Author Topic: Html View Mode in FARR (Find and Run Robot) (Read 39,109 times)

mouser · « **on:** May 31, 2008, 09:41 PM »

I wanted to start this thread for discussing all issues relating to the new html view mode in FARR. I suspect there will be a lot of issues to discuss as the feature starts to be used by plugin writers.

Here's a little picture to get us started:

s.newave · « **Reply #1 on:** May 31, 2008, 10:20 PM »

O M G

this looks sexy!!!

Flash support would be awesome for things like media playback and perhaps some quick gaming

also the ability to be able to navigate the plugin by using the keyboard similar to other plugins. i.e tab/esc moves focus between search field and html window. Alt left/right for back and fwd as well as pgup/pgdn and F5/refresh wouldnt hurt either.

mouser · « **Reply #2 on:** May 31, 2008, 10:27 PM »

it's a full embedded IE activeX control, so anything that runs in your IE browser will run in this.
however let's not fall into a trap of trying to make FARR a full browser.. it's really meant to help plugins display info they want to display in a nice way.

s.newave · « **Reply #3 on:** May 31, 2008, 10:39 PM »

Haha i agree although in all fairness you did put up an image displaying a regular website

. What about the ability to traverse the plugin with the keyboard? Will you still be able to esc back to the search box?

mouser · « **Reply #4 on:** May 31, 2008, 10:44 PM »

Quote

Will you still be able to esc back to the search box?

escape has a real use in the browser window so we will either have to use another key or decide to take over the escape key to pop back up to edit box.

s.newave · « **Reply #5 on:** May 31, 2008, 10:57 PM »

thats what i figured. I think this is fairly important to the success of this plugin especially if the window steals focus from the search box when run. My vote would be to take over the esc key. cant remember the last time i had to stop loading a page which i believe it is used for.

kartal · « **Reply #6 on:** May 31, 2008, 10:59 PM »

How does the implementation work as aliases? Can we grab info from pages or applications, clipboard etc?

mouser · « **Reply #7 on:** May 31, 2008, 11:04 PM »

As it stands now you can have an alias open a web page in the FARR window, though as i said before that's not the main intent of this feature. mainly it's meant to be used by plugins to fetch and display info.

nitrix-ud · « **Reply #8 on:** May 31, 2008, 11:17 PM »

Quote

As it stands now you can have an alias open a web page in the FARR window

that simply rocks !!

is it possible to have the following alias ?

^php (.*)

PHP search | showhtml www.php.net/$$1

that would be awesome

herojoker · « **Reply #9 on:** May 31, 2008, 11:27 PM »

That's really nice!
Is (or will) it be possible to use XULRunner instead of IE? Any other way to include Mozilla instead of IE would be nice too

kartal · « **Reply #10 on:** June 01, 2008, 12:07 AM »

it would be amazing if Farr could pull the page without special formatting like www.donationcoder.com would invoke html mode.

czb · « **Reply #11 on:** June 01, 2008, 07:10 AM »

Quote from: nitrix-ud on May 31, 2008, 11:17 PM

Quote
As it stands now you can have an alias open a web page in the FARR window

that simply rocks !!

is it possible to have the following alias ?

^php (.*)

PHP search | showhtml www.php.net/$$1

that would be awesome

Yes this would be great

Also possibility to choose path (like html/body/div#1/a) which is going to be displayed would be useful

mouser · « **Reply #12 on:** June 01, 2008, 07:23 AM »

Quote

PHP search | showhtml www.php.net/$$1

yes, this already works:

Quote

Also possibility to choose path (like html/body/div#1/a) which is going to be displayed would be useful

this kind of thing is useful, just have to decide whether to make it core part of FARR or a plugin.

macs · « **Reply #13 on:** June 01, 2008, 07:30 AM »

I'd also vote to take over the escape key. This would keep it consistent with the way FARR already works.

Will it be possible to embed special types of links in the HTML. For example a link that launched a local file or that started a FARR search? (subject to some suitable security to stop pages from the web launching files).

mouser · « **Reply #14 on:** June 01, 2008, 07:35 AM »

Quote

I'd also vote to take over the escape key. This would keep it consistent with the way FARR already works.

done.

Quote

Will it be possible to embed special types of links in the HTML. For example a link that launched a local file or that started a FARR search? (subject to some suitable security to stop pages from the web launching files).

yes. though i must admit i didn't think of the security risk until you mentioned it. I'll have to make sure that no downloaded files can contain such special links -- only plugins (and local file:// links) will be able to create those.

nitrix-ud · « **Reply #15 on:** June 01, 2008, 08:07 AM »

Quote

it would be amazing if Farr could pull the page without special formatting like www.donationcoder.com would invoke html mode.

seems like you will be able to do it as it stands now :

regex mask :

Quote

^(https?://)?(([0-9a-z_!~*'().&=+$%-]+: )?[0-9a-z_!~*'().&=+$%-]+@)?(([0-9]{1,3}\.){3}[0-9]{1,3}|localhost|alextd|mickytd|([0-9a-z_!~*'()-]+\.)*([0-9a-z][0-9a-z-]{0,61})?[0-9a-z]\.[a-z]{2,6})(:[0-9]{1,4})?((/?)|(/[0-9a-z_!~*'().;?:@&=+$,%#-]+)+/?)$

Quote

Show website | showhtml http://$$4$$8$$9

nitrix-ud · « **Reply #16 on:** June 01, 2008, 08:25 AM »

waouh mouser, you've done it, this is pretty amazing ! it will really opens up new things, new uses...

good you keep esc key for FARR

links to open up FARR searches will be very useful too

about links i wonder what is the best strategy for new windows (target="_blank") and popups ?
i think it would be great to be able to open a link in your regular browser when you want it

say you google search within FARR, i'd like to see the results in FARR but then open an interesting link in my full blown browser...
maybe shift+enter AND middle mouse click are good choices

then what i'd like when i click on the link is see FARR closes automatically OR not

see this post
http://www.donationcoder.com/forum/index.php?topic=13266.msg112110#msg112110

obviously the more configurable the better

Quote

Quote
Also possibility to choose path (like html/body/div#1/a) which is going to be displayed would be useful
this kind of thing is useful, just have to decide whether to make it core part of FARR or a plugin.

i think this should be a core part of FARR, it would be very useful in aliases

i think one thing that is needed is to have an address bar, so that at some point you can copy the url and paste it in a regular browser, or copy the url in FARR search box
of course "bridges" between html-rendering object and FARR search box would be great

mouser, i know you don't want to create a full browser

but an address bar is no gadget

one other thing i mentionned previously is the small bug about showmemo and showfile (and maybe the new showhtml command ??) :

Quote

if you have a showfile or showmemo command as a second result of an alias (or third, fourth, etc.)
the ESC does not select the search box... so you cannot close FARR by using ESC twice, you have to use the mouse ! to reselect the search box...
very annoying

just want to make sure it is not forgotten

s.newave · « **Reply #17 on:** June 01, 2008, 06:41 PM »

Quote from: nitrix-ud on June 01, 2008, 08:25 AM

about links i wonder what is the best strategy for new windows (target="_blank") and popups ?
i think it would be great to be able to open a link in your regular browser when you want it

say you google search within FARR, i'd like to see the results in FARR but then open an interesting link in my full blown browser...
maybe shift+enter AND middle mouse click are good choices

then what i'd like when i click on the link is see FARR closes automatically OR not Wink

i would imagine you should be able to do this as is by right clicking on the link and choosing "open in new window"

Also concerned about popups. Not sure how these would be handled but obv it would be great if there werent any

nitrix-ud · « **Reply #18 on:** June 01, 2008, 07:16 PM »

Quote

i would imagine you should be able to do this as is by right clicking on the link and choosing "open in new window"

my ie7 does not have this, is that normal ??

mouser · « **Reply #19 on:** June 01, 2008, 07:19 PM »

i dont have it either, so i think some other solution will be needed.
i may have to make a little mini toolbar for the htmlview mode with options like "open in browser", refresh, etc. and i guess an address bar too.

one thing i was thinking might be needed is an options page in FARR dedicated to the html view mode, and one thing it might include is a list of websites url regex patterns that FARR should open in it's internal window, vs. those it should open externally. just an idea. my only fear is that we do not want to overcomplicate this -- it's not meant to be a replacement browser.

nitrix-ud · « **Reply #20 on:** June 01, 2008, 07:40 PM »

Quote

i may have to make a little mini toolbar for the htmlview mode with options like "open in browser", refresh, etc. and i guess an address bar too

that would be great, i also suggest a button to copy the url to the search box... so that you can trigger a url regex...

Quote

one thing i was thinking might be needed is an options page in FARR dedicated to the html view mode,

good idea, i think options on how to handle popups and new windows are a must

Quote

one thing it might include is a list of websites url regex patterns that FARR should open in it's internal window, vs. those it should open externally. just an idea.

it would be easier using aliases no ?

let's say you have the infamous url alias :
^(https?://)?(([0-9a-z_!~*'().&=+$%-]+: )?[0-9a-z_!~*'().&=+$%-]+@)?(([0-9]{1,3}\.){3}[0-9]{1,3}|localhost|alextd|mickytd|([0-9a-z_!~*'()-]+\.)*([0-9a-z][0-9a-z-]{0,61})?[0-9a-z]\.[a-z]{2,6})(:[0-9]{1,4})?((/?)|(/[0-9a-z_!~*'().;?:@&=+$,%#-]+)+/?)$

just add the two results :

$$4$$8$$9 | http://$$4$$8$$9
$$4$$8$$9 | showhtml http://$$4$$8$$9

and we are done !

Quote

my only fear is that we do not want to overcomplicate this -- it's not meant to be a replacement browser.

i think you are right, i see it as a starting point before using a full blown browser...

BUT in the other hand, i have quite a lot of web tools that i run locally that will be used right within FARR, and that is pretty amazing !

keep up the good work

s.newave · « **Reply #21 on:** June 01, 2008, 08:16 PM »

Quote from: nitrix-ud on June 01, 2008, 07:16 PM

my ie7 does not have this, is that normal ??

interesting. Just checked and even though i never use ie if i right click on a link it has a "Open in new window" option. Might be part of some toolbar addon i added.

Quote

one thing i was thinking might be needed is an options page in FARR dedicated to the html view mode, and one thing it might include is a list of websites url regex patterns that FARR should open in it's internal window, vs. those it should open externally.

sound goods. i would only add that the default behavior should be to open in the internal browser. like nitrix-ud i plan to use this for a lot of quick searches and info gathering from within farr.

I know you dont want to over complicate this feature however it would be great if while you are maintaining a list of websites url regex patterns you could also specify an action/file/script to be launched to process the page before displaying it. This way you could strip out only the html you were interested in or add/change/format pages, greasemonkey style

herojoker · « **Reply #22 on:** June 01, 2008, 11:15 PM »

My IE7 (7.0.5730.11) has "In neuer Registerkarte öffnen" and "In neuem Fenster öffnen" which means "Open in new Tab" and "Open in new Window".

@all plugin writers: Be careful not to overuse the html view! I fear that instead of the normal result list artificial html result lists will be created just to make it look better...

nitrix-ud · « **Reply #23 on:** June 02, 2008, 07:17 AM »

Quote

@all plugin writers: Be careful not to overuse the html view! I fear that instead of the normal result list artificial html result lists will be created just to make it look better...

very good point

macs · « **Reply #24 on:** June 02, 2008, 01:53 PM »

Quote from: mouser on June 01, 2008, 07:19 PM

i may have to make a little mini toolbar for the htmlview mode with options like "open in browser", refresh, etc. and i guess an address bar too.

I'm not sure abot a mini-toolbar and address bar.

The sort of things I'd expect the viewer to be used for are:

Formatting of results (I'm thinking here more of the current memo/notes view rather than the current list)
Stripped down content scraped from a page on the web
Specialist links to things such as a file on the local file system or another page (which would be generated by the plugin)

The thing is some of these things wouldn't work if the page was passed to a normal browser, so I don't immediately see why the mini HTML viewer needs to have the functions of a normal web browser. Such things would seem to fill up space without adding much.

Maybe we need to consider in a bit more detail what plugins would use the viewer and whether they should use the viewer or just the current system. Then the viewer can contain the required functionality without becoming too complicated.