gmane.comp.lang.active4d.devel

Out of the office

2012-05-25T19:00:02

I will be out of the office until Tuesday May 29.


Thank You

Justin Will

Active4D on 4D Client v12

Jeremy Sims — 2012-05-24T15:39:39

Hi,

I am a current user of Active4D v4 on Windows 2004 and all is
well in this scenario!

I have a requirement to update the application to 4D Server V12
with 4D Client acting as a web server.

I have downloaded the latest v5 Active4D demo and plugin in order
to test the new configuration.
I have built the client app and can connect to the server.

When I browse to the IP of the Client I get the default 4D
WebServer page but not the default a4d page that I am expecting.

When I click Restart Server I get a console message "The library
"Active4D" cannot be found"
I have tried the Active4D folder in the application directory and
also in <shared 4D Directory>/com.aparajita/Active4D (I assume
this is C:\ProgramData\4D\com.aparajita\Active4D?)

Where is the client app looking for the Active4D folder?
Does anyone have any experience of configuring a4d to run on 4D
Client as web server?

Thanks in advance,
Jeremy.

Delete an item from the session array

Peter Gutbrod — 2012-05-20T16:49:23

I want to delete a single item from the session array, i.e.
session{"mylist"}{35}

Tried with 

delete element ( session{"mylist"}{35})

But got 

An array was expected or the type of the array was not appropriate

To make it clear: I don't want to delete the whole "mylist" array but only
item 35

Any suggestions, how I can do this in a4d?

Pete

ObjectTools question

Victor Siegle — 2012-05-18T18:37:30

Hi Aparajita,

I’m posting an ObjectTools question here because this forum is active. Please let me know if there is a better place for this question.

We are running ObjectTools 3.0r5 on 4D v12.3 Hotfix 4 and on 4D v13.0 Hotfix 1. In both versions of 4D, many, if not all, of our data files and our customers’ data files become spontaneously corrupted all the time. Sometimes it is difficult or impossible to repair them with MSC. Often the corrupted data files suffer spontaneous crashes during regular operations.

MSC reports that there are ‘orphan BLOBS’ in many tables, even in tables that don’t contain any BLOBs. We’re having a very hard time solving this problem.

We recently found that 4D stores BLOBs by default ‘in data file’, but that v13 has added an option to store BLOBs ‘in record’. 4D Tech Support says that this new option was not added because of a known problem with storing BLOBs ‘in data file’, but was just a feature request. Do you have any knowledge of problems with storing BLOBs in 4D?

Most of our BLOBs store ObjectTools information. Typical code to create a BLOB is:

$tempBlob:=x_OTNew (Current method name)
x_OTputArray ($tempBlob;"alLongText1";->alLongText1)
x_OTputArray ($tempBlob;"alLongText2";->alLongText2)
x_OTputArray ($tempBlob;"alLongText3";->alLongText3)
x_OTputArray ($tempBlob;"alLongText4";->alLongText4)
x_OTputArray ($tempBlob;"alLongText5";->alLongText5)
x_OTputArray ($tempBlob;"aLongInt1";->aLongInt1)

x_OTputLong ($tempBlob;"r_userTopics";r_userTopics)
x_OTputLong ($tempBlob;"r_systemTopics";r_systemTopics)

READ WRITE([Resources])
QUERY([Resources];[Resources]ID=shUser_getStaffID )
SET BLOB SIZE([Resources]Palette_Preferences;0)  // line of code added this week in case voodoo is affecting us
[Resources]Palette_Preferences:=OT ObjectToNewBLOB ($tempBlob)

All of the arrays and variables are valid.

Is there anything obvious we are doing wrong in ObjectTools?

Thanks for your help,

Victor

web browser client authentication

David Ringsmuth — 2012-05-17T16:52:51

Using openssl we have designed a system with our own self generated
Certificate Authority ("CA"), and our own generated and self-signed
client.crt and client.key.

The IE9 process of following the Certificate Authority path breaks when it
encounters our self generated CA which has no signer recognized in the web
client's certificate trust. 

I do not know how to overcome this issue. If you know of a way around the
web-browser negotiation process for accepting CA's, please help!

Our goal is to give the web client what it needs so that it will accept our
CA, and use the client cert we automatically generate for client web
authentication (using nginx in front of 4D).

The answer is probably "We must get our CA signed by a CA known to and
trusted by the web clients CA trust path."

If you know the answer to this a "yes I agree" or "no that is not right...",
or you can do it this way... is greatly appreciated.

Thanks!
David Ringsmuth

Conceptional fusebox question - sent output of a fuseaction to another page area

Peter Gutbrod — 2012-05-17T13:12:45

I've studied the fusebox demo and I think, I've understood most of the
techniques. :-)

In the demo, all dynamically created content is displayed in the mainarea
section. That's easy to follow.

Now to my problem:

Let's take the demo app (vendors, ingredients, units db) and add some
"memorize this item" links to the list view. When clicked they shall display
the current selection in the mainarea (aka. mainarea doesn't change) but I
want the item referenced in the link to be added into a new "memorized_items
list area" within the sidebar, not the mainarea.

If I simply sent the link to a new circuit "memorized_items", the output
(the new list area) is displayed in the mainarea, replacing the current list
of vendors, ingredients, units.

Do I have to nest the memorized_items circuit within the i.e. ingredients
circuit? That would display the current list of ingredients in the mainarea.
But then how to move the output of the memorized_items circuit from the
mainarea to the sidebar. Probably not storing the output into
$fusebox{"layout"} but in a different variable that is output in
dsp_sidebars.a4d?

Or do have to call the memorized_items circuit from the dsp_sidebars.a4d
layout via sendFuseaction?


Generally speaking, how do I send the output of a fuseaction to a special
section of my page.

Probably it is still a general misunderstanding of the Fusebox concept on my
side. :-/

Thanks for any startup help.

Pete

HTTP/S Port/Address weirdness - work-around.

David Ringsmuth — 2012-05-15T04:22:27

V12.3HF5
WS2003SE
A4D v5.0r37

If you are having difficulty with the HTTP/S Port publishing or the IP
Address 4D listens to, I suggest that you change the path to your structure
file.

My path was C:\AppName\AppName.4db, very short. I was not able to get my
structure to publish on 443 using the user interface or the SET DATABASE
PARAMETER command, until I changed the path to the database, then my changes
worked and the database published on the intended port. The database was
publishing before, but not on the ports/IP Address I required.

Something occurs in 4D and the structure remembers which port/IP Address it
was using, and this information sticks, even when moving the structure to a
different box. But when I changed the path on the new box, updates to the
port/IP Address worked again.

I am suspicious that after having worked on the 4D structure on my
development box, 4D is holding onto some piece of information from my box's
environment that is causing the failure. I have seen this new behavior occur
with 4D's listen-to IP address, ports, and the default web folder.

Hth!
David Ringsmuth

The database cannot be published - solved

David Ringsmuth — 2012-05-14T18:04:20

V12.3HF5
Active4D v5.0r37
Windows

I have now encountered two separate databases that after transferring them
from their production box to the development box, the on-startup warning
appears, "The database cannot be published". This appears to be new behavior
in 4D.

The solution has been to insert this code into the A4D_Init method within
the "If ($inStartWebServer)", before "START WEB SERVER".

The code retrieves the current IP address listened-to by 4D,  then uses NTK
to get all local IP addresses on the box,  then searches for the returned IP
address 4D listens to, to see if it is on the box.
If the IP address 4D is listening to is not on the box,  the code sets the
database to listen to the first IP address that exists on the box, that is
NOT 127.0.0.1.

I hope this helps others!
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
--------------
// Make sure we listen to an IP Address that exists on this local machine
C_LONGINT($a;$b;$c;$d;$e)
C_LONGINT($addr)
$addr:=Get database parameter(IP Address to listen) 
$a:=($addr >> 24) & 0x00FF 
$b:=($addr >> 16) & 0x00FF 
$c:=($addr >> 8) & 0x00FF 
$d:=$addr & 0x00FF
C_TEXT($tIP_Address_to_listen)
$tIP_Address_to_listen:=String($a)+"."+String($b)+"."+String($c)+"."+String(
$d)

ARRAY TEXT($atLocal_IP_Addresses;0)
NTK Get Local Addresses ($atLocal_IP_Addresses) 
$e:=Find in array($atLocal_IP_Addresses;$tIP_Address_to_listen)

If ($e=-1)

If (Size of array($atLocal_IP_Addresses)#1) 
$f:=Find in array($atLocal_IP_Addresses;"127.0.0.1")
If ($f#-1)
DELETE FROM ARRAY($atLocal_IP_Addresses;$f) 
End if 
End if 

ARRAY LONGINT($anIP;0)
BB_TextToArray ($atLocal_IP_Addresses{1};->$anIP;".") // BB Component method
converts text to arrays using delimiter free < at > bbsp.com 
If (Size of array($anIP)=4)
C_LONGINT($addr)
$addr:=($anIP{1} << 24) | ($anIP{2} << 16) | ($anIP{3} << 8) | $anIP{4} 
SET DATABASE PARAMETER(IP Address to listen;$addr) 
End if 

End if   //($e=-1)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
---------------
David Ringsmuth

Fix for the broken New Circuit Action in the TexmateBundle

Peter Gutbrod — 2012-05-11T12:17:13

Aparajita,

I hope you don't take it amiss, if I mess around with your code, but I've
taken a look into the broken New Circuit Action of your Texmate Bundle and
found it easy to fix. Actually it needs just 2 lines of code altered in the
new_circuit.rb file of the bundle.

Here is the beginning of the file:

#!/usr/bin/env ruby

require ENV['TM_SUPPORT_PATH'] + '/lib/ui.rb'

circuitPath = ENV['TM_SELECTED_FILE']

if not circuitPath then
    print "Please select a folder or a file in whose folder you want to
create the circuit"
    exit(206)
end

openSwitch = false
circuitDir = ""

# If it isn't a directory, get the directory name
if not test(?d, circuitPath) then
    circuitPath = File.dirname(circuitPath)
end

# Ask for the circuit name
result = TextMate::UI.request_string :title => "New Circuit", :prompt =>
"Enter the circuit name:"

# Replace this
# if result.readline.chomp == "1" then  # OK clicked
    # circuitName = result.readline.chomp
    # result.close
    
# with this    
if result != nil then  # OK clicked
    circuitName = result
    

Just replace the bottom parts as indicated in the comment.




Furthermore I found, the action only updates the fbx_circuits.a4d, if it is
in a subfolder of the Textmate project folder, not if it is in the root of
the project folder. This is because you exit the loop for detecting the
fbx_circuits.a4d file as soon as you reach the project folder without
testing it's root content:

    # Now search up to the project root, looking for fbx_circuits.a4d
    curDir = circuitDir
    projectDir = ENV['TM_PROJECT_DIRECTORY']
    found = 0

    until curDir == projectDir
        if test(?f, "#{curDir}/fbx_circuits.a4d") then
            found = 1
            break
        else
            # Go up one directory
            curDir = File.dirname(curDir)
        end
    end

As a dirty hack I've added a second file test in the else clause:

    # Now search up to the project root, looking for fbx_circuits.a4d
    curDir = circuitDir
    projectDir = ENV['TM_PROJECT_DIRECTORY']
    found = 0

    until curDir == projectDir
        if test(?f, "#{curDir}/fbx_circuits.a4d") then
            found = 1
            break
        else
            # Go up one directory
            curDir = File.dirname(curDir)
            if test(?f, "#{curDir}/fbx_circuits.a4d") then
                found = 1
                break
            end
        end
    end


Pete

How efficient are 'Includes' ?

Peter Jakobsson — 2012-05-09T16:39:09

Hi

In a recently launched fusebox site revision I have a piece of content (a product description and image) which now appears 60 times on a page.

I've implemented this by creating the product html in a display fuse, then calling it in a loop with an "Include".

My question is, does Active4D cache the included display fuse or does it have to lift it off the disk every time I call it.

b.t.w., the final result isn't slow. I'm just curious.

Peter

What is your preferred editor for a4d ?

Peter Gutbrod — 2012-05-09T13:39:19

Before the list might be flooded with questions about V6 next week, I'd like
to ask this simple question.

Aparajita mentioned TextMate and SublimeText. I use BBEdit a lot. But there
are powerful frameworks like Coda as well.

Not to forget the more wysiwyg orientated editors like Dreamweaver or the
brand new Flux 4, which supports .a4d file extensions and has a new freecode
mode, that doesn't alter your code unintentionally, when making changes in
the wysiwyg editor.

The release of V6 might bring some new customers to the a4d platform, so a
brief discussion about tools might be helpful for them as well.

Pete

image.a4d and picture format

Peter Gutbrod — 2012-05-05T15:11:41

<% $qry := build query string(""; "file"; "images/mypicture.jpg"; "format";
"gif" )    %>
<img src="/image.a4d<%=$qry%> alt="image" />

Generates a jpeg. Same with format set to "png"

Is this a bug or does the format string not work on files?


Pete

database cannot be published (solved)

David Ringsmuth — 2012-05-04T20:41:15

A4D v5.0r37
4D v12.3HF5 Server and Stand-alone
Vista (current)

Problem solved!

The server HTTP admin window showed the "IP Address to listen" was the
previous computer on which it ran, not the current computer's IP address.

There was nothing in the 4D system or in any code that I could find that was
setting the ID address to which it should listen.

I don't ever recall the "IP Address to listen" sticking with the value of
the previous computer on which it ran. This seems like a new "feature" of
4D.

Specifically instructing it to listen to my current IP address correctly
publishes the database!

The prior computer's IP address was in the list of allowed 4D Remote
connections. But removing it from that list did not change 4D's HTTP IP
address on which to listen. Apparently the "IP Address to listen" is stored
in the template, and used for the next launch. Not being aware of this may
cause problems for those that deploy 4D HTTP solutions.

The solution is to specifically assign the Set database parameter(IP address
to listen;local-valid-ip-address) prior to the START WEB SERVER.

David Ringsmuth

Virtual hosts and Port

Peter Gutbrod — 2012-05-03T11:27:42

Following setup:

a4d with NTK, NTK listening on port 8080

I contact a4d via Apache on port 80 and proxypass to NTK on port 8080.

When I setup VirtualHosts.ini with

*         site1.foobar.com                  *           site1| site1  *
*         site2.foobar.com                  *           site2| site2  *

virtual hosts work as expected.

"Request Info" gives me

*host port    "8080"
*virtual host    "site1"

and

*host port    "8080"
*virtual host    "site2"



When I setup VirtualHosts.ini with

*          site1.foobar.com:8080        *           site1| site1  *
*          site2.foobar.com:8080        *           site2| site2  *

virtual hosts do not work.

"Request Info" gives me

*host port    "8080"
*virtual host    ""

for both virtual domains.

So it seems the hosts part doesn't match although a4d reports 8080 as the
active host port. Strange.


Pete

Using Fusebox only for certain virtualhosts

Peter Gutbrod — 2012-05-02T16:31:54

Is it possible to set the fusebox page option in a4d.ini only for certain
virtualhosts, while others don't use fusebox, aka serve any .a4d file?


Pete

Code parsing

Peter Gutbrod — 2012-05-02T09:56:09

I'm wondering why

<% blahblahblah %>

doesn't generate an error in a4d?

Pete

Response Status

David Ringsmuth — 2012-04-30T17:46:58

A4D 5.0r37
4D Server 12.3HF5
WS2008SER2

The Response status returned is not the last response status set with "set
response status" to return.

The last line of significant code in my active4D script sets the response
status to 200. Then I display the response status to the console from within
the A4D_ONWebConnection script and it shows 200 at the very last line.

I've displayed the entire contents of the response headers using:
Get Response Headers(atArray1;atArray2), and nothing appears at all from
this command, and there is no error  is the Active4D.0.log. I've put this
command both at the end of the A4D_OnWebConnection method and this is the
content:

X-VERSIONHTTP/1.1
X-STATUS200 OK
Cache-Controlno-cache
Pragmano-cache
ExpiresMon, 30 Apr 2012 18:36:40 GMT
Content-Length0
Content-Typetext/html; charset=iso-8859-1

The A4D character settings match the web settings in 4D.

The web server in front of 4D/Active4D is nginx. The nginx access.log shows
that the response status coming from 4D is 500.

So the response status received by the application posting to the nginx
proxy server is 500.

The application is posting https to nginx, which passes the call http to 4D.
It's been working prior to this, and it works when using a web browser for
another part of the application.

Apparently 4D is changing the response status to 500, but I don't know why.

Please help.

Thanks!
David Ringsmuth

Test

Peter Jakobsson — 2012-04-28T23:17:21

Apologies is this appear on the list.

I'm having problems posting.

Peter Jakobsson

Developing in Active4D/Fusebox today

2012-04-28T21:30:25

The recommended books on Fusebox were written almost 10 years ago and use
ColdFusion as the programming language.

I'd like to know, whether people developing in Active4D/Fusebox today still
follow the procedure outlined in the book "Fusebox- Developing ColdFusion
Applications" and what tools they use nowadays, especially when working
with Macs.


Are there any special tools available to assist in developing applications
in Active4D /Fusebox? The only one I could find was the Active4D bundle for
Textmate? (Btw. can anyone explain, how the "New Circuit" Action works in
the Textmate bundle?)

Is there a way to create a skeleton of circuits similar to the workflow
outlined in the book " Fusebox- Developing ColdFusion Applications" by
creating a Mind Map and processing it with Fuseminder?

If not, does it make sense to follow this approach anyway and create a
skeleton for Coldfusion and afterwards adopt the code to Active4D Fusebox
syntax?

Any tips for speeding up the setup process of an Active4D/Fusebox skeleton
are welcome.

Pete

create and download a text file

David Ringsmuth — 2012-04-27T00:12:07

A4D v5.0r37

WS2008R2SE

4D Server v12.3HF5

 

I am creating a text file that the browser should download instead of
display. 

 

The file is dynamically created in a directory that is within A4D's web
root. 

 

4D Server is configured with "web_static" as the default directory, which is
not within A4D's web root.

 

After creating it, when redirecting to it I notice the On Web Connection
does not execute for access to it.

 

Since the file is a Text file, not HTML or XML, I don't want anything in it
but the data the user expects.

 

I've tried setting the content-type to application/octet-stream, and some
others by using that command prior to redirecting.

 

How do I get the browser to automatically download this file after creating
it?

 

Thanks!

David Ringsmuth

Capturing the 'query params' natural order

Peter Jakobsson — 2012-04-23T20:52:33

Hi

I have a need to capture the order in which the query parameters appeared on the URL.

I think the sort order in the _query collection is alphabetic and I'm slightly stumped as to how to do this (although still combing through the manual).

Is anyone readily aware of a method of capturing the query parameters in their natural order ?

i.e., if the URL looks like this:

/products?look=a&feel-b&touch=c

, then I'm looking for a, b, c order.

As far as I can see, _query collection has them in alphabetical order of the key, i.e. feel=b, look=a, touch=c.

Thanks for any tips.

Peter