[Spyce-users] binary uploads in Windows

[Howard J. <jo...@ea...>]

First, a hearty thanks to all who have developed Spyce!
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While trying to resolve a difficulty with Spyce, I ran across a
discussion thread regarding the Python cgi-module at'
http://aspn.activestate.com/ASPN/Mail/Message/python-list/1567396'

It relates to a similar quandry I'm presently in: the seeming inability
of Spyce to handle POSTed binary file (image) uploads in a Windows
development environment. I am currently working in an 'Apache2triad'
(http://apache2triad.sourceforge.net/) setup running on a Windows '98
laptop. (Yes, I know, but it's a long story and involves issues of
Adobe's SVG plugin being full-featured only on Windows Internet
Explorer, etc.... Besides, it appears there would be the same problem on
Windows 2000 or XP.)

Briefly, I am in the final phase of building a web site to support
graphics archiving with techniques and software I've developed over the
years (mostly on Windows platforms). A number of utilities and
processing applications are written in Python and require a user to
upload both SVG and raster graphics onto the web server for analysis,
markup, integration, etc.

When I discovered Spyce I was very excited that it seemed to provide a
way to integrate all of these pieces, including dynamic web pages,
within a single Python environment. However, I finally decided to 'hedge
my bets' and built the web page handling in PHP, using Spyce only to
broker upload-processing.

 I am able to upload text files (such as SVG documents) via Spyce but
any associated binary raster images do not get uploaded. Apparently
(according to the above mentioned cgi-module discussion thread) the
culprit is a default 'text-only' buffer deep inside of Windows that I
find no way to reset from Spyce.

Fortunately I have been able to 'kludge' a workaround from the PHP side
(thank Goodness I hedged my bet!). PHP uploads the files, resizes them,
handles database ops, and then forwards the SVG text file via GET to
Spyce and on into the markup analysis.

So, the good news is that my web site is nearing completion and is able
to handle all of the operations I'd planned.

The bad news is that instead of a single, easily manageable,  processing
environment I have an awkward assembly of components. Perhaps when
eventually I get everything up on a *nix server I'll be able to bring
all of the components together in Spyce. But it would be much better if
I could work out all of the inevitable bugs on a Windows 'localhost'.

Is there any chance that Spyce will become more robust for graphics
developers working in a Windows development environment?

Howard Jones
jo...@ea...