Wish List

[roedygr]

1. I would like to batch verify 25,000 files at a pop. I could then start the verify and leave the room and come back when they are done. Now I have to nurse them in many" "tiny" batches. Please rethink the way the batch works so there is no practical limit on size.

2. find a way so that clicking on the batch report launches that file in the editor/validator.

3. let me minmize HTMLvalidator while it is batch processing.

4. Exploit a multicore machine by using threads to validate several files at once during batch. Allow a limit so some CPU will be left for other things.

[Albert Wiersch]

1. I would like to batch verify 25,000 files at a pop. I could then start the verify and leave the room and come back when they are done. Now I have to nurse them in many" "tiny" batches. Please rethink the way the batch works so there is no practical limit on size.

I've done work on this in v10.01 - to make CSE HTML Validator faster, more memory efficient and able to handle more targets. It should help but it will still depend on your system resources. If you'd like to try a pre-release, please PM me ASAP (it will be released soon).

2. find a way so that clicking on the batch report launches that file in the editor/validator.

You mean so you can click on a link in a report page (while displayed in a browser) to open it in the editor?

3. let me minmize HTMLvalidator while it is batch processing.

For now, I may be able to automatically minimize the main screen for larger jobs... I'll look into this.

4. Exploit a multicore machine by using threads to validate several files at once during batch. Allow a limit so some CPU will be left for other things.

Yes, I've thought of that. It is a possibility for a future release, but most likely it would not be in v10.0x as some significant re-design and testing would be required.

Thanks for the suggestions!

[roedygr]

1. I
4. Exploit a multicore machine by using threads to validate several files at once during batch. Allow a limit so some CPU will be left for other things.

5. Put the name of the *.lst file in big letters at the top of the batch report.

[roedygr]

2. find a way so that clicking on the batch report launches that file in the editor/validator.

I think all you need is something like this in the batch report:

<a href="validate:///E:/mindprod/jgloss/something.html"><img src="validatebutton.png"></a>

validate: is like file:. Presumably there should be ways to configure various browsers or the OS to redirect that protocol to HTMLValidator.

Then all you do is click the button beside the same and off you go. If all goes well it would send the url to an already launched copy of HTMLvalidator if there was one. Opera has an interface like this uses DDE.

[MikeGale]

Creating a new protocol (http, https, file, ftp...) is a big job. I'm not sure there's an easy way to register it with browsers.

For good reason executing programs from a web page has been made very difficult.

Given that I can't imagine a software creator giving you such capabilities out of the box.

In the last couple of days I have had a similar idea (launching processes from the browser) at the back of my head so I spent a few minutes roughing out a solution. If you could define custom batch reports this might be feasible. (I haven't worked through it in detail though!)

What I came up with.

1. I only tried IE. (I expected it to be most likely. This was an up-to-date IE8, only)

2. I used ShellExecute of the Shell.Application ActiveX object.

3. I used an HTA as I remember something about restrictions on HTM's.

4. I literally played for a couple of minutes, so there's likely gonna be problems. BUT it did work (surprised me for the effort I put in!)

I used an HTA, with a JavaScript in the head and a button in the body. (No parameters passed.)

Follows the useful bits:

<script type="text/javascript" LANGUAGE="JavaScript">
function ValidateFile()
{
var oShell = new ActiveXObject("Shell.Application");
var commandtoRun = "Your_Path\\cse100.exe";
oShell.ShellExecute(commandtoRun, "", "", "open", "1");
}
</script>

<button onclick="ValidateFile()">Fire up Validator</button>

So (assuming this is all that's needed) if you find a way to:
1) Output HTA's.
2) Add a script into the head.
3) Create batch reports with custom markup.
4) ...

It is worth exploring.

I haven't even thought about ways to achieve the above, but it is a pretty trivial job if you can fire a process automatically when batch reports are generated. (Or generate custom batch reports from the start.)

A somewhat similar approach, but a bit more work, would be to have a web service on your local machine (say at localhost, but your choice), that took a string of parameters and fired up the process from server side code. (I presume that is quite doable but haven't roughed out an application that does it.) Then all you need is an href with suitable URI.

Update: I ran a few more tests. It works with IE9 on Windows 7. It doesn't work with (in my tests so far) FF, Safari, Chrome or Opera. (With a wide variety of UI behaviours.) So it is usable for a single user, but not for a general, anything goes, audience! It's easy to set it up as a self editing file, through CSE (after you enable the HTA extension), which is cool and suggests a few uses.

[Albert Wiersch]

5. Put the name of the *.lst file in big letters at the top of the batch report.

How about in the page title? I'll see if I can get it into the title (filename only) and perhaps in the footer too (but with full path in the footer).

UPDATE: This has now been added to the report page titles (filename only) and the footer (filename with full path).

[Albert Wiersch]

Creating a new protocol (http, https, file, ftp...) is a big job. I'm not sure there's an easy way to register it with browsers.

Thanks Mike. I may explore this for a future update, however, I wouldn't want to spend a lot of time on it due to other higher priorities.

But another thought I had, which I believe had been suggested before, was keeping track of a list of files and URLs that have errors and/or warnings and displaying them in a new tab in the Batch Wizard after a job run, then from that list one could open documents in CSE HTML Validator. What about a method like this? It may be more reliable and easier that trying to find a way to do it from the browser - especially due to the security limits that are becoming more important and try to prevent such actions.

As for the target list filename in Batch Wizard reports, this has now been added to the report page titles (filename only) and the footer (filename with full path).

[Lou]

displaying them in a new tab in the Batch Wizard after a job run, then from that list one could open documents in CSE HTML Validator. What about a method like this?

That works for me. Currently I only use a single screen and find it easier/quicker to change tabs (within CSE) than flip between apps. I can see where that preference may not be true for a H/W endowed power user. <g>

[Albert Wiersch]

3. let me minmize HTMLvalidator while it is batch processing.

In the upcoming v10.01 update, minimizing the Batch Wizard while a job is processing should cause the entire application to minimize, including the editor window.

[MikeGale]

Opening from a tab looks good to me.

A way of doing it via the report would be to allow users to customise the report templates. (File name, emitted links, header (different in summary and detail pages)) That way you have no responsibility at all for anybody using hta's. It's entirely their own responsibility (which it ought to be!).

I was quite stunned that what might have been 3 or 4 minutes work gave me a working solution from a "web page". It took much longer to write up that it did to write the proof of concept code.

So what started as a trivial exploration has more potential than I realised. (I've used hta's years ago, but forgot what they are about. It seems that some system admins use them a lot, so I imagine they are here to stay.) They are so easy to create, can do a lot and just seem to work!

[Albert Wiersch]

Opening from a tab looks good to me.

That's good.

A way of doing it via the report would be to allow users to customise the report templates. (File name, emitted links, header (different in summary and detail pages)) That way you have no responsibility at all for anybody using hta's. It's entirely their own responsibility (which it ought to be!).

Yes, further customization is a possibility, but I haven't had many requests for it so it is difficult to justify the time for it.

I was quite stunned that what might have been 3 or 4 minutes work gave me a working solution from a "web page". It took much longer to write up that it did to write the proof of concept code.

So what started as a trivial exploration has more potential than I realised. (I've used hta's years ago, but forgot what they are about. It seems that some system admins use them a lot, so I imagine they are here to stay.) They are so easy to create, can do a lot and just seem to work!

I haven't explored hta's, but your exploration/testing makes it look like it would be easier than I thought, though not working on all/most browsers would be a problem... and as usual, "the devil is in the details".

[MikeGale]

haven't had many requests

I can understand that. A tutorial showing the power you can get in say 5 minutes of work might sell a lot of people. It might also bring in some additional users. Depends in part on your internal architecture. (If it already looks a bit like a templating system then it's not too hard. Alternately a way to hook in a user defined routine, that builds the content and sends it back. A dedicated user could build his own parser / replacer, something as simple as RegEx's should work, if he got a notification to run his process on a particular directory/fileset.)

easier than I thought

I was surprised. I've been working with complex execution environments for years and had forgotten the sheer joy of a development environment that works a lot closer to the speed of thought. The code is really trivial, changes needed from my final proving version (that loads a file up to edit) follow

1) Filename to hta

2) Meta tag in instantiating page only <HTA:APPLICATION id="TestHTA1" ...

3) Javascript function in head (function ValidateFile(Parameters)). Vbscript presumably OK too.

4) Code to call it each time <button onclick="ValidateFile('Fully_Qualified_Path_To_File')">Validate</button>

Such capability would open up other possibilities that we haven't imagined. (I cringe, though, to imagine some of the things that might be done sending notifications to a Twitter stream or something like that!)

[Albert Wiersch]

1. I would like to batch verify 25,000 files at a pop. I could then start the verify and leave the room and come back when they are done. Now I have to nurse them in many" "tiny" batches. Please rethink the way the batch works so there is no practical limit on size.

3. let me minmize HTMLvalidator while it is batch processing.

Hello,

Have you had a chance to try v10.01? I'd be interested to know if you can check more targets now (with the memory efficiency improvements) and if the editor window minimizes when you minimize the Batch Wizard? Thanks!