World: r3wp

I can search for scripts using {in author "Volker"} and get what 
I'm looking for.  Perhaps adding a {in topic "blah"} capability to 
the ML search engine would be a good idea?

Yes, you can, Ammon. That's the point of it. To store everything 
locally.

(It will take a long while, at least on dialup)

You could download all messages via the LDS interface...But I wouldn't 
recommend that: you need over 43,000 separate calls to do that.

REBOL.org doesn't offer a single packaged download of the ML archive. 
Maybe it should....

....Bui remember, that service is available from Graham; though it 
is off line until 1and1 sort out thier billing problem (scroll up 
to see Graham's message)

<< Is there a way to search the topic index other than by clicking 
on a letter>>
In theory:

http://www.rebol.org/cgi-bin/cgiwrap/rebol/ml-topic-index.r?i=probe

takes you straight to the entry (if any) for 'probe.  But that looks 
broken right now....I'll look into it.


Other than that, no.  Only about 80% of the threads are indexed in 
the topic index. When we get closer to 100%. we'll enhance the existing 
search to take account of the topic index.....so results will include 
and be prioritised by the topic index. 

Well, you could try, in Google:
probe site:www.rebol.org inurl:topic

But that (as with any search anywhere) is dependent on Google having 
the page indexed.

Back in February (!), Anton wrote:

<<By the way, something that I never really liked is the short rebol 
description at the top of rebol.org.>>

OLD TEXT: <<It's a messaging language. 'rebel' not 'ree-ball'.

 code is data and data is code. CGI? Yes. 40+ platforms. only 250K-500K.

 console or GUI. Yes, just a single file. commercial versions = same 
 core + ODBC, SSL, and more -

 shallow learning curve, amazing depth. keep IT simple. if you liked 
 "The Matrix"...>>

We may be slow, but we get there:   http://www.rebol.org

The banner text has been updated to ready pretty much what Anton 
suggested.

Thanks Anton!

Now, a quick challenge.  I'd like several banner texts that we can 
rotate to help keep the thing fresh, and to help unveil other aspects 
of REBOL.

Can we all chip in, please?
Either --- a 75 word (or shorter) snapshot of what REBOL is

or --- some bullet points that we can join to others to help paint 
a picture.

Thanks!

Maybe one way is for each banner to highlight a feature or strength 
of Rebol.
eg

Dialects are Rebol's greatest power. Dialects allows one to focus 
on expressing the domain specific language.


something along that line..but preferably something that SHOWS the 
benefit and not just tells it.

well, thank you Sunanda :)

You are almost one step ahead of me there, Yeksoon.

The code is in place to make each of the banner statements clickable. 
That will take you to a page with an extended explanation.

Example: one of the soundbites might be "includes cross-platform 
assembler for 20x code speed-up". If clicked will take you to a paragraph 
on rebcode with links to more documentation.

But first, we need the 20 best soundbites :-)
Any offers?

The library list talks about a new project where there is a patched 
version of View that can make library calls.  I haven't downloaded 
it .. and hope that it doesn't violate RT's rights.

Anyone looked at it to see how it does what it claims to do ?

Banner...I will try my first one..
--
Do you know....

'Dialects' is Rebol's greatest power ; it allows one to focus on 
expressing and model the the domain in its natural language.

Graham, do you mean the dll called by the plugin? It is a (slightly) 
patched version of View which can be called as a library (the other 
way around). Regular View/Pro can make library calls.

Whether the plugin can do what it is said that it can has been a 
matter of much debate. How it does it is similar to how View does 
what it does, with little variation.

http://www.rebol.org/cgi-bin/cgiwrap/rebol/view-script.r?script=rebcall.r
seems to work through a port. I guess he runs some native app to 
do the real call.

Yeah, looking at his site, it seems that he patches rebol.exe so 
that it loads an additional dll that does the work. He has another 
for FastCGI.

I think the "dll" is an external programm. He opens a port and does 
everything through read-io/write-io

It runs in-process so he doesn't have to marshal anything.

It really is a dll.

write-io call-port command length? command
        read-io call-port result 4

;-- Because RebCall starts when WinSock is initialized, use some 
network function to do so
    close open udp://127.0.0.1:0

seems he adds a service to windows-network, or something. dummy open 
starts network, then he can connect.

Yeah, but that it'still runs in-process. He just hacks the network 
API so that inserts on that port are redirected to the dll. It seems 
a little sloppy to me.

(sorry, "that it'still" -> "it still")

but in an external porcess, not in the exe itself? or can windows-networking 
be used to execute code by default?

http://mortimer.devcave.net/projects/rebcall, >100k all in all, and 
.cpp

His addin code is in a real dll. This dll runs in the memory space 
of the rebol.exe process so that no marshalling is needed. The invocation 
of the code in this dll is done through hacking the network access 
api. I don't know how this affects real network code - I am a little 
afraid to run this patch on my system, given this implementation 
strategy.

I would not do it. As i understand it, anything with tcp-access can 
then run code, even if sandboxed. Flash from a browser?

Banner text:

The banner text at REBOL.org is now clickable, and leads to a page 
intended to justify the various claims we make about REBOL:
http://www.rebol.org/cgi-bin/cgiwrap/rebol/expand-banner-text.r


Corrections and suggestions for added bullet points are most welcome.

The new clickable banner text concept is a great idea. I much prefer 
it to the original.


One comment on the rebcode description - "decimal order of magnitude" 
is probably accurate but seems to read like a "point something" (10%?) 
speed increase. It maybe better to just to say "order of magnitude".

As always, good work for implementing it Sunanda.

Thank's -- that was fast proof-reading.

And thanks for spotting one of mor more awkwardly phrased phrases. 
It's fixed now.

Does anyone know if you can embed the binary of a .dll into a rebol 
script, and load it?  or does it need to be a file?

You can extract the dll to a file on first run and then link to it, 
but you can't link to an embedded dll directly.

yeah, that sucks

There are techniques to get around this, such as runtime code generation 
(say, with libtcc).

You could also rewrite the link loader to load a dll directly from 
a resource - see the source to BackOrifice for this amazing trick. 
This would require some rewrites to the native-code portions of REBOL 
though.

um, not sure i have access to that ;0

I have access to the source for BackOrifice, but not that of REBOL, 
alas  :(

For research purposes of course. Its plugin architecture was incredible.

What are you trying to do? Can you get away with downloading the 
dll as a seperate file on first use?

Im just trying to hide the dll to keep things squeaky clean.. what 
i've done is embed the binary, and I'll write it to a file, when 
I'm finished, Ill just remove it.

Well there's clean, and then there's rubbed raw. Do you really need 
to be this spotless? Would an on-demand cleanup routine do?

When I deliver the app, it will have a single .exe

no folders, no libs.. realy want to push the simplicity thing

so 'rubbed raw' is nice and shiny  ;)

It would be nice to have an RSS Feed for the "What's new " section 
on the Script Library home page.

Nice idea -- someone is workng on it, but it may not happen for quite 
a while.

Sunanda, Can it be a manually maintained xml file until it can be 
automated?  I am doing that for my internal blog until I add the 
automation code to blog. r (that I expect Carl already has on his 
version).  I have a trigger for when a blog article is added to use 
"editor ftp://...../rss.xml"to make whatever additions that I want 
to expose via RSS.  It's suboptimal but I don't have any complaints 
from the people that they have to visit the pages to see What's New. 
 And since they weren't visiting regularly to poll for What's New 
anyway, if the RSS feed it updated a few hours later it is still 
an improvement.

Mike, I'd rather wait until the volunteer who is doing the RSS has 
added the code, rather than bypass their efforts.

Meanwhile, you have several ways of finding out what  scripts are 
new or changed on REBOL.org:
-- we'll sen doyu a tailored email

    http://www.rebol.org/cgi-bin/cgiwrap/rebol/cpt-update-profile.r
    See Section 4, Notices
-- you can peek at your unsent notices to get advanced warning:

     http://www.rebol.org/cgi-bin/cgiwrap/rebol/uns-display-notices.r?ml=yes&my=yes
-- You can use the LDS API:
       do http://www.rebol.org/library/public/lds-local.r

      probe lds/send-server 'list-updated-scripts [5]   ;; what's changed 
      in the last 5 days?
-- Just eyeball the script library home page:
     http://www.rebol.org/cgi-bin/cgiwrap/rebol/script-index.r