Viewing Scanned images

[Brian K. White]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "ivan chason" <deweyweekender at yahoo.com>
To: "filePro" <filepro-list at lists.celestial.com>
Sent: Thursday, August 03, 2006 7:10 PM
Subject: Re: Viewing Scanned images


>
>
> --- Fairlight <fairlite at fairlite.com> wrote:
>
>> When asked his whereabouts on Thu, Aug 03, 2006 at
>> 08:48:37AM -0700,
>> ivan chason took the fifth, drank it, and then
>> slurred:
>> >
>> > Now where would using the BLOB command fit into
>> all of
>> > this.  I'm still hoping to some how stream line
>> the
>> > way that images are viewed.  Now we use a system
>> > command and I would like to contain everything
>> within
>> > FilePro's functionality.  I just really don't have
>> an
>> > understanding of how the BLOB function works.
>>
>> It [BLOB] wouldn't [fit into all of this], in an
>> ideal scenario.
>>
>> You're talking about two different aspects of
>> dealing with the images,
>> namely storage and viewing.  Those are
>> compartmentalised operations.
>>
>> Ideally, all you do is store the images somewhere on
>> disk (a heirarchical
>> directory structure that limits most cases to under
>> 500 files per directory
>> is preferable, though certainly not -necessary-).
>> In filePro, you maintain
>> a table with records that simply describe the image,
>> and then have a
>> pathname to the actual location on disk.
>>
>> Storing images in BLOBs is really a bad idea for a
>> lot of reasons that have
>> been rehashed in the past.  If you're interested,
>> the archives of this list
>> must have a good dozen discussions over the years on
>> this very topic.
>> Take it as a given that it shouldn't be done as a
>> matter of good practise.
>>
>> As for viewing, you can use any image viewer you
>> like.  People have been
>> over that.  But since fP (regular, not GI) has no
>> functionality for viewing
>> images, you're going to have to rely on SYSTEM and
>> start a viewer.
>>
>> As for the VPN solution...  I personally wouldn't
>> like that solution.  I'm
>> not a big fan of VPN's for several reasons that
>> exceed the scope of this
>> conversation.  You didn't mention what software you
>> used for telnet.  Now
>> if you could guarantee that all clients were
>> something like Anzio (and I'm
>> presuming, although I have a copy and have never
>> actually tested it) that
>> its zmodem has auto-detect/auto-start, you could
>> possibly do something
>> like send the image on the fly, then start the
>> viewer on that file via the
>> remote command escape sequence capability.  Not
>> necessarily the best way
>> to do it, but it's -one- idea just off the top of my
>> head that illustrates
>> that you don't need a VPN connection from you to
>> everyone else to do it.
>> Past a certain point in a scenario like this, the
>> 'P' seems to disappear
>> from VPN.  There are other ways to skin that cat,
>> depending what software
>> is involved and can be deployed.
>>
>> mark->
>> _______________________________________________
>> Filepro-list mailing list
>> Filepro-list at lists.celestial.com
>>
> http://mailman.celestial.com/mailman/listinfo/filepro-list
>>
> The software we use is Anita - Fusion.  It is a
> terminal emulator for our windows machines to connect
> to the unix server.  We use it both for our LAN users
> and our WAN users.
> So can you think of how to skin this cat with Anita

Anita has an exec() feature so you can do pretty much anything you want.

It's a bit more hassle to use than facetwin or anzio but he paid enough for 
anita that it's not right to just blithely suggest getting something else.
there are some pretty unique features in anita besides. nit that I ever had 
the time to really explore them.

The Anita section of my "winstart" script:

# If the user is using AniTa...
# Requires client side setup
# In Anita, Config menu, "UNIX ENV setup..."
# add ANITA=true underneath where it says TERM=%terminal%
# This hardcoded sample syntax from the manual:
# echo "\033[1yftp -s:c:\commands.cfg\033\0134\c"
# works in windows anita, but not anitaweb (java)
# This syntax:
#[ -n "$ANITA" ] && { e=$1 ; shift ; print 
"\033[30;1y${e};open;${@};\033\0134\c" ; THF=: ; }
# works in both AniTa and AnitaWeb/JAniTa, but lacks ability to launch urls.
# So we detect urls and prepend iexplore to make it into a regular command
[ -n "$ANITA" ] && {
        unset AGENT
        case "$@" in
            http://*|ftp://*) AGENT="iexplore " ;;
        esac
        print "\033[1y${AGENT}${@}\033\0134\c"
        THF=:
}


The full script automatically decides what kind of escape sequence to send 
and part of that stuff is just how it detects that it should send Anita 
sequences instead of FacetWin or Anzio (Win or Lite) or TUN-EMU or a message 
to the screen.

I filepro you just say
system noredraw "winstart http://myaddress/path/to/" { 1 { ".jpg"

Or if you want to specify fairview or other app with special options instead 
of allowing windows to pick the app:
system noredraw "winstart fairview options http://myaddress/path/to/" { 
ImageFile

And windows pops it up the same whether the user is using anita, facetwin, 
anzio, or failing any of those it prints a message on the screen and waits 
for a carriage retrun so the user can cut & past and manually run what would 
have gone automatically.

In my case I go a bit further than that. Instead of /path/to/file I have a 
cgi script that takes encrypted arguments and uses very temporary files and 
the url the browser gets to display the image only works for a day (or an 
hour or whatever I want) and can't be used or modified to see anything but 
the intended file. (one customer can't view something of his, modify the url 
and see anyone elses stuff, without having to ever prompt him for a password 
(no .htaccess necessary) other than when he first logged in to the terminal 
emulator itself.

The script is here, sorry there's no link to it anywhere at the moment.
http://www.aljex.com/bkw/sco/winstart

Brian K. White  --  brian at aljex.com  --  http://www.aljex.com/bkw/
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