hotsheet-development — For people interested in developing HotSheet or utilizing its code

[Hotsheet-development] Project files for Eclipse IDE

[O'Brien-Strain, E. <eam...@hp...>]

I managed to build and run HotSheet under the Eclipse IDE without too much trouble.  Attached are the .classpath and .project files that specify the Eclipse project setup information.

You might want to add them to the CVS module for the convenience of Eclipse users.  (They go in the top level of the CVS module.)

__
Eamonn O'Brien-Strain
eob AT hpl.hp.com

[Hotsheet-development] HotSheet Update

[John M. <joh...@ho...>]

HotSheet is not dead despite the three month pause without a new release. 
Part of the problem is that I've opened up the patient in too many areas and 
now I need to do a lot of suturing before we get another release.

Here's a brief summary of what is going on:

1) I'm rewriting the sorting and filtering so that it takes the form of a 
ListModel. You then embed your real list model inside the sorting/filtering 
ListModel and attach the JList to the outer one. Whenever the real ListModel 
updates the outer one creates a mapping that resorts or filters the data in 
the inner one. (80% done)

Why: It improves several things at once. Currently if you sort the list of 
items, you have to resort them whenever new items are added, with this 
scheme you can have a sorting stay in place _and_ it doesn't alter the 
underlying model the way that the current sorting scheme does. This will 
enable the program to offer different views of the same data. I'd like to 
someday see different tabs where it is sorted chronologically on one tab, 
sorted by channel on another, and on a third tab the list is filtered so 
that only items with the word Java in the title or description of the item 
appear. That's all possible with the newer way of sorting and filtering.

2) I've added dialog panels to set the various properties currently set 
through the hotsheet.properties file. (70% done)

Why: That will make it easier to use by everybody but especially by the 
typical end user I want to be able to use HotSheet.

3) I want to fix the Jython scripting so that it can see its library of 
functionality. Right now you can run a Jython script but you can't access 
the library because all of the .jar files get renamed by Java Web Start when 
they are downloaded and Jython doesn't know where to look to find its 
library. If I can't get that working then I'm thinking that enabling the 
BeanShell (www.beanshell.org) for scripting may be the next best thing. (0% 
done)

Why: Scripting is going to ultimately be the big difference between HotSheet 
and "everybody else" when it comes to news handling. All of the existing 
programs do not intelligently filter the news even though
there's lots of keywords, channel, and other information there to help do 
it.

4) I am going to add a dialog box that makes subscribing/unsubscribing 
channels as easy as it is to add and remove Usenet groups under Microsoft 
Outlook right now. They offer the ability to get a list of
channels (I'll update from Syndic8.com eventually but I'll start off with a 
canned list) and they give you the ability to filter based on keywork and 
click to add or remove groups. There is no reason it
can't be just that easy for HotSheet. Harshad Oak created a parser for the 
OCS channel list format a long time ago using JDOM, this code should provide 
a leg up on getting us channels in a form that we can add to a dialog box. 
(20% done?)

why: User friendliness. This plus #2 are all about making HotSheet usable by 
the masses rather than the gurus who know where to find the URLs for RSS 
channels and how to find and edit their hotsheet.properties file. There is 
no reason for HotSheet to be as hard to use as it is right now.

5) One of the old outstanding feature requests which was to put a build 
number into the release should appear in the next one. (90% done)

Why: Just a basic piece of information most users expect to have. When 
referring to bugs or other issues it's nice to be able to say which version 
exhibited the problem and the gross version number isn't
always enough.

Both #1 and #2 will have to be finished before I do my next release. 
Hopefully that will be soon.

John

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[Hotsheet-development] HotSheet: State of the Union

[John M. <joh...@ho...>]

I'm working on HotSheet again. I've done a few small updates to the source 
over the last month but no big changes that warranted a release. Now I'm 
trying to get the dialog done that will allow adjusting the various 
properties that could previously only be set through the properties file. I 
did a lot of work last night on improvements to the RSS library and I'm 
hoping to bang on the program for at least an hour a day every day until I 
see some big improvements.

So now that I use HotSheet on a daily basis and I'm no longer sick of 
looking at it I've started to ask myself what the future holds for it. The 
conclusion that I've come to is that RSS is not enough. News headlines are 
nice but wouldn't it be better if there were a set of data classes that 
handle RSS (obviously), but also weather, daily comics, sports scores, other 
forms of news, email notifications, calendar event notifications, stock 
info, tv shows, and tracking of items that change status like auctions or 
shipped packages. In other words, all the things people go to portals for 
all the time. People could build anything from a portal to an information 
appliance to a web service. By having one library there could be more 
consistency in interface, documentation, testing, etc. and the results would 
probably gain a lot more attention than a scattered set of separate 
libraries to do the same things.

I've got ideas where to graft on existing libraries to get some of this 
data:

		Weather
			http://www.amug.org/~glguerin/sw/#weather
			http://javaweather.sourceforge.net/

		Sports scores
			http://sportwire.sourceforge.net/

		Stocks
			http://www.neuro-tech.net/app.xml?name=jfl

		Email notifications
			http://java.sun.com/products/javamail/index.html

but for others there isn't an existing Java solution. We might port an 
existing application in another language or wrap the data that it pulls. 
Some likely candidates for that treatment include:

		Comics
			http://sourceforge.net/projects/pycomic/

		TV
			http://noomore.org/GuideParser/
			http://freeguide-tv.sourceforge.net/ (this is an existing java project 
that uses data pulled via Perl)
			http://www.doc.ic.ac.uk/~epa98/work/apps/xmltv/

Still others, like auction and package tracking... I've got no knowledge of 
existing libraries to use, and for some of the existing ones mentioned above 
there may be license issues to be considered. It's very important to me that 
any library included be either BSD, LGPL, or some equivalent that won't 
impose unpleasant restrictions on any application in which it is used. 
Especially since it may represent a very small part of functionality in the 
application.

Clearly this kind of expansion will require me to separate HotSheet into two 
projects rather than just one. There will be a data libraries project and a 
separate project or projects for interfaces to that data.

In the meantime, expect a new release of HotSheet within the next couple of 
weeks.

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[Hotsheet-development] Fwd: rss 0.92 parsing problem

[John M. <joh...@ho...>]

=======================================================================
This message is forwarded for David Mullens who is having some trouble 
signing up for the mailing list:
=======================================================================

Hi,

I am wanting to use a few classes from the HotSheet project.  So far, things
are working well.  I was trying to get news feeds from
http://www.newsisfree.com and until this morning everything worked.  Now, it
looks like they are using RSS 0.92 (I think they were using RSS 0.91).
Since the change, I haven't been able to get their news feeds to work (I did
add change the if statement in Channel.java to read:

                 if (versionValue.equals("0.90") ||
versionValue.equals("0.91") || versionValue.equals("0.92")) {

so it would at least call the RSSParser.parse() method.  I end up getting
the message:

Channel Error: http://www.newsisfree.com/HPE/xml/feeds/68/1468.xml
Too many (i.e. greater than one) or too few (i.e. zero) channels in the RSS
file.


channels.getLength() prints out 3.  However, looking at the above xml, I
only see one channel....

What needs to be done to get rss 0.92 to work with Channel.java?

Thanks,

Dave.

_________________________________________________________________
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[Hotsheet-development] HotSheet update

[John M. <Joh...@ho...>]

HotSheet has the first round of its new improvements completed and a =
runnable version of what I'm going to call 1.0 is available. A friend =
who ran the previous version on Mac OS 10.1 said that it did not =
download channels for him and I've done nothing to try and correct that =
yet. Also, I know that the Python implementation (Jython) that downloads =
with HotSheet at the moment is incomplete. I'm trying to figure out what =
to do about it so it will have the Python modules that will make it most =
useful. Currently you can use normal Python constructs and Java classes =
but that's it.

Needs Testing:

 - All scripting languages. I already know about the Python (Jython) =
module problem but I've done no testing of Tcl (Jacl), JavaScript =
(Rhino), VBScript, JScript, PerlScript, or PythonScript. I would like to =
have examples of each that can be shown to the users so they can see how =
they can write scripts in any of the supported languages which access =
and manipulate the objects within HotSheet. But that's not going to =
happen unless I get some help, I don't know _any_ of these languages =
except VBScript.

Currently there is no way to associate scripts with anything in =
particular. To test this stuff you just go to the new Script menu and =
pick Run Script... You'll get a file dialog where you can locate a =
script and it will figure out from the script's extension what language =
it is in to run it.

Note: At present the only things exposed to the scripting engines are =
the itemStore (it's named "itemStore") and the channelStore (cleverly =
named "channelStore"). You can see their interfaces in the RSS library =
code or the Javadocs if you generate them. If you need more information =
on BSF you can go to IBM's site for the library. It will tell you the =
specifics of accessing Java objects from each of the various scripting =
languages including the ActiveX Scripting languages like VBScript that =
are only available to Windows users.

 - Properties

# HotSheet properties
refresh.interval=3D0

delete.viewed=3Dfalse

http.authPass=3Dpassword
http.authName=3Djohndoe
http.proxySet=3Dfalse
http.proxyHost=3Dproxy
http.proxyPort=3D8080

This is a list of all the properties that you can have in your =
HotSheet.properties file as of today. The file should be located in the =
.hotsheet directory wherever the user home directory is (c:\Documents =
and Settings\<username> for Windows 2000 users, ~<username> for Linux, =
not sure for other OSes).

The proxy settings are all pretty straightforward. If you have to go =
through a proxy you can now just by setting these properties. You can =
even set the authorization name and password for authenticating proxies. =
Note: All of the proxy stuff is MOOT for people who run through Java Web =
Start, for them the proxy settings are stored in JWS and they are =
queried for the necessary name and password if needed for =
authentication. I included most of this for people who are developing =
and thus run it from the command line.

The delete.viewed if set to true will automatically delete viewed items =
in your list whenever you exit.

The refresh.interval if set to anything above zero will use the number =
as the number of seconds to wait between automatic refreshes.

 - Drawing. I've seen at least a couple of different drawing issues. Don =
showed me one where it got confused while scrolling or something and =
drew only half of an item. I've seen problems with drawing being off by =
a pixel or two when I scroll through the list rapidly leaving letters =
looking squashed or stretched slightly. These are mostly minor cosmetic =
things and are usually transient.

 - Anybody who can confirm the problem on the previous version or this =
version with downloading channels on Mac OS X or 10.1 would be =
wonderful. Even more wonderful would be to figure out why it is doing it =
if it is. Also, I haven't fired up either 0.62 or this 1.0 alpha on =
Linux. Please! Somebody test it.

Not Yet Finished:

 - Integration of scripting into the interface. Scripts need to be =
something that can be run whenever any major event happens (deletes, =
adds, before a refresh, after a refresh, etc.). I will add this, but =
it's going to take a little time.

John

[Hotsheet-development] Next HotSheet Release

[John M. <jm...@zw...>]

There will probably be a new HotSheet release in a couple of weeks. I've generated a version of the BSF that supports JavaScript (Rhino), Python (the latest Jython not the older JPython), and TCL (Jacl) as well as any ActiveX Scripting engine for Windows users (I've seen it do both JScript and VBScript but PerlScript and PythonScript should work as well). I can't seem to get Rexx (NetRexx) support working or XSLT (Xalan) but I'm not sure I really care. I've only just started the integration of the BSF stuff into HotSheet though.

I've also added:
 - a properties file and the first of the properties for it to contain
 - periodic refreshes based on a timer (no interface to set it is provided you have to set the period through the properties file)
 - properties associated with each news item which can be used to hold a score or whether it has been viewed
 - a shift of the viewed status to the newly added per item properties mentioned above
 - the beginnings of new item drawing code that will highlight items with higher and lower scores than the average

This is a lot of stuff to work through and debug and finish but once it is done it really will be my last release of HotSheet for a while.

Even if I stop working on it though, the scripting will hopefully make it easy for anyone to contribute by writing filters for news that pick out the truly important stories and raise their scores while throwing away the chaff that we don't care about. Or they might write something that picks out the highest rated items and puts them on a webpage or sends them to a pager.

John

[Hotsheet-development] HotSheet: New Version

[John M. <jm...@zw...>]

There's a new version of HotSheet available from my server. Anyone who has it installed from there will auto-upgrade whenever they next run it. I need people to test this release because it represents some pretty big changes from the last real release (0.61).

Channels are now retrieved in multiple threads in parallel and this required changes to the ListChannelStore, ListItemStore, etc. classes in the RSS library. The HotSheet program itself changed a lot because it now uses a ChannelStoreListener and ItemStoreListener (which also had their interfaces altered some) to observe changes to the model and react to them. The progress dialog is _gone_ and all the progress is reported using the status bar and progress bar at the bottom of the interface. The code is now written to be much more like the Model-View-Controller ideal.

Because of the multi-threading change to the channel store it is now much faster to download a lot of channels than it was before. Also, it should be nearly trivial to start up a thread in the main UI which will start retrieving news channels on a regular schedule. I'm planning on adding a properties file in the next version that will allow you to start setting various properties (i.e. whether to play a noise when new items are retrieved, what sound to play, whether to delete viewed items when exiting, etc..). One of the properties I will add will be a setting for a timer process to automatically retrieve news on a schedule for those people who want it.

Hopefully someone will step up to the plate after the properties are all done to offer an easy UI to set them from the preferences dialog.

If I don't hear about any errors I'll do a source release shortly (Mon-Tues) and continue my quest to try and check my code changes into CVS.

John

P.S. Next up: properties, a cleanup of the item history mechanism, timed retrievals, and scripting!

[Hotsheet-development] Progress update

[John M. <jm...@zw...>]

For those who do not read my weblog, probably most of you :), here is a quick progress report on HotSheet.

There is a new version of HotSheet available via the automatic update mechanism. It's not really the next version yet because the UI updates aren't finished. But it does have multi-threaded retrieval of channels using a thread pool built in. In my tests so far this has greatly sped up how long it takes to perform a "Refresh All Channels" command and it should scale even up to a program which retrieves thousands of channels.

So, what has to happen now before a new release? I've got to fix the UI so it shows the progress of channel retrievals and that is going to require careful updates to the RSS library. I've done some already but I want to review what I did to make sure it seems consistent with the rest of the library. After that I need to see if I can use Harshad Oak's code to give us a broader set of channels to pick from. Then I'll do a release before I reopen the patient again to add scripting and fix up the messy item history system.

By combining scripting and some new methods for marking news items or separating them from the rest of the items users will have the ability to start tailoring HotSheet to their own particular needs. I'm toying with a few different ideas but one that is sure to be implemented is the idea that each item will have its own set of properties. That way I can tag items as "read" and they will stay tagged. To the library the properties will just be strings and numbers associated with the items, it won't have any idea how they are used. It will be up to the program that uses the library how it interprets different properties.

Given that capability it will be easy to add a "score" to each news item and make HotSheet aware of scores on news items. Scripts could review news items and create a score based on keywords they see or other characteristics that will be attached to the item. HotSheet will draw items that have a score property differently than ones without, draw them differently based on how high the score is, or perhaps place them on a different tab. I've been thinking that it would be neat to have separate tabs in the UI with all the news items on one tab and the "hot" news items on another. Anyway, suggestions are welcome because I'm just trying to think what kind of abilities I'm going to want to make available to the scripting languages that can be connected to HotSheet.

I know I said I was going to let things ride for a while after the update I'm working on now but one of the big differences that HotSheet has over some of the other similar software out there is its ease of installation. If you have Java Web Start or OpenJNLP installed then click and you've got it.

The second area that could really differentiate HotSheet would be to get some real filtering into it, thus the push for scripts. Getting some "smarts" into the tools would make a big splash on the syndication mailing list on Yahoo where everybody discusses RSS based tools and could draw a lot more users and interest to HotSheet.

John

[Hotsheet-development] Free Hosting Services that allow .JNLP Extensions

[Scott T. <sof...@ya...>]

Hello all - I am still trying to find a free web
hosting service which will allow the .JNLP extension
required to JAVA WEB START Hotsheet... Any new
thoughts or information on this topic are appreciated.

Thanks!
Scott Randall Thompson
aka mbcastle
sof...@ya...

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[Hotsheet-development] New Release Coming Up

[John M. <jm...@zw...>]

I took a little break from HotSheet to work on other projects and deal with trying to keep GameDev.net afloat :{

But now I'm back working on it and I think there will probably be a new release within a week or so. If anyone has made any progress on an item assigned to them like JDBC, selection of channels, or channel loading I would appreciate hearing about it and also hearing how soon you think you might be done. That will give me an idea whether delaying the release by a day or two might make sense if it helps us incorporate a useful feature.

If we can get the feature requests I'm filling now and the pieces that are assigned to other developers done then we are almost at a 1.0 release of the software.

Thanks,
John Munsch
www.johnmunsch.com
P.S. Anyone who has requested a part of HotSheet should tell me what their SourceForge ID is. Then I can formally assign the feature to you and add you to the developers list.

Re: [Hotsheet-development] JNLP Files on Free Web Hosting Services...

[John M. <Joh...@zw...>]

Try iSavvix Java Community (http://java.isavvix.com/index.jsp), they offer
10MB of development space where you can do JSP, XML and JDBC already. My
guess is that they are going to treat a JNLP file just like any other kind
of file and allow it to download, however, that's not really good enough
because then it won't be marked with the correct mime type and Java Web
Start won't be triggered. But since they are already doing the Java thing in
a big way I'm betting they would set up their servers to deliver the correct
mime type for you if you asked nicely.

John

----- Original Message -----
From: "Scott Thompson" <sof...@ya...>
To: <hot...@li...>
Sent: Tuesday, August 07, 2001 1:50 PM
Subject: [Hotsheet-development] JNLP Files on Free Web Hosting Services...


> Hi all.  I have tried to upload a revised
> HotSheet.jnlp file to try out at my geocities account,
> but geocities does not recognize that extension "for
> security reasons".
>
> Can anyone recommend a free hosting service that
> allows .jnlp and other such extensions?  Looking
> forward to getting this all set up and helping out...
>
> Thanks!
> Scott Randall Thompson
> sof...@ya...
>
> __________________________________________________
> Do You Yahoo!?
> Make international calls for as low as $.04/minute with Yahoo! Messenger
> http://phonecard.yahoo.com/
>
> _______________________________________________
> Hotsheet-development mailing list
> Hot...@li...
> http://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/hotsheet-development
>

[Hotsheet-development] JNLP Files on Free Web Hosting Services...

[Scott T. <sof...@ya...>]

Hi all.  I have tried to upload a revised
HotSheet.jnlp file to try out at my geocities account,
but geocities does not recognize that extension "for
security reasons". 

Can anyone recommend a free hosting service that
allows .jnlp and other such extensions?  Looking
forward to getting this all set up and helping out...

Thanks!
Scott Randall Thompson
sof...@ya...

__________________________________________________
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Make international calls for as low as $.04/minute with Yahoo! Messenger
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[Hotsheet-development] New Source Release

[John M. <Joh...@zw...>]

Version 0.61 has been released and the source zip file is available on =
SourceForge now. If you run HotSheet from my website you will =
automatically update to the latest version.

This version marks the introduction of the first source code from =
outside contributors. Kudos to Rasmus B=F8ggild-Povlsen and Don Thorp =
for their contributions. See the ReadMe.html file with the source and =
the release notes on SourceForge for details of all the changes.

At present the JDBC and channel list download options have both been =
assigned to developers. I've marked an additional three items for near =
term work myself. If there's anything on the list that appeals to you at =
all, please let me know and jump in! We can finish this thing to a point =
that end users would be able to use it in a matter of a month or two =
with the whole group working together.

Thanks,
John Munsch