Plucker and Russian BBC

[BasilC]

I've tried using Plucker to clip the BBC News in Russian site that people are having problems with. It works perfectly, suggest you download Plucker (which is great anyway). (Privet iz Anglii)

[radleyp]

I am puzzled by this comment. This is an iSilo site, with a HandStory component. BBC in Russian works beautifully in iSilo - just use the source from the latest WCC compilation. I simply noted that HandStory would not convert it correctly. Plucker - an OK program -adds nothing to iSilo. Vsego dobrogo ot Njujorkjanca. PDR

[Alexander Turcic]

Originally posted by radleyp@Mar 3 2003, 04:41 PM
I am puzzled by this comment. This is an iSilo site, with a HandStory component. BBC in Russian works beautifully in iSilo - just use the source from the latest WCC compilation. I simply noted that HandStory would not convert it correctly. Plucker - an OK program -adds nothing to iSilo. Vsego dobrogo ot Njujorkjanca. PDR

radleyp,

You're right that the site's original focus was on iSilo/X. This has to do with the fact that I am myself a passionate iSilo user

However, my real intention was to create a "mobile-minded" PDA community. And here Handstory & Plucker definitely deserve their place.

I am very glad to have other people by my side whose software focus is a little bit different (like gvtexas) and who help us to fully grasp what is possible with PDA's today. Every software has its pro and cons, and with everyone's support, each one of us should be able to decide what suits best for him or her.

Cheers!
Alex

[radleyp]

I don't exactly know why, maybe it's just idle curiosity, but I decided to download the latest Plucker, and see how well BBC in Russian works. For me, it doesn't. If I set the depth to "1", it doesn't give me anything but the basic site categories. And if I set it to "2", the conversion takes forwever. Alexander, have you tried this?

Cheers, PDR

[Alexander Turcic]

Yup. In iSiloX, we defined patter for BBC Russia. The Link Deph should be 2. But also we said that iSilo shouldn't follow any link that contains bbc.co.uk/hi. I don't think you can do this in Plucker, that is why it takes forver to download.

Personally I am not so happy with Plucker yet, it has the bad habit of crashing on me quite often

[radleyp]

Alexander, why would you bother with Plucker at all? It adds nothing to iSilo save for an automatic sync setup (very similar to HandStory's). In every other respect it is less satisfactory and much less versatile.

Also, I don't understand how BasilC can state that Plucker works perfectly with BBC Russian, since we both know it doesn't.

Cheers, PDR

[BasilC]

I don't understand how BasilC can state that Plucker works perfectly with BBC Russian, since we both know it doesn't.

Yes it does. You have to use the low-graphics version of the site and bear in mind that Plucker has a different definition of "depth" than, for instance, HandStory (in Plucker "1" = just the initial page, which HS refers to as "0").

Initial URL: http://news.bbc.co.uk/low/russian/news
Depth: 2
Images: uncheck "Include Images"

I've just tested it. It took 20 seconds to run (broadband, admittedly), producing 19 different stories and a file size of 53kB. I use Interpilot to read it (I have Interpilot Russian or Czech activated most of the time, since it produces a more legible font in English too!)[

[radleyp]

I don't understand. Did you read Alexander's post above? It didn't work for him either.

If I set the depth to "2", the conversion takes, as I stated earlier (on a hi-speed DSL connection), "forever". Besides, I don't understand what you mean by "stories". I just converted the site in iSilo, which as you know compresses about as well as any program, and the file size is 338K! How can you get the same content in 50+K? Do you actually get the full stories or just the abbreviated ones under the headlines?

A puzzled PDR

[Alexander Turcic]

Hm the problem is that the Russian lowtext BBC version contains a link to the highgraphics version, http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/russian/news/default.stm. When you set link depth to 2 without restricting the urls to download to the lowtext links, you will have a lot of uncessary downloads...

[radleyp]

I just reconfigured BBC Russian to exclude links to BBC high-resolution and it does indeed work. So I stand corrected.

I don't want to use Plucker, however, because it cannot read from a memory card.

PDR

[radleyp]

Just discovered that I had an older version of Plucker, and that a newer one (1.2) does in fact read from memory cards. This is a true embarassment of riches: do we now keep three web browsers on our PDA's? PDR

[gvtexas]

Since you guys went into a nice discussion about Plucker, thought I'd move the appropriate posts out of HandStory and into the Plucker section...

[radleyp]

I made an accidental discovery with Plucker. If, when you are converting files, you mount theSony (I have a 615) MS, i.e. you start the unit when it is in the HotSync stand and open MS Import, the files will not only be converted but also installed on the stick. PDR

[radleyp]

Like you, Alexander, I start playing with Plucker, and I have to start doing resets (one yesterday, and a hard reset the day before). I have removed it. PDR

[hacker]

Originally posted by radleyp
I just reconfigured BBC Russian to exclude links to BBC high-resolution and it does indeed work. So I stand corrected.

I don't want to use Plucker, however, because it cannot read from a memory card.

PDR

Since when? Plucker has been reading from VFS for well over a year now. What version are you running?

We're going to be releasing a 1.4 beta shortly, which brings with it a ton of new features, including some things not seen in any other viewer yet.

Feel free to compile it from cvs if you wish to get it now, or wait until we release it, or use one of the snapshot nightlies, or grab one of Adam's Hires Plucker builds.

I've been using Plucker since mid-1998, when there were only 3 or 4 of us, and the version I'm using right now as I type this, reads and writes without any problems to my SD card in my m505. I can also manipulate all kinds of settings related to external storage, such as "Do not scan on startup", etc. The icons for documents listed in RAM look different from those listed on external storage. Even the screenshots in the Plucker gallery page shows the different icons.