Read Me

This repository is a collection of Active4d code, either in libraries or circuits/scripts, that may be of use to other Active4D users.

May is emphasized because some of the code was designed to handle specific applications that may not be of use to everyone. Some of the code may also be experimental e.g., not fully tested for all scenarios. I really don't know how to use github at this point, but it seemed like a good place to stick code. My hope is that if someone is interested in a chuck of code, maybe they can make improvements to that code.

I'll start off with three simple projects.

1. Circuits.html2pdf

   This is a code fragment that demonstrates how to use a combination of Active4D, Applescript and Safari to convert html to pdf. Either add the html2pdf to a fusebox circuit, or include html2pdf.a4d directly to run the demo. The concept is fairly simple:

    *	Capture html in a variable and save it as a document.
    *	Use "Launch External Process" to run an Applescript using osascript
    *	The script:
    	*	Launches Safari and opens the html file
    	*	Uses UI scripting to save the page as a PDF file
    	*	Closes the window and goes to sleep
    *	Active4D then retrieve the PDF and displays or save it.
   

   If you are not comfortable with having your web server running automator like tasks, this may not be for you. It sure is cheaper than Prince XML or PDFLib plugin. The basis of the Applescript can be found here.

2. Libraries.json2.a4l

   This is a library I started about 3 years ago to implement json objects in Active4D. This was before a4d.json.a4l. I ported code from ActionScript, whatever that is, to Active4D. The code basically would parse a json object into an Active4D collection. It could also create a json object from a collection. The jsonStringify routine can certainly be thrown away since we have a4d.json.lib - but I left it there.

   My goal for publishing this was to see if any improvements could be make to the jsonParse concept in Active4D.

   There are actually two parsers in the library and one toJson method.

    *	jsonParse(json_text) => collection
    	which is the ActiveScript port that parses the json 
    	text character by character.
    *	jsonParseSimple(json_text) => collection
    	which is a shortcut I am trying to develop 
    	that uses regex to create Active4D code that can be executed.
    *	jsonStringify(collection) => json_text
    	The thing that can be thrown away. One interesting thing it does do is, that
    	if it finds an arry of mixed types, it converts it to a collection with a
    	string($foo;"000") type key
   

3. Libraries.auth.a4l

   Simple Authorization is a library that implements Declarative-Authorization. See simpleAuth.mdown for more information.

That's all for now.

Steve