grailbrowser now running under python 2.5 (probably above too)

[Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton]

source at:
http://github.com/lkcl/grailbrowser

$ python grail.py (note the lack of "python1.5" or "python2.4")

conversion of the 80 or so regex's to re has been carried out.
entirely successfully or not is a matter yet to be determined. always
a hoot to try browsing http://www.bbc.co.uk or http://www.youtube.com
with a browser from 11+ years ago, it still cannot be resisted as
grail is the only working graphical web browser in the world written
in pure python [pybrowser is still in development, stalled].

l.

 

[rantingrick]

source at:http://github.com/lkcl/grailbrowser

$ python grail.py (note the lack of "python1.5" or "python2.4")

conversion of the 80 or so regex's to re has been carried out.
entirely successfully or not is a matter yet to be determined.  always
a hoot to try browsinghttp://www.bbc.co.ukorhttp://www.youtube.com
with a browser from 11+ years ago, it still cannot be resisted as
grail is the only working graphical web browser in the world written
in pure python [pybrowser is still in development, stalled].

l.

Congratulations on this effort Luke. However you know what project i
would really like to see the community get around? ...dramatic pause
here... a cross platform Python file browser! Yes i know there are
tons of them out there already and Python is a bit slow, but i think
it would be useful to many peoples.

 

[Aahz]

$ python grail.py (note the lack of "python1.5" or "python2.4")

Congrats!

 

[Aahz]

Congratulations on this effort Luke. However you know what project i
would really like to see the community get around? ...dramatic pause
here... a cross platform Python file browser! Yes i know there are
tons of them out there already and Python is a bit slow, but i think
it would be useful to many peoples.

As usual, you would rather tell other people what to do instead of doing
any work yourself.

 

[rantingrick]

As usual, you would rather tell other people what to do instead of doing
any work yourself.

Dear God! My statement was intended to fetch responses like...

"Hey, that sounds like a great idea" or \
"Hey, lets get hacking on this".

I am so sick of you people constantly accusing me of being lazy. You
don't even know me. Also i think you're really a bit jealous because i
have the brass cohones to initiate a coding project without your
express written permission. I will not allow myself to be brow beaten
by anyone!

 

[Thomas Jollans]

source at:http://github.com/lkcl/grailbrowser

$ python grail.py (note the lack of "python1.5" or "python2.4")

conversion of the 80 or so regex's to re has been carried out.
entirely successfully or not is a matter yet to be determined. always
a hoot to try browsinghttp://www.bbc.co.ukorhttp://www.youtube.com
with a browser from 11+ years ago, it still cannot be resisted as
grail is the only working graphical web browser in the world written
in pure python [pybrowser is still in development, stalled].

l.

Congratulations on this effort Luke. However you know what project i
would really like to see the community get around? ...dramatic pause
here... a cross platform Python file browser! Yes i know there are
tons of them out there already and Python is a bit slow, but i think
it would be useful to many peoples.

Cross platform file manager. Hmm. Does "cross platform" involve UNIX and
something that isn't UNIX, say, Windows?
Erm, no. No, no, no. It won't work. Well, it would work, but it wouldn't
be any good. The UNIX and Windows concepts of "file system" are similar
enough for most programs not to care too much, but for something like a
file manager, that works intimately with the file system, trying to
support both UNIX and Windows is NOT a good idea.

If you stick to common functionality, the program will be rather useless
on both systems. Yes, you could *browse* the file system alright, but
that's about it. If you attempt to be full-featured, keeping it in one
code base, let alone in one user interface, is destined to be a
nightmare and induce suicides.

The above might have been very slightly exaggerated.

Cheers!
Thomas

 

[Stephen Hansen]

Cross platform file manager. Hmm. Does "cross platform" involve UNIX and
something that isn't UNIX, say, Windows?
Erm, no. No, no, no. It won't work. Well, it would work, but it wouldn't
be any good. The UNIX and Windows concepts of "file system" are similar
enough for most programs not to care too much, but for something like a
file manager, that works intimately with the file system, trying to
support both UNIX and Windows is NOT a good idea.

Indeed so.

And you can't lump the Mac in with "UNIX" here, even though it really is
UNIX at the foundation, because there's some very fundamental
differences between HFS+ (and some other details that are higher level)
and more traditional unix FS's. Not to mention that the Mac FS situation
is slightly schitzo since it has two very different ways at looking and
treating the files, the posix way and the Foundation way... and users
think more in terms of the latter, usually. At least less sophisticated
users.

You can't do a cross-platform file manager without either doing a huge
amount of work exposing each platform separately-- essentially getting
separate codebases for each-- or doing a least common denominator
situation, at which point I boggle: why the hell did you bother to begin
with? Even Finder is better then that, let alone windows' Explorer.

Even if you did the former... what the hell is the point, still? What
real problem needs solving here that people should drop something and
rally behind*?

--

Stephen Hansen
... Also: Ixokai
... Mail: me+list/python (AT) ixokai (DOT) io
... Blog: http://meh.ixokai.io/

(*): I do not argue that a non-default file manager on an OS might be a
great thing. I use Path Finder on the mac and have been very pleased
with it for years, and consider its purchase money very well spent. Its
hands-down the absolute best file management tool ever done, in my
opinion. But really. When I'm using windows (or ubuntu), the only thing
I miss is the drop stack(**). I'd *almost* consider a bare-bones LCD
file manager which brought only a drop stack to windows and linux to be
worth the effort-- except then I'd keep having to switch over to an
entirely different program whenever I wanted to do permissions, since
Windows and Linux have /completely/ different permission models.

(**): The drop stack is a little corner of the window that you can drag
files onto. Then drag more files onto. Then drag more files onto. Then
you can navigate to another part of the system, and drag files off of
said stack, in a LIFO manner, moving them as a result of this action.


-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: GnuPG v2.0.10 (Darwin)

iQEcBAEBAgAGBQJMOffjAAoJEKcbwptVWx/loq4IAK+GV7gPlX2CRuFcZFprSdT7
cjzNU1WrcrIn8GW6RJULpUnylZzRqdojoOzJshJwdOPZiLAUJpEqvs9akft0zVY4
4RQYdJrP/sqI/73YifRYQx7HBItUo1qGxlUyW5UCQhZvrvMKGSfMah2tPTskK7F1
QDDf7LDqTCl5TDfcFbn5hlI8hxqiTs85Vgsl5bDFTlTxKCCIL/ENMwKaPbPKiPRP
b67tsiCxey2lTWW20V3Ez0C0o1zaQpqJrf6fIm42XQzKDo6Ir+UJDz5O83HvB2Fv
6+WhGW7McyisSkL6ONBgUTqLiXnfR2NhHXizYTVx+M3ezTiuDT4JGfzOV4DTWiw=
=nF01
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

 

[Fuzzyman]

Dear God! My statement was intended to fetch responses like...

  "Hey, that sounds like a great idea" or \
  "Hey, lets get hacking on this".

I am so sick of you people constantly accusing me of being lazy. You
don't even know me. Also i think you're really a bit jealous because i
have the brass cohones to initiate a coding project without your
express written permission. I will not allow myself to be brow beaten
by anyone!

But why hijack someone else's announcement to do that? Congratulations
alone would have been great. However good your intentions your message
came across as "but it would really have been better if you had been
doing something else instead...".

All the best,

Michael Foord

 

[Martin P. Hellwig]

source at:
http://github.com/lkcl/grailbrowser

$ python grail.py (note the lack of "python1.5" or "python2.4")

conversion of the 80 or so regex's to re has been carried out.
entirely successfully or not is a matter yet to be determined. always
a hoot to try browsing http://www.bbc.co.uk or http://www.youtube.com
with a browser from 11+ years ago, it still cannot be resisted as
grail is the only working graphical web browser in the world written
in pure python [pybrowser is still in development, stalled].

l.

Congrats!
Are you planning to take over the world with grail and pyjs?

 

[MRAB]

On Jul 10, 10:59 pm, Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton
source at:http://github.com/lkcl/grailbrowser

$ python grail.py (note the lack of "python1.5" or "python2.4")

conversion of the 80 or so regex's to re has been carried out.
entirely successfully or not is a matter yet to be determined. always
a hoot to try browsinghttp://www.bbc.co.ukorhttp://www.youtube.com
with a browser from 11+ years ago, it still cannot be resisted as
grail is the only working graphical web browser in the world written
in pure python [pybrowser is still in development, stalled].

l.
Congratulations on this effort Luke. However you know what project i
would really like to see the community get around? ...dramatic pause
here... a cross platform Python file browser! Yes i know there are
tons of them out there already and Python is a bit slow, but i think
it would be useful to many peoples.

Cross platform file manager. Hmm. Does "cross platform" involve UNIX and
something that isn't UNIX, say, Windows?
Erm, no. No, no, no. It won't work. Well, it would work, but it wouldn't
be any good. The UNIX and Windows concepts of "file system" are similar
enough for most programs not to care too much, but for something like a
file manager, that works intimately with the file system, trying to
support both UNIX and Windows is NOT a good idea.

Can't think of why not. Of course not all operations are shared by each
OS, but /I/ know that I can't do chmod on Windows. But it doesn't mean
that on Windows I can't make a file only readable by me. Just give me
the Windows security options on Windows, and chmod on *nix and I would
be very happy.
>

On Windows the root folders of the different drives could be treated as
subfolders of a 'root' folder.

Especially if all can be done via a context menu a la RISC OS.

Ah, RISC OS!

<rant>
I'd heard how user-friendly the Mac was, but when I was first introduced
to the Mac (circa MacOS 8) I was very surprised that even it still used
old-fashioned Open and Save dialog boxes with their own little file
browsers like on a Windows PC instead of drag-and-drop like I'd become
used to on RISC OS. And that menu bar not even at the top of the window
but at the top of the _screen_! And the way that bringing one Finder
window to the front brought _all_ the Finder windows in front of the
other windows! I was distinctly underwhelmed... :-(
</rant>

 

[rantingrick]

On 07/11/2010 07:44 AM, rantingrick wrote:

Cross platform file manager. Hmm. Does "cross platform" involve UNIX and
something that isn't UNIX, say, Windows?
Erm, no. No, no, no. It won't work....<snip>... trying to
support both UNIX and Windows is NOT a good idea.

Why is that a bad idea, Python does it all the time? Many software so
it all the time. This sounds like more fear than anything.

If you attempt to be full-featured, keeping it in one

code base, let alone in one user interface, is destined to be a
nightmare and induce suicides.

Thats False!

The above might have been very slightly exaggerated.

Thats True!

 

[rantingrick]

And you can't lump the Mac in with "UNIX" here, even though it really is
UNIX at the foundation, because there's some very fundamental
differences between HFS+ (and some other details that are higher level)
and more traditional unix FS's. Not to mention that the Mac FS situation
is slightly schitzo since it has two very different ways at looking and
treating the files, the posix way and the Foundation way... and users
think more in terms of the latter, usually. At least less sophisticated
users.

Sure you can! Have you ever heard of a *rare* module by the name of
"os"? Yes i know *nobody* uses it but it works nonetheless!

You can't do a cross-platform file manager without either doing a huge
amount of work exposing each platform separately-- essentially getting
separate codebases for each-- or doing a least common denominator
situation, at which point I boggle: why the hell did you bother to begin
with? Even Finder is better then that, let alone windows' Explorer.

Nothing is worse than InternetExploder\Exploder, nothing! And whats
wrong with seperate code bases, it's three modules and a startup
script...

if sys.platform == 'win32':
import fm32
elif sys.platform == 'darwin':
import fmdarwin
elif sys.platform == 'nix':
import fmnix

We just recently had a discussion about CONDITIONALS Stephen have you
forgotten already?

(*): I do not argue that a non-default file manager on an OS might be a
great thing.

Now you're talking!

(**): The drop stack is a little corner of the window that you can drag
files onto. Then drag more files onto. Then drag more files onto. Then
you can navigate to another part of the system, and drag files off of
said stack, in a LIFO manner, moving them as a result of this action.

This drop stack sound interesting. I've always hated the cut paste as
you could not add to the cut buffer.

 

[Steven D'Aprano]

Cross platform file manager. Hmm. Does "cross platform" involve UNIX and
something that isn't UNIX, say, Windows? Erm, no. No, no, no. It won't
work. Well, it would work, but it wouldn't be any good. The UNIX and
Windows concepts of "file system" are similar enough for most programs
not to care too much, but for something like a file manager, that works
intimately with the file system, trying to support both UNIX and Windows
is NOT a good idea.

Try telling that to the KDE people.

 

[rantingrick]

But why hijack someone else's announcement to do that? Congratulations
alone would have been great. However good your intentions your message
came across as "but it would really have been better if you had been
doing something else instead...".

Micheal i think you're just simply projecting some inner feelings on
to my post resulting in a complete mis-understanding. And i *did not*
say the project was useless, on the contrary i am very happy the OP
resurrected this lost script. I only suggested a similar project that
the OP *may* find to be interesting. Maybe not, but lets leave the
decision for the OP, Ok.

 

[Stephen Hansen]

Sure you can! Have you ever heard of a *rare* module by the name of
"os"? Yes i know *nobody* uses it but it works nonetheless!

Uh, "os" is beyond inadequate. Even shutil is severely lacking. For the
most basic operations, Python's provided tools basically work only in
very simple cases -- but only those simple cases -- and a file manager
would be an utter failure if it had those limitations.

See the big red box on top of the docs:
http://docs.python.org/library/shutil.html

Copying a file without the resource fork on a mac, *can* result in
essential data being lost (This is less common then it used to be). As
simple a task as chown/chmod for posix systems to take ownership of a
file and make it only readable by you is actually a *deeply* complex
task with the win32api. Check out
http://mail.python.org/pipermail/python-win32/2004-July/002111.html for
just an example of what it /looks/ like.

That's not even getting into the nitty-gritty details, like how Mac's
are *usually* case-insensitive, windows is always, linux is almost
always not, and yet some power users go out of their way to enable
case-sensitivity on mac filesystems (which has a tendency to break all
kinds of things).

Oh, and a LOT of the filesystem-details and how you could go around
handling them on a mac is *very* dependant on just what version of OSX
you have. It changes a lot.

Nothing is worse than InternetExploder\Exploder, nothing! And whats
wrong with seperate code bases, it's three modules and a startup
script...

if sys.platform == 'win32':
import fm32
elif sys.platform == 'darwin':
import fmdarwin
elif sys.platform == 'nix':
import fmnix

We just recently had a discussion about CONDITIONALS Stephen have you
forgotten already?

You underestimate the significance of the differences and how that would
impact the resulting user interface; have you actually implemented
anything which targeted the big three OS's and did non-trivial file
operations? I have: just dealing with permissions and network shares and
other details is actually a pain in the ass. And in the end, there's
plenty of Explorer/Finder replacements out there which do their job
splendidly. And I assume not everyone on linux loves nautilus and uses it

Now you're talking!

Selective quoting to make it sound like I'm agreeing in some way with
you = jerkoff move.

--

Stephen Hansen
... Also: Ixokai
... Mail: me+list/python (AT) ixokai (DOT) io
... Blog: http://meh.ixokai.io/


-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: GnuPG v2.0.10 (Darwin)

iQEcBAEBAgAGBQJMOmJRAAoJEKcbwptVWx/lz04H/ixnNf0I/+sc4OlQMqhHy7JL
WgiXh/eq353S2RxeZ+0X0W9CK1DZ9BliZ5RbxIYrrwU4+GbwligRzAhqh6FxWJYN
BxRHbYMESy6js+Maw3+Om3nWIoz/jCS/F9fsowXLGB3zX2JhKp37Ja4ZnbW29E/l
mRaGkqnjF29RGMcHPwCamgcW6u9WGg5i+03Z5XCxFVjpUxqQQ/ZcytMM4s2kpZKa
2UHFej5q8QRcYl9usuhADnnJMuNgrO4gq06EmAEeLYX3jHXpu9uDGv6Sp6ZCQY43
F0J1kj8qN4XracHe42j2O42up4bvLtjk5l6FDKZX0G/FCbHDEuPzYDqUgEKoe1g=
=DDDN
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

 

[rantingrick]

You said about macs...

Copying a file without the resource fork on a mac, *can* result in
essential data being lost (This is less common then it used to be). As
simple a task as chown/chmod for posix systems to take ownership of a
file and make it only readable by you is actually a *deeply* complex
task with the win32api.

And again...

That's not even getting into the nitty-gritty details, like how Mac's
are *usually* case-insensitive, windows is always, linux is almost
always not, and yet some power users go out of their way to enable
case-sensitivity on mac filesystems (which has a tendency to break all
kinds of things).

And again...

Oh, and a LOT of the filesystem-details and how you could go around
handling them on a mac is *very* dependant on just what version of OSX
you have. It changes a lot.

Well i've never used a mac and now i won't even bother for sure! But
if you want to maintain the macfman code base feel free.

Selective quoting to make it sound like I'm agreeing in some way with
you = jerkoff move.

*fakes throwing stick*
*dog runs to get stick but stick not there*

Who's smarter ;-)

 

[Stephen Hansen]

You said about macs...

And again...

And again...

Well i've never used a mac and now i won't even bother for sure! But
if you want to maintain the macfman code base feel free.

I like how you tried to cut out my commentary on Windows and its
difficulties and peculiarities, but you accidentally included it anyways
-- hint: read more then the first line of a paragraph.

My point stands.

And I take your non actually responding to my actual point as a
concession to it. With that, I'm signing off of this conversation.

Tah.

--

Stephen Hansen
... Also: Ixokai
... Mail: me+list/python (AT) ixokai (DOT) io
... Blog: http://meh.ixokai.io/


-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: GnuPG v2.0.10 (Darwin)

iQEcBAEBAgAGBQJMOnXHAAoJEKcbwptVWx/lck0H/iC+pYBwhc0QQi9ZiyAvdnAc
wHhI8pPonMa+UkorozyGy7NpbE8+fLUK3jsSvN1OxfXPpNH0g1O7Xw5wtJ/E8dxG
JEdDtuQQ9NSo3CD1Xd6ZgEjmV3yu76lT/yhLgIyXNfRxzKpa9iGtqMKUkcQ4goAA
84EyP61TIMBxw5Isy6rU7+YBNLSknEyF3zA7wyZd4b7emT8lOJ2Ryln5OIxxe5+7
QpmpUGtCIYaWGPrxDu5NFPrpCC9uqkIuWZBBQhuA62PXi51RwADxDGNY6Elenkpc
I2T8XATSmB61/jSphy/WSyDgRbecyrPghJJ7qbYPIyVQTOy3wkZ4iyr+PwvwSz0=
=xJfx
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

 

[Fuzzyman]

Micheal i think you're just simply projecting some inner feelings on
to my post resulting in a complete mis-understanding. And i *did not*
say the project was useless, on the contrary i am very happy the OP
resurrected this lost script. I only suggested a similar project that
the OP *may* find to be interesting. Maybe not, but lets leave the
decision for the OP, Ok.

Plenty of people have told you in multiple threads how you come
across. Eventually you have to realise that they aren't *all*
projecting...

Michael

 

[Thomas Jollans]

Why is that a bad idea, Python does it all the time? Many software so
it all the time. This sounds like more fear than anything.

Python is not a file manager.

 

[John Bokma]

John Bokma wrote:
[..]

Can't think of why not. Of course not all operations are shared by each
OS, but /I/ know that I can't do chmod on Windows. But it doesn't mean
that on Windows I can't make a file only readable by me. Just give me
the Windows security options on Windows, and chmod on *nix and I would
be very happy.

On Windows the root folders of the different drives could be treated as
subfolders of a 'root' folder.

Yup, instead of a single tree there is a forrest. Wouldn't confuse me,
and I doubt anyone else.

Ah, RISC OS!
:-D.

<rant>
I'd heard how user-friendly the Mac was, but when I was first introduced
to the Mac (circa MacOS 8) I was very surprised that even it still used
old-fashioned Open and Save dialog boxes with their own little file
browsers like on a Windows PC instead of drag-and-drop like I'd become
used to on RISC OS. And that menu bar not even at the top of the window
but at the top of the _screen_! And the way that bringing one Finder
window to the front brought _all_ the Finder windows in front of the
other windows! I was distinctly underwhelmed... :-(
</rant>

It's on top of the screen because of Fitts's law: it's easier to move
accurately to the top of the screen than to the top of the window
(unless it's located in the top or bottom of the screen). However,
personally I think that a context menu even scores better: it's easier
to click a mouse button than to roll up and then move to the correct
menu entry.

Yes, RISC OS has some very good ideas:

1) context menus instead of menus at the top of the Windows/screen
2) clearly defined operations of each of the three mouse buttons:
left = select, middle = context menu, right = adjust
3) the ability to select items in a menu and keep the menu open
4) drag & drop saving/loading (including between applications)
5) direction of scrollbars depends on mouse button: left = expected
direction, right = reverse.

Based on this I would say that the designers of RISC OS understood
Fitts's Law way better.

I am aware of ROX but haven't checked it out yet.