roger said:

Are you showing off or trying to advance the art?

first, i don't know what happened to grapes120.py. i fully intended to put that one up, so i'll dig it out. it basically just said, "your dictionary is complete". and no, i'm not releasing scripts in the 200-series. for reasons that should become very clear shortly. *** ok, here's the deal, roger... :+) if i give you the code that creates the viewer, then you'll say "...but we can't edit the text..." and if i then give you code that lets you edit, you'll say "...but this just saves out each page, when what we wanna do is view the diffs, and cumulate the pages into a book, and...", etc. i don't wish to participate in one-way giving... in the past, i haven't shared _any_ of my code. during the "babelfish" thread, from last year, i invited people on this listserve to collaborate with me, as i guided a process of writing code, but nobody contributed anything to the thread -- absolutely _nothing_ at all, from _anyone_ -- so i took down that thread before it got going... so this time around, a year or so later, i decided to take the thread through to its full conclusion, and post the code that i wrote in the process of it, despite the fact that i would get zero cooperation. but that doesn't mean i'm willing to just hand over _everything_. i decide what i give, and what i don't. just like you do. and just like everyone else does. i am boiling a bunch of lobsters in a kettle, roger... and every six months or so, i turn up the heat a bit. so yeah, probably in six months, i'll give y'all the viewer-code. six months later, the editing code. and six months after that, the cumulation code... or maybe not. as long as i give people applications that work, i feel like i have contributed to the cause, even if i keep my source-code to myself, thank you. so you really need to be appreciative for what i give, rather than trying to spotlight what i _haven't_ given. because that kind of focus is just gonna piss me off. and i can tell you why... see, roger, i've been boiling these lobsters for years. literally _years_. it started off with me telling them that they could turn project gutenberg's plain e-texts into beautiful e-books, using "zen markup language". the lobsters scoffed. they told me that i was crazy. i knew i wasn't crazy, because i had _working_code_ on my hard-drive that _proved_ that i was correct... but they scoffed. said the only way to get e-books was to mark the text up with _x.m.l._... well, it was plainly obvious to me (and anyone with half a brain) that their x.m.l. was _too_complex_ to be a solution -- at least one that depended on p.g. volunteers -- so i persisted, said my proof was on my hard-drive. and they persisted, _daring_ me to prove 'em wrong; they said i _lied_ about what was on my hard-drive! well, again, as i said, i had working code that proved that i was right and they were wrong, so i could have revealed all, right then and there, and been finished. but this was too much fun. they were actually _betting_ their own _credibility_ about what i had on my hard-drive. how _stupid_! they couldn't know what i had on my hard-drive, so why would they be so stupid as to make a bet on it? if i was lying, i'd know it, so i wouldn't take the bet. so if i was gonna take the bet, that was meaningful. so it was dumb for them even to _propose_ the deal; it's like betting me if i can _miss_ a basketball shot. of course i can _miss_ it -- just toss the ball away... why would they _ever_ make a bet like that? stupid! so i played them like the ignorant asses they are... i let 'em get all cocky, thinking they'd defeated me, turning 'em into lobsters who crawled in my kettle. so then i started turning the heat up, little by little. first i showed them one thing. then another thing. the next thing, and the thing that came after that... and every time they did their "yeah, but...", i would refute their point with solid proof to the contrary... they gradually stopped attacking, and grew sullen. after a couple years, it finally dawned on them that they'd been taken. but it was far too late by then... then a couple years later, marcello had to admit _total_defeat_ by using a light-markup approach. the .tei/.xml route wasn't gonna put p.g. e-texts on the kindle or the ipad, and marcello knew it... meanwhile, i continue to enjoy turning up the heat. i am doing it to this day, roger, proving them to be stupid asses who bet, and lost, their own credibility about what i had in my pocket. they were so dumb. i understand that you want to just _eat_ the lobsters. but, frankly, i'm having too much fun cooking them. *** but anyway... let me be very clear in speaking to you, roger... you're not one of the assholes i talk about above. you weren't here back then, or at least not posting. it is the case, however, that you _have_ said some untrue and unflattering things about me at times, and never apologized. it's ok, i can take the heat. but you're really not in a position to upbraid me... having said that, though, i don't hold a grudge, and i respect a lot of the work that you've done. this especially applies to the coding you've done, making tools, and setting up a proofing website. but it's precisely because of this that i'm perplexed. what is it, exactly, about the viewer-script which is something that you are not capable of coding? why do you ask me for code that you can write? indeed, for code that you have _already_written_? (your proofing site needed code exactly like that.) but even if you hadn't already written such code, the viewer-script is little more than summoning the text for a page plus the scan for that page... (the other big part is the logic of the html-form, but that is largely contained in the .html itself, so simply viewing the source will reveal all that.) so i am curious about why you'd make a big deal about the viewer-script; it's rather primitive code. indeed, the _search_ code, which i _did_ provide, is more advanced, and more thoughtful as well... and -- just to put the finishing touch on this -- if you go back, you'll see that the search code included the option of showing a specific page, thus creating a foundation for the viewer-script. i'm a little surprised you didn't recognize that it was the key that would unlock that door for you. anyway, roger, if you wanna discuss this stuff, i'm open. you're the only guy around who can talk about it at a level where i just might learn a thing or two from a conversation with you... -bowerbird