Skip to main content

Topics

This section allows you to view all Topics made by this member. Note that you can only see Topics made in areas you currently have access to.

Topics - ersi

51
Browsers & Technology / System snapshot iso
Not sure if "system snapshot iso" is the right term but here's what I mean by it. Linux distros can normally be installed as an installation image aka iso file. After installing, having taken the time to tweak it to make it work and customise it to perfection, now I am at the stage where I want to back up the system properly, so that it survives even the death of the entire harware. Probably the most complete way to do it is to transfer absolutely everything to an iso file that would be easy to reinstall with all the settings, personal files and partitions intact just in case the worst might happen.

My favourite distro is Manjaro. It's a rolling-release Linux, so an update some day just might change too much irreversibly. For now I have gotten along nicely with it on two different laptops, as if the developer team were testing on the same hardware that I am using. This might change any day, so I'd better be ready.

So, has anyone done this? Built an installation iso from the system snapshot, settings, personal files etc. all included? Share your experience or the instructions that you followed and that worked.
53
Forum Administration / Feature request: 1. Anti-bookmarks and 2. Bookmark boards
Maybe nobody noticed in the other thread, so I am re-stating an idea for a forum feature here as a separate thread.

I am basically ignoring an entire board here (the Lounge) and it's not so easy. Whenever I open up the unread threads, which is how I read up on stuff, I see a bunch of Lounge threads. So I have to go to Lounge, mark all read, and return to unread threads to see what's really of interest to me.

How about an anti-bookmarks feature: Threads and boards specifically marked (say, Ignore) don't show up at Unread anymore. Make the list of ignored threads and boards manageable under bookmarks.

BTW, there is a way to get email notifications from a board when a new thread is put up. How about making bookmarks work for boards the same way: I can bookmark a board, and new threads that are written there show up under bookmarks.

Wouldn't these features make the forum bookmarks more usable?
54
Otter Browser Forum / The sad fate of the more esoteric features
There are some features in the old Opera that none of the other major browsers had. Some of them make me nostalgic.

Unite and IRC

IRC is a chat protocol with some cool features such as CTCP and DCC - peer-to-peer stuff. Unite was also at its most exciting as a peer-to-peer interface.

I'm sure that Otter browser won't include any Yet Another Chat Client (there already is a chat client by that name for Android, IIRC), but some implementation of peer-to-peer connection would be ultra cool and make Otter browser stand out.

WML/WAP

Now this is what I still use in desktop and mobile Opera, and WML extension is one of the first things I always add to any new installation of Firefox. WML makes sense in web browsers because it's an actual internet standard, even though not too widely used, and it's doomed to shrink into oblivion eventually. But look how cleanly I can check for weather here http://www.ilm.ee/wap/nelipaeva.wml as opposed to here http://www.ilm.ee/prognoos/



Voice and Speak

This feature spoke the text on webpages out loud. Even when you are not mobility impaired, this is a nice feature to spare the eyes when you read book-length stuff on screen nearly daily. When the computer was connected to a mike, it could obey some basic spoken commands from the user in English.

Quite probably Opera rented the module that did this, but it's still a good accessibility feature that I used to use, something I had begun to take as a given until it was removed in v.12. It also counts as one of Opera's more esoteric features.

What memories from Opera and hopes for Otter do you have in this area? The out-of-the-box selection of UserCSS? True Detach™? The Flying  :angel: Bookmarks Keyword Dialogue?
55
Browsers & Technology / Paste your .bashrc
The main thing in this thread is .bashrc. Comments are optional.
Code: [Select]
#!/bin/bash
# ~/.bashrc: executed by bash(1) for non-login shells.
# see /usr/share/doc/bash/examples/startup-files (in the package bash-doc)
# for examples

# If not running interactively, don't do anything
[ -z "$PS1" ] && return

# don't put duplicate lines or lines starting with space in the history.
# See bash(1) for more options
HISTCONTROL=ignoreboth

# append to the history file, don't overwrite it
shopt -s histappend

# for setting history length see HISTSIZE and HISTFILESIZE in bash(1)
HISTSIZE=1000
HISTFILESIZE=2000

export EDITOR=/usr/bin/nano

# check the window size after each command and, if necessary,
# update the values of LINES and COLUMNS.
shopt -s checkwinsize

# If set, the pattern "**" used in a pathname expansion context will
# match all files and zero or more directories and subdirectories.
#shopt -s globstar

# make less more friendly for non-text input files, see lesspipe(1)
[ -x /usr/bin/lesspipe ] && eval "$(SHELL=/bin/sh lesspipe)"

# set variable identifying the chroot you work in (used in the prompt below)
if [ -z "$debian_chroot" ] && [ -r /etc/debian_chroot ]; then
    debian_chroot=$(cat /etc/debian_chroot)
fi

# less colours for man pages
man() {
env \
LESS_TERMCAP_mb=$(printf "\e[1;31m") \
LESS_TERMCAP_md=$(printf "\e[1;31m") \
LESS_TERMCAP_me=$(printf "\e[0m") \
LESS_TERMCAP_se=$(printf "\e[0m") \
LESS_TERMCAP_so=$(printf "\e[1;44;33m") \
LESS_TERMCAP_ue=$(printf "\e[0m") \
LESS_TERMCAP_us=$(printf "\e[1;32m") \
man "$@"
}

# set a fancy prompt (non-color, unless we know we "want" color)
case "$TERM" in
    xterm-color) color_prompt=yes;;
esac

# uncomment for a colored prompt, if the terminal has the capability; turned
# off by default to not distract the user: the focus in a terminal window
# should be on the output of commands, not on the prompt
force_color_prompt=yes

if [ -n "$force_color_prompt" ]; then
    if [ -x /usr/bin/tput ] && tput setaf 1 >&/dev/null; then
# We have color support; assume it's compliant with Ecma-48
# (ISO/IEC-6429). (Lack of such support is extremely rare, and such
# a case would tend to support setf rather than setaf.)
color_prompt=yes
    else
color_prompt=
    fi
fi

if [ "$color_prompt" = yes ]; then
    PS1='${debian_chroot:+($debian_chroot)}\[\033[01;32m\]\u@\h\[\033[00m\]:\[\033[01;34m\]\w\[\033[00m\]\$ '
else
    PS1='${debian_chroot:+($debian_chroot)}\u@\h:\w\$ '
fi
unset color_prompt force_color_prompt

# If this is an xterm set the title to user@host:dir
case "$TERM" in
xterm*|rxvt*)
    PS1="\[\e]0;${debian_chroot:+($debian_chroot)}\u@\h: \w\a\]$PS1"
    ;;
*)
    ;;
esac

# enable color support of ls and also add handy aliases
if [ -x /usr/bin/dircolors ]; then
    test -r ~/.dircolors && eval "$(dircolors -b ~/.dircolors)" || eval "$(dircolors -b)"
    alias ls='ls --color=auto'
    #alias dir='dir --color=auto'
    #alias vdir='vdir --color=auto'

    alias grep='grep --color=auto'
    alias fgrep='fgrep --color=auto'
    alias egrep='egrep --color=auto'
fi

# some more aliases
alias ll='ls -hlF'
alias la='ls -A'
alias l='ls -CF'
alias l.='ls -dF .[a-zA-Z0-9_-]*'
alias copy='cp -aiv'
alias del='rm -iRv'
alias h='history'
alias redo='history redo'
alias q='exit'
# alias edit='gedit'
alias off='shutdown -h now'
alias fs='du -chs'
alias ds='df -h'
alias slimm='sudo systemctl enable slim.service'
alias shell='sudo systemctl disable slim.service'
alias aku='watch --interval=55 -d -c cat /sys/class/power_supply/BAT0/uevent'
alias temp='watch --interval=55 -d -c cat /sys/class/hwmon/hwmon1/device/driver/coretemp.0/temp2_input'
alias nett='watch --interval=5 -d -c cat /proc/net/wireless'
alias kell='watch --interval=1 -t -c date +%c'
alias vid='mplayer -fs -really-quiet'
alias udll='youtube-dl -F'
alias udl='youtube-dl -g -e'
alias udlf='youtube-dl --restrict-filenames -f'
alias chatkill='killall skype & killall pidgin'
alias kern='mhwd-kernel -li'
alias upd='sudo pacman -Syu'
alias scan='iwlist wlp2s0 scan'
alias dnd='elinks https://dndsanctuary.eu/index.php?action=unread'

# Add an "alert" alias for long running commands.  Use like so:
#   sleep 10; alert
alias alert='notify-send --urgency=low -i "$([ $? = 0 ] && echo terminal || echo error)" "$(history|tail -n1|sed -e '\''s/^\s*[0-9]\+\s*//;s/[;&|]\s*alert$//'\'')"'

# Alias definitions.
# You may want to put all your additions into a separate file like
# ~/.bash_aliases .bash_profile or .profile, instead of adding them here directly.
# See /usr/share/doc/bash-doc/examples in the bash-doc package.

# if [ -f ~/.bash_profile ]; then
#    . ~/.bash_profile
# fi

# enable programmable completion features (you don't need to enable
# this, if it's already enabled in /etc/bash.bashrc and /etc/profile
# sources /etc/bash.bashrc).
if [ -f /etc/bash_completion ] && ! shopt -oq posix; then
    . /etc/bash_completion
fi

56
Otter Browser Forum / Last but not least: Logo
Otter browser has no distinctive emblem to tell it apart from other apps in people's computers. By Beta release (due in 21 days from now) this should be fixed, if the project is to catch wider attention. Shall we arrange a contest? Will Emdek accept one of DnD's leftover logos when none better is found? Or is there some secret choice already hidden in the backpocket for surprise?

57
Otter Browser Forum / Guidelines for requests and development
This post is strictly from the user point of view. I am not a programmer so I don't know how to achieve what I am talking about here. This does not prevent me from having a point of view though. Good to have a place to express it :)

CATEGORIES OF REQUESTS

Broadly there are two, or let's say three categories of feature requests regarding Otter browser. The first category is emulating or copying Opera Presto. It would be nice if this category were the priority.

The second category is (arguable) enhancements of erstwhile Opera Presto features or logical evolution of them. For example, I liked the idea of virtual folders in email and in the old forum I made the request to extend virtual folders to everywhere applicable: Bookmarks, Contacts, Notes, ... Right now Otter browser displays the same old hard folders in Bookmarks. I really think virtual folders would enhance organisability, e.g. ability to include a bookmark item in multiple folders without having to multiply the bookmark item.

In the first category of requests, I'd mention keywords in bookmark items. They were there in Opera, but are missing in Otter. Also, at the current stage the overall configurability of the interface is underdeveloped. For example:

- Keyboard shortcuts, those that are there, are not listed and configurable in some obvious place (Opera had a dialogue for that).
- Not much under right-click. In Opera, right-clicking pretty much anywhere brought up context-specific menus. Right-clicking on any button allowed to move or remove the button.
- Menus in Opera could be rewritten in full detail.
- Toolbars: Ability to add and remove toolbars, and to add or rearrange buttons and elements on any toolbar as desired
- In Opera, commands could be freely assigned and reassigned between buttons, menu items, and keyboard shortcuts. A menu item could be made into a button, a button into a keyboard shortcut, etc.
- In Opera, under any button, menu item, keyboard shortcut, or mouse gesture, the commands could be serialised, so that one element could do many things in a row. For example, I had a menu item that I named "Edit link" which worked on webpages above links. It extracted the URL, opened the address toolbar (the thingie accessible by F2 by default) and pasted the URL there. Unfortunately the behaviour of the command series broke in Opera v.12 :(
- Fast forward and Rewind functions missing in Otter

The third category of requests is features that Opera Presto never had. In my opinion, it would make sense to consider these kinds of requests as lowest priority.

BEHAVIOUR OF THE APP WINDOW

A good app remembers where it left off. This means it opens up with the same size and position where it was closed. There is some minor inconsistency with this I have noticed in Openbox (only Openbox, not other desktops I use). In Openbox, when Otter is closed maximised, it opens up with the same size, but slightly off centre. Is it Qt5 guiding the behaviour of the app window?

Otherwise I'm enjoying the app already. Very much looking forward to its continued progress in the right direction :)
58
DnD Central / Keeping an eye on Vivaldi.net
There's that other alternative forum to replace My Opera. Its secret purpose is to gather momentum to the opening of whatever will be unveiled at Vivaldi.com

Meanwhile, I set up an account there, including the email account. The site has evil cookies that make logging-in tough and they throw me out every now and then, randomly. And the email account had the first major breakdown this weekend https://vivaldi.net/en-US/forum/debates/400-no-access-to-mail

More to bash? More to praise?
59
Browsers & Technology / Ways to search stuff on the net
In the early days of Google, the saying "Google is your friend" became pretty much a proverb. Google actually still is good for finding the most varied things on the web.

Sometimes I need to find search results on a specific website. The website may have its own search function, but it works like crap. This is when I resort to e.g. site:thedndsanctuary.eu search terms in Google.

There's a problem of principle with internet search engine. They don't show the real web. They show the database accumulated by their own web crawlers. Where the crawler has not been, that you don't see. This problem applies to all search engines, including Google. And the visible results are listed as per some filter rules and algorithms that may  or may not be transparent. Still, web search engines mostly work.

There used to be a network called Gopher. It had its own search function. When you search Gopher, what you see is Gopher results, not the results of where some web crawler has had time or desire to visit. Gopher is used for digital library catalogues here. Btw, Opera browser supports Gopher protocol. Awesome.

Then there are web search combines or combiners. The one I used to know and worked with when on Windows was Copernic.  Basically how it worked was that it included a bunch of search engines (like browsers include these days) and it performed searches in all of them at the same time and then listed the results in a pleasant colourful list. Fantastic.

How do you do? Do you look at results in multiple search engines to give yourself the sense of doing proper research or are you the "I'm feeling Lucky!" type?
60
Browsers & Technology / Good cookies and bad cookies
Cookies (those things website place into your browser; they show up in the section labelled "cookies") can be used for many things, so I have heard, but good cookies are used to stay logged in on websites where you want to stay logged in.

When a website offers to keep you logged in and you choose to stay in for a specified time, say forever, then there are cookies at work. Good cookies obey your choice.

Good cookies keep you logged in across browser restarts and computer restarts, internet disconnections etc. These are really precious cookies. They are to be cherished. This site's cookies behave like this.

Vivaldi.net's cookies are nasty. The site throws me out even during the same browser session despite me having chosen "forever" at login. This is independent from the browser I use, Presto, Gecko, or Webkit. Anybody else having the same issue? Is this due to some disconnect between the cookie and how the website treats it (because it cannot be due to how the browser treats the cookie)? 
61
Otter Browser Forum / Translation like Chrome #112
https://github.com/Emdek/otter/issues/112

To be honest, this particular feature was THE most prominent thing that put me off when I tried out Chrome for a day at its version 1. This feature made my mind go like: What? The same annoying popup as in FF when it nags about missing plugins? What if I am in the process of learning a new language by reading foreign pages (which is what I in fact do)? Now, how to turn this thing off?

Indeed, I could not find a button to eliminate that annoying popup bar, and there were other aspects about the product that made it an annoyance for me rather than a useful tool, so I uninstalled Chrome - after using it for a day or so at version 1 - and never looked back.

In contrast, Opera's translation menu is an absolutely fabulous concept:
- translate any text selected on a webpage selected with precision
- translate between any pair of languages from among a huge choice
- the choice of pairs of languages choosable with precision by means of right-click menu
- the choice of pairs of languages is configurable just like any other search engines - in fact, the feature is an integral part of search engines

FF's popup toolbar nagging about missing plugins could be hacked away (should have been an obvious button there). I did not find a way to kill Chrome's popup toolbar nagging about translation. Anyway, such popup toolbars have no justification for their existence in the first place.
62
Otter Browser Forum / Otter vis-a-vis Chropera
For reasons of clarity, I'm calling the new Chrome-clone Opera "Chropera" to distinguish it from Opera Presto.

Otter is a webkit-based itself, thus also a Chrome clone in a sense, but my personal preference is to keep it sharply apart from the direction Chropera has taken, including its so-called innovations. There's been a request voiced to include Stash and Discover in Otter https://github.com/Emdek/otter/issues/197

In my view, need for Stash is obviated by proper bookmarks management and notes feature. Excellent bookmarks and notes feature are the inheritance of Opera Presto, which I hope will be reflected in the development of Otter.

Discover would only make sense as a proper RSS manager. Opera had two kinds of RSS views:

- Subscription, which pulled the RSS items into the email component and stored them there. The stored items were then viewable like email messages.
- "Preview page" which displayed the list of the most recent items. This preview page was bookmarkable, i.e. it was possible to make RSS previews your way to manage and view RSS, without local storing.

In my opinion, these two ways to manage RSS are sufficiently superior to the barely manageable Discover.
63
Otter Browser Forum / Otter 0.3.01 Released
Release Notes

0.3.01 (01.03.2014):
- added option to set custom User Agent (for single tab or whole application);
- added support for proxy auto-config (PAC);
- added option to decide if JavaScript should be able to show status messages;
- implemented "Reuse Current Tab" option;
- various small fixes.

Source: https://github.com/Emdek/otter/blob/master/CHANGELOG

PS This post is made in Otter 0.3.01
64
Otter Browser Forum / Otter browser and competition
Otter is a webkit-based browser that distinguishes itself from other Chromium clones by means of Opera-like interface. It's still in alpha stage so let's keep track of the development and hope it goes well.

What I know about Chromium itself, it's possible to set there a speeddial-like startup page. Speeddial is a feature first implemented in Opera, so it makes sense that this feature is planned in Otter too. The place in settings configuration dialogue already exists, but is inactive as of yet.

The main webkit-based browsers that I use are Luakit and Rekonq. I have not looked too deep under the hood of Rekonq, because it comes with sensible enough defaults considering my preferences. It makes for good basic browsing without font issues, which is a good achievement for something webkit-based. The downside of Rekonq is that the interface only looks good in KDE and has dependencies in that direction too.

Luakit is an almost faceless browser: It has no buttons on the interface. It's meant to be primarily driven by keyboard. I am keyboard-focused myself, so I like this basic idea, but the rendering engine has font issues and I have had the app stall with downloads. Tweaking the keyboard shortcuts and other settings means hacking config files. There's no settings configuration dialogue. Anyway, the configuration files can be figured out almost without additional documentation, which makes the learning process enjoyable. I would be very happy if Otter's config files became the same.

At the current stage, Otter has a very good feature that stands out: Focus on font settings in the configuration dialogue, already implemented to an extent. Fonts are extensively configurable in old Opera too, so this is no surprise, but in a webkit-based browser, ability to set fonts is actually very important, because webkit is notorious for font issues.

Otter has made a good start by getting font and colour settings right. Let's hope for other features too that Opera was famous for, such as very sensible downloader, perfect bookmarking, sidebar, stacking and tiling of pages in single window, userCSS and userJS, etc.
65
Forum Administration / Forum Stats
About this page https://dndsanctuary.eu/index.php?action=stats

Shouldn't we have browser stats there, being keen web-browsing people in general and promoters of Otter browser?

To keep the stats table still straight in graphical browsers in big monitors, I suggest replacing one frame with browser stats frame. Namely, Top 10 Boards looks worthless. We don't even have 10 boards, so there should be Top 10 Browsers instead. We collectively definitely use more than 10 browsers.

Can be done or none?
66
Otter Browser Forum / Feature Requests
Present requests that are not in the list of planned features https://github.com/Emdek/otter/blob/master/TODO

High priority / ASAP:
- start page
- page specific preferences
- passwords manager
- delayed loading of Flash objects

Medium priority / soon:
- content blocking
- spell checking
- feeds reader (as module)
- panels (page informations, notes, transfers, bookmarks etc.)
- greater UI customization abilities (configurable toolbars, overwriting list of context menu actions etc.)
- system tray icon

Low priority / later:
- mail client (as module)
- shared contacts database
- fine-tune UI (sizes, margins and other details)
- form auto completion
- exposing MDI features
- mouse gestures
- tabs grouping (stacking and panorama mode)
- import of existing settings, bookmarks etc.
- extensions (Firefox and Chrome APIs support)
- Opera Link like solution
- improved integration with different platforms (Windows taskbar integration etc.)
- Blink backend (with upcoming QtWebEngine, when API will be useful)

Low priority / maybe:
- support for Opera skins (through custom QStyle)
- IM client module (libpurple based, including support for IRC)
- BitTorrent module
- support for tab thumbnails embedded in tab bar

And lots of smaller or obvious things. ;-)
67
Otter Browser Forum / Questions to the Developer
Here's some I have come up with

- Why dependent on Qt5? This dependency makes it difficult to install. 
- Will the GUI be skinnable with old Opera skins?
- Any plans to implement the startup dialog (options 'continue from last', 'home page', etc.)? Old Opera had excellent crash management.
- What are the plans with otter.conf? I would like a human-readable configuration file where absolutely everything is there. An otter:config page would be nice as a perfect mirror of otter.conf, but the conf file is more important.
68
Browsers & Technology / The advantages of Portable Apps
Serious question: Why use portable software? I never installed any portable app and have, so I think, had a full life anyway.

What could be the advantages? Mobility? Privacy?

If I understood correctly, portable software is installed to a portable medium (USB stick these days) to be stuck into a computer to which one has access atm.

If this is correct, and e.g. the browser's profile and cache is directed to the USB stick, then the computer should not retain traces of usage from the ported browser.

Question: If I install the browser in Linux, is it connectible to a Windows computer? If not, the portable app doesn't look like much of an advantage.

Moreover, at my job we nicely have USB sockets in computers, but when you stick stuff in, the computer asks for admin password. Doesn't look like a portable app would work in this case, right?

If one is mobile (which I am) and has access to different comps (which I do), I sort of tend to think that a whole portable OS (such as Puppy Linux) would make more sense than individual portable apps. Except that I haven't used a portable OS either - I have my own laptop.

Comments?
69
DnD Central / The Problem with Buddhism
Let's show our expertise on this topic too to give our resident (or future) Buddhists also an opportunity to speak up :up:

Is Buddhism a philosophy or religion? Is it scientific enough to be considered relevant or good for anything? Good in what way and for what specifically?

What about Buddhism's rapid spread in the West during the latter half of the last century? What are its causes? What are its effects?

What's a regular Buddhist like? What should a good Buddhist be like? Dalai Lama, Pesala, Steven Seagal, some ancient saint, self-immolators in Vietnam and China...
70
DnD Central / Imposed licencing versus Natural Law
In the early days of this forum (the good old times) when issues such as site icons and smilie images came up, there was the recurring question of licenses - if this or that is "free" (not free as in grabbable because it's just lying around in the interwebs but free to use as per its accompanying license).

There's often some disconnect between end-user licenses of a thing and what a thing could actually be good for. For example according to some review, a version of Microsoft Surface tablet is great for business use - it even comes with MS Office! However, the Office has a home user license, i.e. free for non-commercial use as per license. (the review)

Are things inseparable from their licenses, creation inseparable from creator's intent, property inseparable from its title deed, or do users have some inalienable license of their own too? If yes, how do you motivate and define the limits?