373475.1249.11.camel@localhost.localdomain>
References: <1128373475.1249.11.camel@localhost.localdomain>
Message-ID: <17217.40499.878577.559403@smtp.charter.net>


Zygmunt> I'm trying to create and maintain everything needed to
Zygmunt> support alexandria in Ubuntu. I can see that there is some
Zygmunt> progress already and I would like to share resources.

Sure, that would be great!

Zygmunt> I need source packages that anyone has created, binary
Zygmunt> packages will obviously not work :-) I plan to put alexandria
Zygmunt> 0.6.1 in the universe repository (for those not familiar with
Zygmunt> ubuntu, this is a large repository holding many packages not
Zygmunt> officially supported by Ubuntu)

I don't think it's obvious, Ubuntu is a Debian based distro, it should
be able to import packages, if the depedencies are correct, and
Alexandria doesn't have too many.

In any case, I'm going to update my .debs to alexandria-0.6.1 and
ruby-zoom-0.2.1, and hopefully also put up the src packages as well.

And I'd be more than happy to share with you my debian directory, if
that will help. 

John

From zkrynicki at gmail.com  Mon Oct  3 17:04:34 2005
From: zkrynicki at gmail.com (Zygmunt Krynicki)
Date: Mon, 03 Oct 2005 23:04:34 +0200
Subject: [Alexandria-list] Alexandria 0.6.1 + all dependencies for Ubuntu
	breezy
Message-ID: <1128373475.1249.11.camel@localhost.localdomain>

Hello.
I hope this mail will reach the mailing list but if that is not the case
please forward it there.

I'm trying to create and maintain everything needed to support
alexandria in Ubuntu. I can see that there is some progress already and
I would like to share resources.

I need source packages that anyone has created, binary packages will
obviously not work :-) I plan to put alexandria 0.6.1 in the universe
repository (for those not familiar with ubuntu, this is a large
repository holding many packages not officially supported by Ubuntu)

Fell free to CC me in later emails.
Regards


-- 
Zygmunt Krynicki <zkrynicki at gmail.com>


From john at stoffel.org  Tue Oct  4 23:13:25 2005
From: john at stoffel.org (John Stoffel)
Date: Tue, 4 Oct 2005 23:13:25 -0400
Subject: [Alexandria-list] Alexandria 0.6.0 thoughts
Message-ID: <17219.17621.127490.826744@smtp.charter.net>



Hi Laurent,

I've finally gotten some time to play with doing more bulk data entry
of my books into Alexandria 0.6.0 and I have a couple of comments,
mostly related to improving work flow and such.

1. I wish there was a bulk import mode, where I could just enter ISBNs
   + <enter> and have it beep or boop at me if there was a problem or
   not.  And then let me just keep entering new ISBNs.  It's a pain
   having to hit Ctrl-N each time.  Thought I might be able to program
   my scanner to do that for me...

2. When a book is entered, it would be nice to have the list of books
   scrolled to show the newly entered book in the center of the list.
   This is a good quick check that I got the right info in there.

3. I wish I could enter multiple books, since I have multiple copies
   of some books.  For example, I have some signed editions, but I
   then have the exact same one un-signed.  I can't figure out how to
   add multiple copies of the same book.  This is a big issue for me.

4. I'd love to have some way of merging libraries, though I haven't
   admitedly played with this too much yet.  I'll try moving my books
   all into one library.

5. It would also be great if we could work with the
   'http://www.librarything.com' people to see if we could come up
   with a method to easily import/export/sync libraries between the
   two sets of software.  I'd love to have my books on the net, but I
   also want a backup at home and visa versa.  

Back to data entry... and of course debian packaging when I get a
chance.  *grin*  Everyone else is asleep, so it's a good time to scan
a bunch of books.  

John

From john at stoffel.org  Tue Oct  4 23:46:27 2005
From: john at stoffel.org (John Stoffel)
Date: Tue, 4 Oct 2005 23:46:27 -0400
Subject: [Alexandria-list] Crash report - 0.6.0
In-Reply-To: <17219.17621.127490.826744@smtp.charter.net>
References: <17219.17621.127490.826744@smtp.charter.net>
Message-ID: <17219.19603.272424.651643@smtp.charter.net>


Laurent,

I was moving all my books from one library to another, and dealing
with the merges, when I got this crash.  Basically, I had around 100
books that I had just scanned in tonight, and I was trying to merge
them into the master library.  It did the first one (I think I hit
skip) then the second one, and boom.  



Alexandria just crashed
-----------------------
Timestamp: Tue Oct 04 23:43:10 EDT 2005
Message: undefined method `[]' for nil:NilClass
Backtrace:
/usr/lib/ruby/1.8/alexandria/ui/main_app.rb:522:in `book_from_iter'
/usr/lib/ruby/1.8/alexandria/ui/main_app.rb:522:in `find'
/usr/lib/ruby/1.8/alexandria/ui/main_app.rb:522:in `book_from_iter'
/usr/lib/ruby/1.8/alexandria/ui/main_app.rb:559:in `selected_books'
/usr/lib/ruby/1.8/alexandria/ui/main_app.rb:554:in `call'
/usr/lib/ruby/1.8/alexandria/ui/main_app.rb:554:in `selected_books'
/usr/lib/ruby/1.8/alexandria/ui/main_app.rb:117:in `on_books_selection_changed'
/usr/lib/ruby/1.8/alexandria/ui/main_app.rb:432:in `setup_books_listview'
/usr/lib/ruby/1.8/alexandria/ui/main_app.rb:431:in `call'
/usr/lib/ruby/1.8/alexandria/ui/main_app.rb:216:in `update'
/usr/lib/ruby/1.8/observer.rb:185:in `notify_observers'
/usr/lib/ruby/1.8/observer.rb:184:in `notify_observers'
/usr/lib/ruby/1.8/alexandria/library.rb:105:in `move'
/usr/lib/ruby/1.8/alexandria/library.rb:97:in `each'
/usr/lib/ruby/1.8/alexandria/library.rb:97:in `move'
/usr/lib/ruby/1.8/alexandria/ui/main_app.rb:692:in `setup_move_actions'
/usr/lib/ruby/1.8/alexandria/ui/main_app.rb:684:in `call'
/usr/lib/ruby/1.8/alexandria/ui.rb:42:in `main'
/usr/lib/ruby/1.8/alexandria.rb:66:in `main'
/usr/bin/alexandria:10
Release: 0.6.0

Uname -a: Linux jfsnew 2.6.13-rc7 #77 SMP Wed Aug 24 23:29:08 EDT 2005 i686 GNU/Linux
--
Please report this dump to 'alexandria-list at rubyforge.org' with some additional
information, such as the description of the crash and the steps to reproduce it
(if it's possible).

From laurent.sansonetti at gmail.com  Fri Oct  7 15:07:40 2005
From: laurent.sansonetti at gmail.com (Laurent Sansonetti)
Date: Fri, 7 Oct 2005 21:07:40 +0200
Subject: [Alexandria-list] Alexandria 0.6.0 thoughts
In-Reply-To: <17219.17621.127490.826744@smtp.charter.net>
References: <17219.17621.127490.826744@smtp.charter.net>
Message-ID: <1be7247c0510071207y151eb2e4jd00acc4791044a44@mail.gmail.com>

Hi John,

Sorry for the late response.

On 10/5/05, John Stoffel <john at stoffel.org> wrote:
>
>
> Hi Laurent,
>
> I've finally gotten some time to play with doing more bulk data entry
> of my books into Alexandria 0.6.0 and I have a couple of comments,
> mostly related to improving work flow and such.
>
> 1. I wish there was a bulk import mode, where I could just enter ISBNs
>    + <enter> and have it beep or boop at me if there was a problem or
>    not.  And then let me just keep entering new ISBNs.  It's a pain
>    having to hit Ctrl-N each time.  Thought I might be able to program
>    my scanner to do that for me...
>

The next release will feature a new window dedicated to scanner
import, so you can scan and add books at once.  Otherwise, if you want
to add several books at once you can still write a ISBN-list file and
import it to Alexandria.  But I am afraid there won't be a window for
that (at least for the next release).

> 2. When a book is entered, it would be nice to have the list of books
>    scrolled to show the newly entered book in the center of the list.
>    This is a good quick check that I got the right info in there.
>

Good point, we should at least select them and autoscroll if necessary.

An idea I would like to implement is the smart library folder (a kind
of virtual library that you configure with a set of criterion, some
Apple apps have this now), and provide a "Recently Added" smart
library by default, so you can easily find those books.

> 3. I wish I could enter multiple books, since I have multiple copies
>    of some books.  For example, I have some signed editions, but I
>    then have the exact same one un-signed.  I can't figure out how to
>    add multiple copies of the same book.  This is a big issue for me.
>

The current data model won't allow this, as we use the ISBN as the
key.  But I can add a new field, named for instance Number of Copies,
that you can configure in the UI.  But I suspect this is not what you
want, as you probably expect to see your copies on the list or icon
view, one entry per copy...

> 4. I'd love to have some way of merging libraries, though I haven't
>    admitedly played with this too much yet.  I'll try moving my books
>    all into one library.
>

This should work, well except for the bug you found in your next mail :-)

Note that now that GTK+ supports drag-and-drop in the icon view I am
now able to implement it.  This will surely facilitate this kind of
operation.

> 5. It would also be great if we could work with the
>    'http://www.librarything.com' people to see if we could come up
>    with a method to easily import/export/sync libraries between the
>    two sets of software.  I'd love to have my books on the net, but I
>    also want a backup at home and visa versa.
>

Interesting, I did not know about this project.  I will check this
out... but at the first glance the project looks proprietary, and I do
not want to trap Alexandria users into that.

> Back to data entry... and of course debian packaging when I get a
> chance.  *grin*  Everyone else is asleep, so it's a good time to scan
> a bunch of books.
>

Hehe, thanks a lot for this feedback, and of course for your packaging work :-)

Laurent


From laurent.sansonetti at gmail.com  Fri Oct  7 15:10:39 2005
From: laurent.sansonetti at gmail.com (Laurent Sansonetti)
Date: Fri, 7 Oct 2005 21:10:39 +0200
Subject: [Alexandria-list] Crash report - 0.6.0
In-Reply-To: <17219.19603.272424.651643@smtp.charter.net>
References: <17219.17621.127490.826744@smtp.charter.net>
	<17219.19603.272424.651643@smtp.charter.net>
Message-ID: <1be7247c0510071210j7acd83a5x3a1e296a0dd768ca@mail.gmail.com>

Hi John,

On 10/5/05, John Stoffel <john at stoffel.org> wrote:
>
> Laurent,
>
> I was moving all my books from one library to another, and dealing
> with the merges, when I got this crash.  Basically, I had around 100
> books that I had just scanned in tonight, and I was trying to merge
> them into the master library.  It did the first one (I think I hit
> skip) then the second one, and boom.
>
>
>
> Alexandria just crashed
> -----------------------
> Timestamp: Tue Oct 04 23:43:10 EDT 2005
> Message: undefined method `[]' for nil:NilClass
> Backtrace:
> /usr/lib/ruby/1.8/alexandria/ui/main_app.rb:522:in `book_from_iter'
> /usr/lib/ruby/1.8/alexandria/ui/main_app.rb:522:in `find'
> /usr/lib/ruby/1.8/alexandria/ui/main_app.rb:522:in `book_from_iter'
> /usr/lib/ruby/1.8/alexandria/ui/main_app.rb:559:in `selected_books'
> /usr/lib/ruby/1.8/alexandria/ui/main_app.rb:554:in `call'
> /usr/lib/ruby/1.8/alexandria/ui/main_app.rb:554:in `selected_books'
> /usr/lib/ruby/1.8/alexandria/ui/main_app.rb:117:in `on_books_selection_changed'
> /usr/lib/ruby/1.8/alexandria/ui/main_app.rb:432:in `setup_books_listview'
> /usr/lib/ruby/1.8/alexandria/ui/main_app.rb:431:in `call'
> /usr/lib/ruby/1.8/alexandria/ui/main_app.rb:216:in `update'
> /usr/lib/ruby/1.8/observer.rb:185:in `notify_observers'
> /usr/lib/ruby/1.8/observer.rb:184:in `notify_observers'
> /usr/lib/ruby/1.8/alexandria/library.rb:105:in `move'
> /usr/lib/ruby/1.8/alexandria/library.rb:97:in `each'
> /usr/lib/ruby/1.8/alexandria/library.rb:97:in `move'
> /usr/lib/ruby/1.8/alexandria/ui/main_app.rb:692:in `setup_move_actions'
> /usr/lib/ruby/1.8/alexandria/ui/main_app.rb:684:in `call'
> /usr/lib/ruby/1.8/alexandria/ui.rb:42:in `main'
> /usr/lib/ruby/1.8/alexandria.rb:66:in `main'
> /usr/bin/alexandria:10
> Release: 0.6.0
>
> Uname -a: Linux jfsnew 2.6.13-rc7 #77 SMP Wed Aug 24 23:29:08 EDT 2005 i686 GNU/Linux
> --
> Please report this dump to 'alexandria-list at rubyforge.org' with some additional
> information, such as the description of the crash and the steps to reproduce it
> (if it's possible).

Thanks a lot for the back trace.  I keep this under my eyes, to fix it
for the next release :)

Laurent


From mbrubeck at cs.hmc.edu  Sat Oct  8 12:01:06 2005
From: mbrubeck at cs.hmc.edu (Matt Brubeck)
Date: Sat, 8 Oct 2005 16:01:06 +0000 (UTC)
Subject: [Alexandria-list]
	=?utf-8?q?Debian_packages_for_alexandria-0=2E6?=
	=?utf-8?q?=2E0_and=09Ruby/ZOOM-0=2E2=2E0_available?=
References: <17203.27232.987267.984838@smtp.charter.net>
Message-ID: <loom.20051008T175721-190@post.gmane.org>

John Stoffel <john at ...> writes:

> One of these days I'll figure out how to package the source debs and
> I'll put them up there as well.

The source package is not actually a "deb" file.  It consists of three parts
that are generated when you build your package:  The dsc file, the diff.gz file,
and the orig.tar.gz file.

If you make these three files available, then other Debian developers can
unpack, build, and modify your package source.


From john at stoffel.org  Sat Oct  8 14:17:55 2005
From: john at stoffel.org (John Stoffel)
Date: Sat, 8 Oct 2005 14:17:55 -0400
Subject: [Alexandria-list] Alexandria 0.6.0 thoughts
In-Reply-To: <1be7247c0510071207y151eb2e4jd00acc4791044a44@mail.gmail.com>
References: <17219.17621.127490.826744@smtp.charter.net>
	<1be7247c0510071207y151eb2e4jd00acc4791044a44@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <17224.3411.109644.161781@smtp.charter.net>

>>>>> "Laurent" == Laurent Sansonetti <laurent.sansonetti at gmail.com> writes:

Laurent> The next release will feature a new window dedicated to
Laurent> scanner import, so you can scan and add books at once.
Laurent> Otherwise, if you want to add several books at once you can
Laurent> still write a ISBN-list file and import it to Alexandria.
Laurent> But I am afraid there won't be a window for that (at least
Laurent> for the next release).

The only problem with an ISBN import is that it makes it harder to
know which ones failed.  Scanning them one by one in a big pile and
getting fairly quick feedback on whether it's a good lookup or not is
a key thing. 

Laurent> An idea I would like to implement is the smart library folder
Laurent> (a kind of virtual library that you configure with a set of
Laurent> criterion, some Apple apps have this now), and provide a
Laurent> "Recently Added" smart library by default, so you can easily
Laurent> find those books.

Do you keep track of when a book entry was created and/or when it was
last modified?  Those would be good fields to keep track.  Then you
could easily sort by when a book was entered/acquired.  

Actually, and acquired field would be good too I suspect.  

Laurent> The current data model won't allow this, as we use the ISBN
Laurent> as the key. 

Ugh!  This is bad to do.  You should be using a Unique key instead of
the ISBN.  Again, just for such situations as I find myself in, where
I can't easily enter multiple books into a library.  I'm going to
setup a duplicates shelf for now I guess...

Laurent>  But I can add a new field, named for instance Number of
Laurent> Copies, that you can configure in the UI.  But I suspect this
Laurent> is not what you want, as you probably expect to see your
Laurent> copies on the list or icon view, one entry per copy...

Exactly.  And I'm sure others do as well.  Especially for books which
were printed before ISBNs were available.  Maybe I'll poke at the code
and see how hard it would be to make this change.... not that I know
Ruby well enough.

Laurent> This should work, well except for the bug you found in your
Laurent> next mail :-)

Yup.  Funnily enough, the next attempt I made did merge thme without
too many problems.  I think. 

Laurent> Note that now that GTK+ supports drag-and-drop in the icon
Laurent> view I am now able to implement it.  This will surely
Laurent> facilitate this kind of operation.

Laurent> Interesting, I did not know about this project.  I will check
Laurent> this out... but at the first glance the project looks
Laurent> proprietary, and I do not want to trap Alexandria users into
Laurent> that.

Well, it is propietary in that the guy hasn't released his code, but
he does allow/support the export of the data, which is a good thing in
my mind.  So for me, both of these projects are giving me alot of
impetus to actually find out what's in my library.  

Laurent> Hehe, thanks a lot for this feedback, and of course for your
Laurent> packaging work :-)

I know I'm behind on the packaging, mea culpa.  It's looking to be a
rainy weekend, so hopefully I'll be able to churn them both out
quickly today.

John

From john at stoffel.org  Sat Oct  8 14:18:35 2005
From: john at stoffel.org (John Stoffel)
Date: Sat, 8 Oct 2005 14:18:35 -0400
Subject: [Alexandria-list]
	Debian_packages_for_alexandria-0.6.0_and	Ruby/ZOOM-0.2.0_available
In-Reply-To: <loom.20051008T175721-190@post.gmane.org>
References: <17203.27232.987267.984838@smtp.charter.net>
	<loom.20051008T175721-190@post.gmane.org>
Message-ID: <17224.3451.9995.787557@smtp.charter.net>


Matt> The source package is not actually a "deb" file.  It consists of
Matt> three parts that are generated when you build your package: The
Matt> dsc file, the diff.gz file, and the orig.tar.gz file.

Matt> If you make these three files available, then other Debian
Matt> developers can unpack, build, and modify your package source.

Sure, I'll put them up next time I upload the 0.6.1 and 0.2.1 packages
later today.  

John

From alexander at tunicate.org  Mon Oct 10 02:25:11 2005
From: alexander at tunicate.org (Alexander McCormmach)
Date: Sun, 09 Oct 2005 23:25:11 -0700
Subject: [Alexandria-list] Small fix to dialog button event handlers
Message-ID: <434A0947.3080300@tunicate.org>

Just wanted to let everyone here know that I submitted a small patch to
the tracker which fixes the button event handlers on a couple of
Alexandria's dialogs. They currently respond to "pressed" when that
should be "clicked" (i.e., performing the action after the mouse has
been pressed *and released*). Hope this helps:

http://rubyforge.org/tracker/?func=detail&aid=2598&group_id=205&atid=865

 or

http://tinyurl.com/a4vyg

Take care,

Alexander

(Please CC me with any reply because I am not subscribed to this list.)

From afb at paradise.net.nz  Tue Oct 11 04:17:39 2005
From: afb at paradise.net.nz (Adam Bogacki)
Date: Tue, 11 Oct 2005 21:17:39 +1300
Subject: [Alexandria-list] Dump info, 0.6.0-2 crash  ..
Message-ID: <20051011081739.GA16843@paradise.net.nz>

Sorry Laurent,

	I decided it was time to upgrade to alexandria_0.6.0-2_all.deb
so I apt-removed 0.5 (from current Deb unstable repository), found and
deleted all references to alex on my system, then downloaded 
rubyzoom_0.2.0-2_i386.deb , dpkg-installed it and alex and all looked
good until it crashed when I tried to create a new library ..

	Attempting restart from command line I received the following.

Cheers,

Adam Bogacki,
Frustrated Bibliophile .. but still an Alexandria fan.

adam at Tux:~06:08:42$ alexandria
Bonobo accessibility support initialized
GTK Accessibility Module initialized
-----------------------
Alexandria just crashed
-----------------------
Timestamp: Tue Oct 11 18:08:50 NZDT 2005
Message: allocator undefined for Bignum
Backtrace:
/usr/lib/ruby/1.8/yaml.rb:133:in `transfer'
/usr/lib/ruby/1.8/yaml.rb:133:in `load'
/usr/lib/ruby/1.8/alexandria/library.rb:55:in `load'
/usr/lib/ruby/1.8/alexandria/library.rb:54:in `load'
/usr/lib/ruby/1.8/alexandria/library.rb:53:in `load'
/usr/lib/ruby/1.8/alexandria/library.rb:52:in `load'
/usr/lib/ruby/1.8/alexandria/library.rb:83:in `loadall'
/usr/lib/ruby/1.8/alexandria/library.rb:77:in `loadall'
/usr/lib/ruby/1.8/alexandria/ui/main_app.rb:266:in `load_libraries'
/usr/lib/ruby/1.8/alexandria/ui/main_app.rb:84:in `initialize'
/usr/lib/ruby/1.8/alexandria/ui.rb:41:in `main'
/usr/lib/ruby/1.8/alexandria.rb:66:in `main'
/usr/bin/alexandria:10
Release: 0.6.0

Uname -a: Linux Tux 2.6.5-1-686 #5 Fri Apr 30 20:26:13 EST 2004 i686
GNU/Linux
--
Please report this dump to 'alexandria-list at rubyforge.org' with some
additional
information, such as the description of the crash and the steps to
reproduce it

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From afb at paradise.net.nz  Tue Oct 11 06:14:28 2005
From: afb at paradise.net.nz (Adam Bogacki)
Date: Tue, 11 Oct 2005 23:14:28 +1300
Subject: [Alexandria-list] Ordering books by date .. ?
Message-ID: <20051011101428.GE16843@paradise.net.nz>

Laurent, sorry to be picky - I've just installed 0.6.1 from source
(gets easier every time) and find it still crashes when I try to open a
new library. The main library seems to be working and I've resurrected
a small backed-up database (once bitten.. etc.) and can see some nice
features - I'm impressed with the documentation.

However I don't seem to be able to order books by date. It seems
fairly important when assessing currency of material.Could it be
included in the next version ?

Adam 
afb at paradise.net.nz

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From rborrelli at gmail.com  Thu Oct 13 08:00:10 2005
From: rborrelli at gmail.com (raffaele borrelli)
Date: Thu, 13 Oct 2005 14:00:10 +0200
Subject: [Alexandria-list] Search in BOL.it
Message-ID: <bc685d40510130500y51f028e9iac2ce61e2157fb2b@mail.gmail.com>

Dear All,
I have hacked the ibs_it.rb module for searching on Internet Boot Shop
Italia, and made a new module called bol_it.rb which can download
books information from http://www.bol.it, which to my opinion has
a better archive than IBS. You can only search by ISBN and it is in a
very prelimirary state. However I don't how to share it with all of you
please let me where can I put it in such a way that you can use it
if you want.

Note: I am new to Alexandria, and with non experience on Ruby
language at all.

Lello.
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From laurent.sansonetti at gmail.com  Thu Oct 13 15:16:15 2005
From: laurent.sansonetti at gmail.com (Laurent Sansonetti)
Date: Thu, 13 Oct 2005 21:16:15 +0200
Subject: [Alexandria-list] Alexandria 0.6.0 thoughts
In-Reply-To: <17224.3411.109644.161781@smtp.charter.net>
References: <17219.17621.127490.826744@smtp.charter.net>
	<1be7247c0510071207y151eb2e4jd00acc4791044a44@mail.gmail.com>
	<17224.3411.109644.161781@smtp.charter.net>
Message-ID: <1be7247c0510131216y502565d2h1358080ee5e6013@mail.gmail.com>

Hi John

On 10/8/05, John Stoffel <john at stoffel.org> wrote:
> >>>>> "Laurent" == Laurent Sansonetti <laurent.sansonetti at gmail.com> writes:
>
> Laurent> The next release will feature a new window dedicated to
> Laurent> scanner import, so you can scan and add books at once.
> Laurent> Otherwise, if you want to add several books at once you can
> Laurent> still write a ISBN-list file and import it to Alexandria.
> Laurent> But I am afraid there won't be a window for that (at least
> Laurent> for the next release).
>
> The only problem with an ISBN import is that it makes it harder to
> know which ones failed.  Scanning them one by one in a big pile and
> getting fairly quick feedback on whether it's a good lookup or not is
> a key thing.
>

Yeah I am aware of that, if I have time I will try to fix this.

> Laurent> An idea I would like to implement is the smart library folder
> Laurent> (a kind of virtual library that you configure with a set of
> Laurent> criterion, some Apple apps have this now), and provide a
> Laurent> "Recently Added" smart library by default, so you can easily
> Laurent> find those books.
>
> Do you keep track of when a book entry was created and/or when it was
> last modified?  Those would be good fields to keep track.  Then you
> could easily sort by when a book was entered/acquired.
>

Yes, using the last modification date of the associated .yaml file.

> Actually, and acquired field would be good too I suspect.
>

This is a good idea.  I will anyway add the publication date soon, so
why not this one too.

> Laurent> The current data model won't allow this, as we use the ISBN
> Laurent> as the key.
>
> Ugh!  This is bad to do.  You should be using a Unique key instead of
> the ISBN.  Again, just for such situations as I find myself in, where
> I can't easily enter multiple books into a library.  I'm going to
> setup a duplicates shelf for now I guess...
>

Hehe, when I started Alexandria I did not know about that :-)

But we are currently trickering this for ISBN-less books (we generate
a identifier to be used as the key since ISBN is not available).  We
could add some magic to support duplicates.

> Laurent>  But I can add a new field, named for instance Number of
> Laurent> Copies, that you can configure in the UI.  But I suspect this
> Laurent> is not what you want, as you probably expect to see your
> Laurent> copies on the list or icon view, one entry per copy...
>
> Exactly.  And I'm sure others do as well.  Especially for books which
> were printed before ISBNs were available.  Maybe I'll poke at the code
> and see how hard it would be to make this change.... not that I know
> Ruby well enough.
>

OK any contribution would be very valuable :)

> Laurent> This should work, well except for the bug you found in your
> Laurent> next mail :-)
>
> Yup.  Funnily enough, the next attempt I made did merge thme without
> too many problems.  I think.
>
> Laurent> Note that now that GTK+ supports drag-and-drop in the icon
> Laurent> view I am now able to implement it.  This will surely
> Laurent> facilitate this kind of operation.
>
> Laurent> Interesting, I did not know about this project.  I will check
> Laurent> this out... but at the first glance the project looks
> Laurent> proprietary, and I do not want to trap Alexandria users into
> Laurent> that.
>
> Well, it is propietary in that the guy hasn't released his code, but
> he does allow/support the export of the data, which is a good thing in
> my mind.  So for me, both of these projects are giving me alot of
> impetus to actually find out what's in my library.
>

Sure, but this is still proprietary for me, and very dangerous.  There
are other similar projects, which are free software.  Also writing a
new one using Ruby on Rails could be very exciting, as we could also
reuse some code from Alexandria...

Laurent


From laurent.sansonetti at gmail.com  Thu Oct 13 15:17:45 2005
From: laurent.sansonetti at gmail.com (Laurent Sansonetti)
Date: Thu, 13 Oct 2005 21:17:45 +0200
Subject: [Alexandria-list] Small fix to dialog button event handlers
In-Reply-To: <434A0947.3080300@tunicate.org>
References: <434A0947.3080300@tunicate.org>
Message-ID: <1be7247c0510131217y45dd399ds7eee198c31449475@mail.gmail.com>

Hi,

On 10/10/05, Alexander McCormmach <alexander at tunicate.org> wrote:
> Just wanted to let everyone here know that I submitted a small patch to
> the tracker which fixes the button event handlers on a couple of
> Alexandria's dialogs. They currently respond to "pressed" when that
> should be "clicked" (i.e., performing the action after the mouse has
> been pressed *and released*). Hope this helps:
>
> http://rubyforge.org/tracker/?func=detail&aid=2598&group_id=205&atid=865
>
>  or
>
> http://tinyurl.com/a4vyg
>

Thanks!  Yes I saw your patch on the tracker, I did not respond
because I am very busy at the moment.

I will merge your changes as soon as I have some time.  It will anyway
figure on the next release.

Thanks again

Laurent


From laurent.sansonetti at gmail.com  Thu Oct 13 15:19:21 2005
From: laurent.sansonetti at gmail.com (Laurent Sansonetti)
Date: Thu, 13 Oct 2005 21:19:21 +0200
Subject: [Alexandria-list] Dump info, 0.6.0-2 crash ..
In-Reply-To: <20051011081739.GA16843@paradise.net.nz>
References: <20051011081739.GA16843@paradise.net.nz>
Message-ID: <1be7247c0510131219p429bf400yc6769b84c6f422b8@mail.gmail.com>

Hi Adam,

The error you get has been fixed in 0.6.1 (this is a bug in Ruby
1.8.3).  Please consider upgrading :)

Laurent

On 10/11/05, Adam Bogacki <afb at paradise.net.nz> wrote:
> Sorry Laurent,
>
>         I decided it was time to upgrade to alexandria_0.6.0-2_all.deb
> so I apt-removed 0.5 (from current Deb unstable repository), found and
> deleted all references to alex on my system, then downloaded
> rubyzoom_0.2.0-2_i386.deb , dpkg-installed it and alex and all looked
> good until it crashed when I tried to create a new library ..
>
>         Attempting restart from command line I received the following.
>
> Cheers,
>
> Adam Bogacki,
> Frustrated Bibliophile .. but still an Alexandria fan.
>
> adam at Tux:~06:08:42$ alexandria
> Bonobo accessibility support initialized
> GTK Accessibility Module initialized
> -----------------------
> Alexandria just crashed
> -----------------------
> Timestamp: Tue Oct 11 18:08:50 NZDT 2005
> Message: allocator undefined for Bignum
> Backtrace:
> /usr/lib/ruby/1.8/yaml.rb:133:in `transfer'
> /usr/lib/ruby/1.8/yaml.rb:133:in `load'
> /usr/lib/ruby/1.8/alexandria/library.rb:55:in `load'
> /usr/lib/ruby/1.8/alexandria/library.rb:54:in `load'
> /usr/lib/ruby/1.8/alexandria/library.rb:53:in `load'
> /usr/lib/ruby/1.8/alexandria/library.rb:52:in `load'
> /usr/lib/ruby/1.8/alexandria/library.rb:83:in `loadall'
> /usr/lib/ruby/1.8/alexandria/library.rb:77:in `loadall'
> /usr/lib/ruby/1.8/alexandria/ui/main_app.rb:266:in `load_libraries'
> /usr/lib/ruby/1.8/alexandria/ui/main_app.rb:84:in `initialize'
> /usr/lib/ruby/1.8/alexandria/ui.rb:41:in `main'
> /usr/lib/ruby/1.8/alexandria.rb:66:in `main'
> /usr/bin/alexandria:10
> Release: 0.6.0
>
> Uname -a: Linux Tux 2.6.5-1-686 #5 Fri Apr 30 20:26:13 EST 2004 i686
> GNU/Linux
> --
> Please report this dump to 'alexandria-list at rubyforge.org' with some
> additional
> information, such as the description of the crash and the steps to
> reproduce it
>
>
>
> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
> Version: GnuPG v1.4.2 (GNU/Linux)
>
> iD8DBQFDS3Uj18X1Fk5VORARAmbQAJ98JhbV7Qogr/2I+j/sKgMO0etRAwCgiX9K
> 44K/J29LP0qaPdFuN+66fJs=
> =aK4b
> -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Alexandria-list mailing list
> Alexandria-list at rubyforge.org
> http://rubyforge.org/mailman/listinfo/alexandria-list
>
>
>


From laurent.sansonetti at gmail.com  Thu Oct 13 15:22:05 2005
From: laurent.sansonetti at gmail.com (Laurent Sansonetti)
Date: Thu, 13 Oct 2005 21:22:05 +0200
Subject: [Alexandria-list] Ordering books by date .. ?
In-Reply-To: <20051011101428.GE16843@paradise.net.nz>
References: <20051011101428.GE16843@paradise.net.nz>
Message-ID: <1be7247c0510131222x47e43c6dkb8562e96536ac6ad@mail.gmail.com>

Hi Adam,

On 10/11/05, Adam Bogacki <afb at paradise.net.nz> wrote:
> Laurent, sorry to be picky - I've just installed 0.6.1 from source
> (gets easier every time) and find it still crashes when I try to open a
> new library. The main library seems to be working and I've resurrected
> a small backed-up database (once bitten.. etc.) and can see some nice
> features - I'm impressed with the documentation.
>

Ah sorry, I should have read this message before sending my previous one :)

Can you copy/paste the crash you got while opening a new library?

About the documentation, I am also very impressed, Liam did a great job!

> However I don't seem to be able to order books by date. It seems
> fairly important when assessing currency of material.Could it be
> included in the next version ?
>

It could :-)  By the way, which date are you referring?  The
publication date, or the date of the last modification of the book
entry?

Cheers

Laurent


From laurent.sansonetti at gmail.com  Thu Oct 13 15:25:07 2005
From: laurent.sansonetti at gmail.com (Laurent Sansonetti)
Date: Thu, 13 Oct 2005 21:25:07 +0200
Subject: [Alexandria-list] Search in BOL.it
In-Reply-To: <bc685d40510130500y51f028e9iac2ce61e2157fb2b@mail.gmail.com>
References: <bc685d40510130500y51f028e9iac2ce61e2157fb2b@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <1be7247c0510131225mf23beb1if29e49b564d7a9a5@mail.gmail.com>

Hi Raffaele,

On 10/13/05, raffaele borrelli <rborrelli at gmail.com> wrote:
> Dear All,
>  I have hacked the ibs_it.rb module for searching on Internet Boot Shop
> Italia, and made a new module called bol_it.rb which can download
>  books information from http://www.bol.it, which to my opinion has
>  a better archive than IBS. You can only search by ISBN and it is in a
>  very prelimirary state. However I don't how to share it with all of you
>  please let me where can I put it in such a way that you can use it
>  if you want.
>

Great!  You can send your file there, and I will merge it as soon as I
have time.

Also, do you want to join our CVS?  It could be easier, as you could
work on your own.

> Note: I am new to Alexandria, and with non experience on Ruby
>  language at all.
>

No problem, you always need to start somewhere :-)

Thanks!

Laurent


From rborrelli at gmail.com  Wed Oct 12 17:39:03 2005
From: rborrelli at gmail.com (Raffaele Borrelli)
Date: Wed, 12 Oct 2005 23:39:03 +0200
Subject: [Alexandria-list] Search BOL.it
Message-ID: <434D8277.7010303@gmail.com>

Hi All,
here is the module for searching on the italian book site
http://www.bol.it.
Of course you must patch book_providers.rb and add the line,

require 'alexandria/book_providers/bol_it'

Git it a try and let me know.
Lello.
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From alexander at tunicate.org  Thu Oct 13 21:45:08 2005
From: alexander at tunicate.org (Alexander McCormmach)
Date: Thu, 13 Oct 2005 18:45:08 -0700
Subject: [Alexandria-list] Making Alexandria remember book ListView column
	widths
Message-ID: <434F0DA4.9030904@tunicate.org>

I have submitted a slightly more substantial patch to the tracker:

http://rubyforge.org/tracker/?func=detail&aid=2598&group_id=205&atid=865

  or

http://tinyurl.com/a4vyg

This patch improves the GTK+ MainApp UI so that, on startup, it restores
the book ListView's column widths to what they were when the application
was last exited.

Currently GTK+ Alexandria uses its Preferences class to set GConf values
for various UI features (such as maximization state and ListView column
visibilities) so that these features are restored after the application
is closed and restarted. For me, at least, a major annoyance was that
column widths in the books ListView were not among these features. On
each startup, column widths are set to the width of the widest cell,
often making the ListView extend well past Alexandria's window, which
results in an undesirable horizontal scroll bar. This is fixed with the
attached patch. (Horizontal scroll bars are of course still shown if
required, but it is at least possible to resize the columns to get rid
of them and have this setting remembered.)

It is important for Alexandria that a column's width never gets set
below the width of its title, and I initially tried to use
TreeViewColumn's min_width property to ensure this (i.e., by saving each
column c's width as [c.min_width, c.width].max). Unfortunately, GTK does
not seem to set the min-width property all of the time (instead leaving
it as -1), so I thought it would be best to work around this by actually
setting the title widget for each column to be a label containing the
title text, and then using the label's size_request.first as a proxy for
the column's min_width. This seems to work very well.

As a final explanatory note, column widths are stored in GConf property
cols_width as a condensed-form YAML hash from the columns' titles to
their widths. The hash is reconstituted on startup using YAML.load
(which seems OK to me since Alexandria is already using YAML). This
approach is better, I think, because it isn't tied to any particular
ordering of the columns (as is the case with Alexandria's column
visibility remembering), and ideally Alexandria would allow for the
reordering of columns. If I have time I will submit another patch which
adds this feature.

--Alexander

(Please CC me with any reply because I am not subscribed to this list.)

From alexander at tunicate.org  Fri Oct 14 04:37:08 2005
From: alexander at tunicate.org (Alexander McCormmach)
Date: Fri, 14 Oct 2005 01:37:08 -0700
Subject: [Alexandria-list] Three minor UI fixes
Message-ID: <434F6E34.6080906@tunicate.org>

In case anyone is interested and isn't following the patches tracker, I
have added the following three small patches:

1. Changing reload keyboard shortcut

     http://tinyurl.com/drn4r

   Currently Alexandria assigns Ctrl-F to both find and refresh (I'm
   guessing this was a typo). I suggest Ctrl-R for refresh, leaving
   Ctrl-F for find.


2. Side pane close button shouldn't grab input focus

     http://tinyurl.com/bsymx

   This patch alters main_app.glade to prevent the library side pane
   from grabbing keyboard focus. (It also adds a "Close" tooltip to the
   button.)

3. Giving the filter entry box initial input focus

     http://tinyurl.com/7sonc

   Currently Alexandria gives initial input focus to the title on the
   first column of the book ListView (or the first icon in icon view) --
   not very useful. The most useful place to put it is on the "search
   box," i.e., the filter entry box, so that the user can immediately
   start typing something to constrain the list of books shown. This
   patch adds one line to the GTK+ MainApp#initialize method to
   implement this.

--Alexander

(Please CC me with any reply because I am not subscribed to this list.)

From lrz at gnome.org  Fri Oct 14 19:39:07 2005
From: lrz at gnome.org (Laurent Sansonetti)
Date: Sat, 15 Oct 2005 01:39:07 +0200
Subject: [Alexandria-list] Making Alexandria remember book
	ListView	column widths
In-Reply-To: <434F0DA4.9030904@tunicate.org>
References: <434F0DA4.9030904@tunicate.org>
Message-ID: <1129333147.5766.14.camel@localhost.localdomain>

Hi Alexander!

On Thu, 2005-10-13 at 18:45 -0700, Alexander McCormmach wrote:
> I have submitted a slightly more substantial patch to the tracker:
> 
> http://rubyforge.org/tracker/?func=detail&aid=2598&group_id=205&atid=865
> 
>   or
> 
> http://tinyurl.com/a4vyg
> 

I just merged all of your five patches.  Very nice piece of work, thank
you!

BTW, do you want a CVS access to the repository?  You could therefore
work on your own and not depend on my important latency :-)

> As a final explanatory note, column widths are stored in GConf property
> cols_width as a condensed-form YAML hash from the columns' titles to
> their widths. The hash is reconstituted on startup using YAML.load
> (which seems OK to me since Alexandria is already using YAML). This
> approach is better, I think, because it isn't tied to any particular
> ordering of the columns (as is the case with Alexandria's column
> visibility remembering), and ideally Alexandria would allow for the
> reordering of columns. If I have time I will submit another patch which
> adds this feature.

Just one thing about this: the YAML description is not very easy to edit
via the GConf editor application (also, a schema entry is missing).  I
know it is easier to serialize a Hash like this than a set of GConf
variables, one for each column (as we do to remember columns
visibility), but it would be IMHO better.

I do not understand why you said that columns visibility are tied to the
ordering?

Thanks again for your work!

Laurent


From bob.paddock at gmail.com  Fri Oct 14 22:05:23 2005
From: bob.paddock at gmail.com (Bob Paddock)
Date: Fri, 14 Oct 2005 22:05:23 -0400
Subject: [Alexandria-list] require': no such file to load -- gettext on
	Gentoo
Message-ID: <200510142205.23871.bob.paddock@gmail.com>


It has been a couple of weeks since I ran Alexandria last, now when I do I get 
this:

/usr/bin/alexandria:6:in `require': no such file to load -- gettext 
(LoadError)
        from /usr/bin/alexandria:6

#!/usr/bin/ruby18 -Ku
#
# This file is automatically generated by the installer.
# Do not edit by hands.

require 'gettext' [This is line six]
require 'alexandria'

Can someone point me in a direction here please?
Alexandria is the only Ruby program I run so I'm clueless as to where
"require" is actrually trying to locate this file at.

This is on Gentoo.  http://www.gentoo.org/


From alexander at tunicate.org  Sat Oct 15 01:27:13 2005
From: alexander at tunicate.org (Alexander McCormmach)
Date: Fri, 14 Oct 2005 22:27:13 -0700
Subject: [Alexandria-list] Making Alexandria remember book
 ListView	column widths
In-Reply-To: <1129333147.5766.14.camel@localhost.localdomain>
References: <434F0DA4.9030904@tunicate.org>
	<1129333147.5766.14.camel@localhost.localdomain>
Message-ID: <43509331.7060508@tunicate.org>

Hello all,

Laurent Sansonetti wrote:
<snip/>
> I just merged all of your five patches.  Very nice piece of work, thank
> you!

I'm glad they turned out alright -- thanks for merging them ... Yes I do
see them in the latest CVS.

> BTW, do you want a CVS access to the repository?  You could therefore
> work on your own and not depend on my important latency :-)

I don't mind submitting patches, but if you'd like to give me CVS access
that'd be OK as well. With respect to any delay in having patches
merged, you really didn't take that long compared to others on some
projects I've contributed to! :)

<snip/>
> Just one thing about this: the YAML description is not very easy to edit
> via the GConf editor application (also, a schema entry is missing).  I
> know it is easier to serialize a Hash like this than a set of GConf
> variables, one for each column (as we do to remember columns
> visibility), but it would be IMHO better.

Yes, I'm sorry for forgetting about the schema entry ... I will add that
with my next contribution. Type "string" I think will be sufficient. As
for having multiple GConf values ... see below.

> I do not understand why you said that columns visibility are tied to the
> ordering?

If you take a look at MainApp#setup_listview_columns_visibility you
should be able to see what I mean. An array (cols_visibilty) is created
with a list of the preferences values *in their display order*. For each
column i, i's visibility is set to cols_visibility[i]. This wouldn't
work if the columns' order could be changed by the user (i.e., by
setting the list view's reorderable property to true as ideally it
should) and remembered/restored on startup. What is needed is a way of
associating some order-independent property of a column (like its title)
with the user-changable property, whether it be visibility or width or
whatever. Associative arrays or hashes are pretty clearly the best way
to do this, but GConf doesn't provide a hash schema type. Your point
above is that the GConf property names themselves are like the keys of a
hash, along with their respective values.

The problem with having a different GConf property for each key-value
pair is twofold. (1) We'd need an order-independent way of finding the
right GConf property for a column, say, by having the column's title as
part of the property name. Since column titles can contain spaces and
punctuation, this means that the respective property keys would have to
contain these characters (going against the usual naming convention for
GConf keys) or be stripped-down or transformed, undermining the 1:1
relation between column and property. (2) It is an ongoing part of
Alexandria development to add more properties to the books (see, e.g.,
feature request #514), but it would be unfortunate if a new schema entry
would have to be crafted (and added to alexandria.schemas) or edited
each time such a property was added or modified. In general it's bad
GConf practice to have the number and key-names of an application's
entries changing all the time, whereas it's fine to have a fixed number
of keys' *values* changing often. Having a single key for each *kind* of
column property (e.g., visibility, width), as I implemented it, holding
a YAML-encoded hash as its value -- this is a much more flexible and
future-proof solution.

I agree that YAML-encoded hashes aren't terribly easy to edit in
gconf-editor (though they're not *that* hard to edit), but my response
is that Alexandria's UI and not the gconf-editor's UI is what the users
will be utilizing here. The proper interface to these UI properties is
Alexandria's preferences dialog and the heading on its book list view.
GConf just provides a way to persistently store these properties. If
users always had to resort to using the gconf-editor to change them, I'd
agree that a separate property for each value would be best, but
fortunately, they can just use Alexandria itself. Administrators, on the
other hand, might want to use gconf-editor, but IMHO they should be able
to handle YAML's rather friendly hash syntax.

The bottom line is that I think (in this case) we should opt for greater
programmatic flexibility over ease-of-property-editing in nobody's
favorite program, gconf-editor, which, in this instance, isn't intended
as the primary property-editing interface.

> Thanks again for your work!

You're welcome! And thanks for being receptive to my contributions. I
have high hopes for Alexandria's future, as I'm sure many of us do.

--Alexander

(Please CC me with any reply because I am not subscribed to this list.)

From manolo_diaz at wanadoo.es  Sat Oct 15 03:53:24 2005
From: manolo_diaz at wanadoo.es (=?ISO-8859-1?Q?Manolo_D=EDaz?=)
Date: Sat, 15 Oct 2005 09:53:24 +0200
Subject: [Alexandria-list] alexandria crashes when you click on menu -> help
	-> contents
Message-ID: <4350B574.4070003@deneb>

Hi,

To reproduce the crash just click on  menu -> help -> contents.

Console message:

-----------------------
Alexandria just crashed
-----------------------
Timestamp: s?b oct 15 09:27:32 CEST 2005
Message: undefined local variable or method `e' for
#<Alexandria::UI::MainApp:0x 2aaaaef562d0>
Backtrace:
/usr/lib/ruby/1.8/alexandria/ui/main_app.rb:229:in `display_help'
/usr/lib/ruby/1.8/alexandria/ui/main_app.rb:861:in `initialize_ui'
/usr/lib/ruby/1.8/alexandria/ui.rb:42:in `main'
/usr/lib/ruby/1.8/alexandria.rb:66:in `main'
/usr/bin/alexandria:10
Release: 0.6.1

Uname -a: Linux deneb 2.6.13.4 #1 Tue Oct 11 16:20:20 CEST 2005 x86_64
GNU/Linux
--
Please report this dump to 'alexandria-list at rubyforge.org' with some
additional
information, such as the description of the crash and the steps to
reproduce it
(if it's possible).


--
Regards,
Manolo.



From lrz at gnome.org  Sat Oct 15 08:41:05 2005
From: lrz at gnome.org (Laurent Sansonetti)
Date: Sat, 15 Oct 2005 14:41:05 +0200 (CEST)
Subject: [Alexandria-list] alexandria crashes when you click on menu ->
 help -> contents
In-Reply-To: <4350B574.4070003@deneb>
References: <4350B574.4070003@deneb>
Message-ID: <41518.82.239.64.142.1129380065.squirrel@mail.dhertog.be>

Hi Manolo,

On Sat, October 15, 2005 9:53 am, Manolo D?az wrote:
> Hi,
>
>
> To reproduce the crash just click on  menu -> help -> contents.
>
>
> Console message:
>
>
> -----------------------
> Alexandria just crashed
> -----------------------
> Timestamp: s?b oct 15 09:27:32 CEST 2005
> Message: undefined local variable or method `e' for
> #<Alexandria::UI::MainApp:0x 2aaaaef562d0>
> Backtrace:
> /usr/lib/ruby/1.8/alexandria/ui/main_app.rb:229:in `display_help'
> /usr/lib/ruby/1.8/alexandria/ui/main_app.rb:861:in `initialize_ui'
> /usr/lib/ruby/1.8/alexandria/ui.rb:42:in `main'
> /usr/lib/ruby/1.8/alexandria.rb:66:in `main'
> /usr/bin/alexandria:10
> Release: 0.6.1
>

This bug has been fixed in CVS.  In fact if you get this it means that the
Help manual is not available, normally we should show an error dialog
there but there is a bug.

If you want to get the specific error, run Alexandria like this:

$ DEBUG=1 alexandria

And read the exception that is raised at the end.

HTH,

-- 
Laurent


From alexander at tunicate.org  Sat Oct 15 11:46:58 2005
From: alexander at tunicate.org (Alexander McCormmach)
Date: Sat, 15 Oct 2005 08:46:58 -0700
Subject: [Alexandria-list] Adding cols_width schema and fixing rating column
	width
Message-ID: <43512472.4000800@tunicate.org>

Added a touch-up patch to the tracker:

http://rubyforge.org/tracker/index.php?func=detail&aid=2643&group_id=205&atid=865

  or

http://tinyurl.com/cobjs

This patch ties some loose ends from [#2628] (http://tinyurl.com/blq3y).
It adds a schema for the new GConf property cols_width and it sets the
rating column's min and max width (in addition to its fixed_width) to be
approx. five times the width of the star pixbuf.

--Alexander

From lrz at gnome.org  Sat Oct 15 16:48:22 2005
From: lrz at gnome.org (Laurent Sansonetti)
Date: Sat, 15 Oct 2005 22:48:22 +0200
Subject: [Alexandria-list] Making Alexandria remember
	book	ListView	column widths
In-Reply-To: <43509331.7060508@tunicate.org>
References: <434F0DA4.9030904@tunicate.org>
	<1129333147.5766.14.camel@localhost.localdomain>
	<43509331.7060508@tunicate.org>
Message-ID: <1129409302.5622.24.camel@localhost.localdomain>

Hi Alexander,

On Fri, 2005-10-14 at 22:27 -0700, Alexander McCormmach wrote:
> Hello all,
> 
> Laurent Sansonetti wrote:
> <snip/>
> > I just merged all of your five patches.  Very nice piece of work, thank
> > you!
> 
> I'm glad they turned out alright -- thanks for merging them ... Yes I do
> see them in the latest CVS.
> 

No problem, thank you :-)

> > BTW, do you want a CVS access to the repository?  You could therefore
> > work on your own and not depend on my important latency :-)
> 
> I don't mind submitting patches, but if you'd like to give me CVS access
> that'd be OK as well. With respect to any delay in having patches
> merged, you really didn't take that long compared to others on some
> projects I've contributed to! :)
> 

OK, I just gave you CVS access, you can now work on your own :-)  The
only rule is to file a ChangeLog entry for each commit.

# About the latency, it really depends on my schedule, as my daily job
sucks too much time.  But it should be better in a couple of days, so I
will be able to resume my work there.

> <snip/>
> > I do not understand why you said that columns visibility are tied to the
> > ordering?
> 
> If you take a look at MainApp#setup_listview_columns_visibility you
> should be able to see what I mean. An array (cols_visibilty) is created
> with a list of the preferences values *in their display order*. For each
> column i, i's visibility is set to cols_visibility[i]. This wouldn't
> work if the columns' order could be changed by the user (i.e., by
> setting the list view's reorderable property to true as ideally it
> should) and remembered/restored on startup. What is needed is a way of
> associating some order-independent property of a column (like its title)
> with the user-changable property, whether it be visibility or width or
> whatever. Associative arrays or hashes are pretty clearly the best way
> to do this, but GConf doesn't provide a hash schema type. Your point
> above is that the GConf property names themselves are like the keys of a
> hash, along with their respective values.
> 
> The problem with having a different GConf property for each key-value
> pair is twofold. (1) We'd need an order-independent way of finding the
> right GConf property for a column, say, by having the column's title as
> part of the property name. Since column titles can contain spaces and
> punctuation, this means that the respective property keys would have to
> contain these characters (going against the usual naming convention for
> GConf keys) or be stripped-down or transformed, undermining the 1:1
> relation between column and property. (2) It is an ongoing part of
> Alexandria development to add more properties to the books (see, e.g.,
> feature request #514), but it would be unfortunate if a new schema entry
> would have to be crafted (and added to alexandria.schemas) or edited
> each time such a property was added or modified. In general it's bad
> GConf practice to have the number and key-names of an application's
> entries changing all the time, whereas it's fine to have a fixed number
> of keys' *values* changing often. Having a single key for each *kind* of
> column property (e.g., visibility, width), as I implemented it, holding
> a YAML-encoded hash as its value -- this is a much more flexible and
> future-proof solution.
> 
> I agree that YAML-encoded hashes aren't terribly easy to edit in
> gconf-editor (though they're not *that* hard to edit), but my response
> is that Alexandria's UI and not the gconf-editor's UI is what the users
> will be utilizing here. The proper interface to these UI properties is
> Alexandria's preferences dialog and the heading on its book list view.
> GConf just provides a way to persistently store these properties. If
> users always had to resort to using the gconf-editor to change them, I'd
> agree that a separate property for each value would be best, but
> fortunately, they can just use Alexandria itself. Administrators, on the
> other hand, might want to use gconf-editor, but IMHO they should be able
> to handle YAML's rather friendly hash syntax.
> 
> The bottom line is that I think (in this case) we should opt for greater
> programmatic flexibility over ease-of-property-editing in nobody's
> favorite program, gconf-editor, which, in this instance, isn't intended
> as the primary property-editing interface.

I totally agree with you.  YAML hashes are more flexible and easier for
us (if we add new columns in the future as you said).  When I started
writing the GConf schema I did not think about all of this, I now
realize that it would be even better if we could get rid of the
col_xxx_visible keys and replacing them with a single cols_visibility
key, with a Hash like you did.  But we must be careful to keep backward
compatibility if we alter the schema.

You're right, the kind of people using the GConf editor should be able
to read and edit the YAML descriptions :-)

Yeah, having columns reordering would be cool... we could even improve
the List View tab of the Preferences dialog to let the user arrange the
columns from there as well (as Nautilus does). 

Thanks for the feedback

Laurent


From lrz at gnome.org  Sat Oct 15 16:49:39 2005
From: lrz at gnome.org (Laurent Sansonetti)
Date: Sat, 15 Oct 2005 22:49:39 +0200
Subject: [Alexandria-list] Adding cols_width schema and fixing
	rating	column width
In-Reply-To: <43512472.4000800@tunicate.org>
References: <43512472.4000800@tunicate.org>
Message-ID: <1129409379.5644.26.camel@localhost.localdomain>

Hi Alexander!

On Sat, 2005-10-15 at 08:46 -0700, Alexander McCormmach wrote:
> Added a touch-up patch to the tracker:
> 
> http://rubyforge.org/tracker/index.php?func=detail&aid=2643&group_id=205&atid=865
> 
>   or
> 
> http://tinyurl.com/cobjs
> 
> This patch ties some loose ends from [#2628] (http://tinyurl.com/blq3y).
> It adds a schema for the new GConf property cols_width and it sets the
> rating column's min and max width (in addition to its fixed_width) to be
> approx. five times the width of the star pixbuf.
> 

Groovy, now that you have access to the CVS please go ahead :-)

Thanks a lot!

Laurent


From arrak at arrak.org  Sat Oct 15 17:37:09 2005
From: arrak at arrak.org (Arrakis Muadib)
Date: Sat, 15 Oct 2005 17:37:09 -0400
Subject: [Alexandria-list] How to deal with special caracters?
Message-ID: <1129412229.30224.3.camel@localhost.localdomain>

Hi,

I have almost completed a new book_provider for alexandria. It's
book_provider for a french book store in quebec and I have trouble
dealing with french special caracters.

Is there anybody who knows how to deal with it in my regular expression?
Because they're not included in any caracters groups (\w, \W, \s, ...)
and alexandria (or ruby) don't want me to included it directly in my reg
like this:

/"LireHyperlien\" href.*><b>([-,'&;?????????\w\s]*)<\/b><\/a><br>/

please help!

mathieu leduc-hamel
	
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From alexander at tunicate.org  Sun Oct 16 13:16:15 2005
From: alexander at tunicate.org (Alexander McCormmach)
Date: Sun, 16 Oct 2005 10:16:15 -0700
Subject: [Alexandria-list] Making Alexandria remember
 book	ListView	column widths
In-Reply-To: <1129409302.5622.24.camel@localhost.localdomain>
References: <434F0DA4.9030904@tunicate.org>	
	<1129333147.5766.14.camel@localhost.localdomain>	
	<43509331.7060508@tunicate.org>
	<1129409302.5622.24.camel@localhost.localdomain>
Message-ID: <43528ADF.2040304@tunicate.org>

Hi Laurent,

Laurent Sansonetti wrote:
<snip/>
> OK, I just gave you CVS access, you can now work on your own :-)  The
> only rule is to file a ChangeLog entry for each commit.

Alright, great. Thanks a bunch -- I've already given it a go with that
last patch I submitted. I hope I did the ChangeLog right and all. (I
just  mimicked the previous entries.)

In general, should I post a patch or present an idea to the mailing list
before committing, i.e., to give you all an opportunity to offer your
thoughts? Especially since I'm rather new to this project...? Or should
I commit first and ask questions later? :) (It can always be reverted, I
suppose.)

<snip/>
> I totally agree with you.  YAML hashes are more flexible and easier for
> us (if we add new columns in the future as you said).  When I started
> writing the GConf schema I did not think about all of this, I now
> realize that it would be even better if we could get rid of the
> col_xxx_visible keys and replacing them with a single cols_visibility
> key, with a Hash like you did.  But we must be careful to keep backward
> compatibility if we alter the schema.
> 
> You're right, the kind of people using the GConf editor should be able
> to read and edit the YAML descriptions :-)

Hehe, ya, well ideally GConf would offer a better hash-like datatype
that could be interfaced with Ruby. But in the meantime, YAML ain't a
terrible way to go.

> Yeah, having columns reordering would be cool... we could even improve
> the List View tab of the Preferences dialog to let the user arrange the
> columns from there as well (as Nautilus does). 

Yes, I'm in the process of trying to implement the re-ordering (just
with the table headings first, then a preferences interface can always
be added). That will mean moving from the various col_xxx_visible to a
single cols_visible property, as you say. As for backwards
compatibility, obviously that means having future versions of Alexandria
be able to work off old GConf property sets, but does it also mean
having GConf property sets written by future versions of Alexandria
usable by old versions of the program?

One last thing... The more I work on ui/main_app.rb, the more I come to
think that it needs some refactoring. No offense, but it really is quite
a sprawling class definition, with a lot of UI setup code that would
really be better handled in a GUI designer program like Glade or
Gazpacho [1]. For instance, consider the following actions setup:

standard_actions = [
  ["LibraryMenu", nil, _("_Library")],
  ["New", Gtk::Stock::NEW, _("_New"), "<control>L", nil, on_new],
  ["AddBook", Gtk::Stock::ADD, _("_Add Book..."), "<control>N", nil,
on_add_book],
  ["AddBookManual", nil, _("Add Book _Manually..."), nil, nil,
on_add_book_manual],
  ["Import", nil, _("_Import..."), "<control>I", nil, on_import],
  ["Export", nil, _("_Export..."), "<control><shift>E", nil, on_export],
  ["Acquire", nil, _("_Acquire from Scanner..."), nil, nil, on_acquire],
  ["Properties", Gtk::Stock::PROPERTIES, _("_Properties"), nil, nil,
on_properties],
  ["Quit", Gtk::Stock::QUIT, _("_Quit"), "<control>Q", nil, on_quit],
  ["EditMenu", nil, _("_Edit")],
  ["SelectAll", nil, _("_Select All"), "<control>A", nil, on_select_all],
  ["DeselectAll", nil, _("Dese_lect All"), "<control><shift>A", nil,
on_deselect_all],
  ["Move", nil, _("_Move")],
  ["Rename", nil, _("_Rename"), nil, nil, on_rename],
  ["Delete", Gtk::Stock::DELETE, _("_Delete"), "Delete", nil,
on_delete], ... ]

(Actually that's only half of it.) While I understand what's going on
here, this is hardly ideal. Gazpacho, for instance, is based around the
UIManager/Action model used by Alexandria, and it would be a lot easier
to maintain Alexandria's UI through a more friendly interface. Now,
Gazpacho isn't exactly production-ready software, but given that our UI
needs aren't that complicated, I think it could be worth trying to
factor out some of the UI code in the suggested way. This could be done
along with a major cleanup of ui/main_app.rb. If there aren't any prima
facie objections to such an attempt, I might just give it a whirl... :)

--Alexander

[1] http://gazpacho.sicem.biz/

(Please CC me with any reply because I am not subscribed to this list.)


From lrz at gnome.org  Sun Oct 16 15:27:00 2005
From: lrz at gnome.org (Laurent Sansonetti)
Date: Sun, 16 Oct 2005 21:27:00 +0200 (CEST)
Subject: [Alexandria-list] Making Alexandria remember bookListViewcolumn
 widths
In-Reply-To: <43528ADF.2040304@tunicate.org>
References: <434F0DA4.9030904@tunicate.org>	
	<1129333147.5766.14.camel@localhost.localdomain>	
	<43509331.7060508@tunicate.org>
	<1129409302.5622.24.camel@localhost.localdomain>
	<43528ADF.2040304@tunicate.org>
Message-ID: <45974.82.239.64.142.1129490820.squirrel@mail.dhertog.be>

Hi Alexander,

On Sun, October 16, 2005 7:16 pm, Alexander McCormmach wrote:
>> OK, I just gave you CVS access, you can now work on your own :-)  The
>> only rule is to file a ChangeLog entry for each commit.
>
> Alright, great. Thanks a bunch -- I've already given it a go with that
> last patch I submitted. I hope I did the ChangeLog right and all. (I just
> mimicked the previous entries.)
>

Great!  About the ChangeLog, I am using a special format as you could see,
easier to read for me.  You did your entry well, except that usually I
prefix descriptions with '-' only in case of multiple descriptions.  But
this is not important, do not worry about that :-)

> In general, should I post a patch or present an idea to the mailing list
> before committing, i.e., to give you all an opportunity to offer your
> thoughts? Especially since I'm rather new to this project...? Or should I
> commit first and ask questions later? :) (It can always be reverted, I
> suppose.)
>

Well for simple fixes you can go ahead and commit them.  But if you are
planning to implement something not negligeable in term of code, it would
be better I believe to discuss it first.  Someone could make interesting
suggestions that could be take into account before the development.

>> Yeah, having columns reordering would be cool... we could even improve
>> the List View tab of the Preferences dialog to let the user arrange the
>> columns from there as well (as Nautilus does).
>
> Yes, I'm in the process of trying to implement the re-ordering (just
> with the table headings first, then a preferences interface can always be
> added). That will mean moving from the various col_xxx_visible to a single
> cols_visible property, as you say. As for backwards compatibility,
> obviously that means having future versions of Alexandria be able to work
> off old GConf property sets, but does it also mean having GConf property
> sets written by future versions of Alexandria usable by old versions of
> the program?
>

Excellent :-)

About keeping backward compatibility I meant that future version of
Alexandria should be able to recover the properties of old GConf schema,
but once the old values are recovered we should migrate the user schema to
the new one.

If a user tries a previous version after that, well too bad :-)

> One last thing... The more I work on ui/main_app.rb, the more I come to
> think that it needs some refactoring. No offense, but it really is quite a
> sprawling class definition, with a lot of UI setup code that would really
> be better handled in a GUI designer program like Glade or Gazpacho [1].
> For instance, consider the following actions setup:
>
>
> standard_actions = [ ["LibraryMenu", nil, _("_Library")],
> ["New", Gtk::Stock::NEW, _("_New"), "<control>L", nil, on_new],
> ["AddBook", Gtk::Stock::ADD, _("_Add Book..."), "<control>N", nil,
> on_add_book], ["AddBookManual", nil, _("Add Book _Manually..."), nil, nil,
> on_add_book_manual], ["Import", nil, _("_Import..."), "<control>I", nil,
> on_import], ["Export", nil, _("_Export..."), "<control><shift>E", nil,
> on_export], ["Acquire", nil, _("_Acquire from Scanner..."), nil, nil,
> on_acquire], ["Properties", Gtk::Stock::PROPERTIES, _("_Properties"), nil,
> nil, on_properties], ["Quit", Gtk::Stock::QUIT, _("_Quit"), "<control>Q",
> nil, on_quit], ["EditMenu", nil, _("_Edit")],
> ["SelectAll", nil, _("_Select All"), "<control>A", nil, on_select_all],
> ["DeselectAll", nil, _("Dese_lect All"), "<control><shift>A", nil,
> on_deselect_all], ["Move", nil, _("_Move")],
> ["Rename", nil, _("_Rename"), nil, nil, on_rename],
> ["Delete", Gtk::Stock::DELETE, _("_Delete"), "Delete", nil,
> on_delete], ... ]
>
> (Actually that's only half of it.) While I understand what's going on
> here, this is hardly ideal. Gazpacho, for instance, is based around the
> UIManager/Action model used by Alexandria, and it would be a lot easier
> to maintain Alexandria's UI through a more friendly interface. Now,
> Gazpacho isn't exactly production-ready software, but given that our UI
> needs aren't that complicated, I think it could be worth trying to factor
> out some of the UI code in the suggested way. This could be done along
> with a major cleanup of ui/main_app.rb. If there aren't any prima facie
> objections to such an attempt, I might just give it a whirl... :)
>

I did not know about Gazpacho, it looks like a really cool project, fixing
very frustrating Glade issues (like undo/redo and GtkUIManager support),
but I would prefer to stick with Glade at the moment if you don't mind.  I
know that a new version of Glade is in development (well, it has been
years that it is in development), I know that undo support is at least
there, and I hope a release will appear soon.

In fact, a lot of things have to be implemented in Alexandria in order to
have a complete program, to compete with its KDE equivalent, Tellico.  I
would prefer to work on new features that migrating to Gazpacho.  Also, if
we do the migration we will have to revise our i18n setup.

But I agree that the main_app.rb file should be refactored.  The file
becomes too long and it is not easily maintainable.

-- 
Laurent


From arrak at arrak.org  Wed Oct 19 07:59:05 2005
From: arrak at arrak.org (Arrakis Muadib)
Date: Wed, 19 Oct 2005 07:59:05 -0400
Subject: [Alexandria-list] utf-8 support? and problem with book_providers.
Message-ID: <1129723145.30780.7.camel@localhost.localdomain>

Hi, 

my new book provider from alexandria is almost finish. It's for a french
book store.

The problem is that I need transform the web page downloaded from their
web site to UTF-8 encoding. For the moment I'm using GLib.convert
function. It's worked on my computer but I think it'll not be portable
to other plateform like OSX. What should I use? iconv?

My other problem is about the list of book provider. In the
book_provider class you explicitly define witch book provider to use,
but you save it in the gconf configuration and it is hard coded there.
If I commented one of it, alexandria refuse to start saying that a class
is missing. Note that I'm using the 0.5.2 version then it may be
corrected it the 0.6 series. I think it's not correct, it should try to
take the configuration saved in the gconf database but it should reset
if it cannot found all predefined book providers.

math
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From lrz at gnome.org  Wed Oct 19 09:48:46 2005
From: lrz at gnome.org (Laurent Sansonetti)
Date: Wed, 19 Oct 2005 15:48:46 +0200 (CEST)
Subject: [Alexandria-list] utf-8 support? and problem with
 book_providers.
In-Reply-To: <1129723145.30780.7.camel@localhost.localdomain>
References: <1129723145.30780.7.camel@localhost.localdomain>
Message-ID: <28190.81.255.72.1.1129729726.squirrel@mail.dhertog.be>

Hi,

Sorry for the late answer.

On Wed, October 19, 2005 1:59 pm, Arrakis Muadib wrote:
> Hi,
>
>
> my new book provider from alexandria is almost finish. It's for a french
> book store.
>

Cool!  Tell me if you want to contribute it, I would be very happy to
integrate it in the next release.  Also, if you are willing to maintain
the code after, give me a rubyforge account :-)

> The problem is that I need transform the web page downloaded from their
> web site to UTF-8 encoding. For the moment I'm using GLib.convert function.
> It's worked on my computer but I think it'll not be portable
> to other plateform like OSX. What should I use? iconv?
>

You should use String#convert as defined in the utils.rb file.  It does
call GLib.convert in case of GNOME and the NSString API in case of Cocoa
(OSX).

Check out other providers to see how to use it :)

> My other problem is about the list of book provider. In the
> book_provider class you explicitly define witch book provider to use, but
> you save it in the gconf configuration and it is hard coded there. If I
> commented one of it, alexandria refuse to start saying that a class is
> missing. Note that I'm using the 0.5.2 version then it may be corrected it
> the 0.6 series. I think it's not correct, it should try to take the
> configuration saved in the gconf database but it should reset if it cannot
> found all predefined book providers.
>

IIRC this kind of problem has been fixed, probably in 0.6.0 (when I
introduced abstract providers, like Z39.50).

HTH,

-- 
Laurent


From synergism at gmail.com  Wed Oct 19 11:49:10 2005
From: synergism at gmail.com (Ben Armstrong)
Date: Wed, 19 Oct 2005 12:49:10 -0300
Subject: [Alexandria-list] Local libraries as providers & patron support
Message-ID: <3f1ae6620510190849w7fc59c5cp1ddabf6b74356c3c@mail.gmail.com>

I understand that alexandria taps into catalogues held by various providers
to allow a user to manage a collection of books and materials they own.
Alexandria also supports loaning out these materials to others. But I have
an idea to extend alexandria to manage materials I have borrowed from
others.

Does it make sense to make local libraries providers for alexandria, and
support patron records held at the local library to build future
enhancements to alexandria? That is, is it consistent with the development
goals for this software for it to know about which books a person has
currently out on loan from libraries, as well as those books held in a
person's private collection (which may be loaned out to others)?

I have developed such a library patron access application in Python, a
language which I have invested less time in using since I discovered Ruby. I
have considered for some months converting the whole thing from Python into
Ruby, but because of the effort required to do that, I thought I'd look to
see if anyone had solved my problem or some subset of it since I first wrote
my application.

The application is called Alibi, and resides here:

http://alibi.nslug.ns.ca/

The user base is extremely small (my own family and one other family,) and
all of my great ideas for it have been in never-neverland for a few years.
The problem is, it meets just enough of my own needs so that I've never been
inspired to put the time into extending it further.

That being said, the application is fully functional for use with two local
libraries here in Halifax: our public library, and the university library
network. The public library is supported via web scraping, similar to how
alexandria providers are implemented. The university library is implemented
by pairing an expect script with some screen scraping applied after the data
is collected from that session. If I have to reimplement the university
library in Ruby, I might decide to abandon the screen scraper in favour of a
new web scraping module for use with the university's new web-based system.

I think what I'll start out trying to do with alexandria is to simply make
alexandria know how to use my personal username and password to access my
local public library to inject books currently out on my card into a "on
loan from" library in alexandria. When books are returned, they should
remain in this library, but should be hidden from view. I won't be able to
replace alibi with this, because alibi also checks due dates and tells me
when my books are due. But eventually, I would want alexandria to do that,
too, or at least communicate with an agent that handles those tasks. I
haven't decided yet whether such functionality even belongs in alexandria,
or whether I should continue to keep alibi separate, and just use some
common data format to exchange data between the two applications.

I'd like to know if these ideas align with any of your development efforts,
and if I put the work into making alexandria operate in this way for my own
public library, if any of you would be interested in adapting it to work
with other providers.

Ben
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From synergism at gmail.com  Thu Oct 20 07:34:01 2005
From: synergism at gmail.com (Ben Armstrong)
Date: Thu, 20 Oct 2005 08:34:01 -0300
Subject: [Alexandria-list] Blue skying: Blogs,
	bookcrossing and book suggestions
Message-ID: <3f1ae6620510200434v7548d410ie509670249c3b887@mail.gmail.com>

I found Alexandria in a search for software that knows about Amazon. I had
this idea that my program, Alibi, ought to be able to combine information
about which books I have borrowed from the library with the information
Amazon knows about book preferences (readers who bought book X also bought
book Y). Now that I have discovered alexandria, I am thinking this feature
would fit just as nicely within alexandria as my own program. What do you
think?

Beyond just learning what big commercial sites like Amazon know about user
preferences, this would work too in a more decentralized way, if Alexandria
were to support some sort of publishing of reviews, ratings, etc. I seem to
recall in my intial browse of feature requests for Alexandria (though I
don't have it at my fingertips) that someone had asked about RSS support.
Wouldn't it be nice if Alexandria users were able to share in some P2P way
their thoughts and preferences about books they own or have at least
borrowed and read? Wouldn't it be nice also if Alexandria users could share
with each other (either in a public way, or at least among friends)
materials they make available to others for loans? A radical model for this
sort of sharing is bookcrossing.com <http://bookcrossing.com>. Wouldn't it
be nice Bookcrossing were a provider for Alexandria as well?

Through all of these connections, I imagine this scenario:

1. Someone recommends a book to you.
2. You turn to Alexandria, asking "who has this book?"
3. Alexandria says:
- Your local library
- Amazon
- Proxis
- Barnes & Noble
- Several bookcrossers, one of whom is within 100 km of where you live
- Your friend, Dave
4. You consider asking Dave if you can borrow the book; Dave is also an
Alexandria user
5. You pull up the list of books Dave has said he is willing to loan; the
book you want is on it
6. Furthermore, Dave has rated the book & written a little review, so you
read his comments
7. You click on Dave's email address and send him a note requesting the book
8. It is a month later, you've managed to borrow the book & read it, and add
your own rating/comments, now enriching the Alexandria user community with
your own insights
9. You decide you'd like to read more books like this, so you ask Alexandria
10. Alexandria gives you a list of suggestions from several sources,
including Amazon, Bookcrossing and the global Alexandria user community

Ben
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From synergism at gmail.com  Thu Oct 20 08:07:53 2005
From: synergism at gmail.com (Ben Armstrong)
Date: Thu, 20 Oct 2005 09:07:53 -0300
Subject: [Alexandria-list] Blue skying: Blogs,
	bookcrossing and book suggestions
In-Reply-To: <3f1ae6620510200434v7548d410ie509670249c3b887@mail.gmail.com>
References: <3f1ae6620510200434v7548d410ie509670249c3b887@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <3f1ae6620510200507s116a54edt2ba65f20fa59774e@mail.gmail.com>

On 10/20/05, Ben Armstrong <synergism at gmail.com> wrote:
> 5. You pull up the list of books Dave has said he is willing to loan; the book you want is on it
>  6. Furthermore, Dave has rated the book & written a little review, so you read his comments

Oh, implicit in these steps was the idea that Dave had published this
information from Alexandria to his blog site by means of an RSS (or
Atom) feed.  Furthermore, even non-Alexandria users might participate
in such a global network of book reviews merely by including the
appropriate tags that Alexandria recognizes in their own feeds.

Ben


From arrak at arrak.org  Thu Oct 20 22:16:45 2005
From: arrak at arrak.org (Arrakis Muadib)
Date: Thu, 20 Oct 2005 22:16:45 -0400
Subject: [Alexandria-list] A new french book provider for alexandria
Message-ID: <1129861005.10020.5.camel@localhost.localdomain>

Hi everybody!

My new book provider is almost finish!

In fact I would like to have your comments and your ideas!

math
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From bob.paddock at gmail.com  Fri Oct 14 22:05:23 2005
From: bob.paddock at gmail.com (Bob Paddock)
Date: Fri, 14 Oct 2005 22:05:23 -0400
Subject: [Alexandria-list] require': no such file to load -- gettext on
	Gentoo
Message-ID: <200510142205.23871.bob.paddock@gmail.com>


It has been a couple of weeks since I ran Alexandria last, now when I do I get 
this:

/usr/bin/alexandria:6:in `require': no such file to load -- gettext 
(LoadError)
        from /usr/bin/alexandria:6

#!/usr/bin/ruby18 -Ku
#
# This file is automatically generated by the installer.
# Do not edit by hands.

require 'gettext' [This is line six]
require 'alexandria'

Can someone point me in a direction here please?
Alexandria is the only Ruby program I run so I'm clueless as to where
"require" is actrually trying to locate this file at.

This is on Gentoo.  http://www.gentoo.org/


From laurent.sansonetti at gmail.com  Mon Oct 24 08:56:46 2005
From: laurent.sansonetti at gmail.com (Laurent Sansonetti)
Date: Mon, 24 Oct 2005 14:56:46 +0200
Subject: [Alexandria-list] Local libraries as providers & patron support
In-Reply-To: <3f1ae6620510190849w7fc59c5cp1ddabf6b74356c3c@mail.gmail.com>
References: <3f1ae6620510190849w7fc59c5cp1ddabf6b74356c3c@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <1be7247c0510240556j764bde27m5df41b0450dc275e@mail.gmail.com>

Hello Ben,

On 10/19/05, Ben Armstrong <synergism at gmail.com> wrote:
> I understand that alexandria taps into catalogues held by various providers
> to allow a user to manage a collection of books and materials they own.
> Alexandria also supports loaning out these materials to others.  But I have
> an idea to extend alexandria to manage materials I have borrowed from
> others.
>
>  Does it make sense to make local libraries providers for alexandria, and
> support patron records held at the local library to build future
> enhancements to alexandria?  That is, is it consistent with the development
> goals for this software for it to know about which books a person has
> currently out on loan from libraries, as well as those books held in a
> person's private collection (which may be loaned out to others)?
>
>  I have developed such a library patron access application in Python, a
> language which I have invested less time in using since I discovered Ruby.
> I have considered for some months converting the whole thing from Python
> into Ruby, but because of the effort required to do that, I thought I'd look
> to see if anyone had solved my problem or some subset of it since I first
> wrote my application.
>
>  The application is called Alibi, and resides here:
>
>  http://alibi.nslug.ns.ca/
>
>  The user base is extremely small (my own family and one other family,) and
> all of my great ideas for it have been in never-neverland for a few years.
> The problem is, it meets just enough of my own needs so that I've never been
> inspired to put the time into extending it further.
>
>  That being said, the application is fully functional for use with two local
> libraries here in Halifax: our public library, and the university library
> network.  The public library is supported via web scraping, similar to how
> alexandria providers are implemented.  The university library is implemented
> by pairing an expect script with some screen scraping applied after the data
> is collected from that session.  If I have to reimplement the university
> library in Ruby, I might decide to abandon the screen scraper in favour of a
> new web scraping module for use with the university's new web-based system.
>
>  I think what I'll start out trying to do with alexandria is to simply make
> alexandria know how to use my personal username and password to access my
> local public library to inject books currently out on my card into a "on
> loan from" library in alexandria.  When books are returned, they should
> remain in this library, but should be hidden from view.  I won't be able to
> replace alibi with this, because alibi also checks due dates and tells me
> when my books are due.  But eventually, I would want alexandria to do that,
> too, or at least communicate with an agent that handles those tasks.  I
> haven't decided yet whether such functionality even belongs in alexandria,
> or whether I should continue to keep alibi separate, and just use some
> common data format to exchange data between the two applications.
>
>  I'd like to know if these ideas align with any of your development efforts,
> and if I put the work into making alexandria operate in this way for my own
> public library, if any of you would be interested in adapting it to work
> with other providers.
>

Your proposition sounds great to me, and would be a great feature for
Alexandria!

Basically, what we should do is:

- to provide a way to subscribe to a library PAC, giving all the info
(location, user, password...)
- to put the result of the subscription in a read-only library,
periodically or manually refreshed
- to provide a way to set up some alarms (e-mail, message dialog?) to
remain the user that some books are due

What do you think, will this be OK for you?

Laurent


From synergism at gmail.com  Mon Oct 24 10:13:28 2005
From: synergism at gmail.com (Ben Armstrong)
Date: Mon, 24 Oct 2005 11:13:28 -0300
Subject: [Alexandria-list] Local libraries as providers & patron support
In-Reply-To: <1be7247c0510240556j764bde27m5df41b0450dc275e@mail.gmail.com>
References: <3f1ae6620510190849w7fc59c5cp1ddabf6b74356c3c@mail.gmail.com>
	<1be7247c0510240556j764bde27m5df41b0450dc275e@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <3f1ae6620510240713i4ab9cda6m5aece5cc71097996@mail.gmail.com>

On 10/24/05, Laurent Sansonetti <laurent.sansonetti at gmail.com> wrote:
> Your proposition sounds great to me, and would be a great feature for
> Alexandria!
>
> Basically, what we should do is:
>
> - to provide a way to subscribe to a library PAC, giving all the info
> (location, user, password...)
> - to put the result of the subscription in a read-only library,
> periodically or manually refreshed
> - to provide a way to set up some alarms (e-mail, message dialog?) to
> remain the user that some books are due
>
> What do you think, will this be OK for you?

That sounds good.  Now, how do we do this without muddying up the
architecture of alexandria?  Is this an extension of the provider
class, a subclass of provider, or a separate class delegated to in
order to handle account details?

Ben