h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Yes... something I thought of... probably useful... probably to be done in pure Javascript... probably not raising any security issues... *grins* Just the perfet gadget, ain't it?

OK... so what is it I'm thinking of...

I'm sure you all know about this problem... When you change the text colour, for example to yellow, you look at it & say yep, that's nice...

Then, along comes someone and displays the page in Alabaster, and can't read your nice yellow text... Same goes for blue text if Alabaster's your default skin etc...

What I'm suggesting is something like a and a tag, which would only write the content into the document if it's displayed in the right skin... Things like


Appropriately coloured text...

I hope you get the general idea...

Tell me what you think...

I believe h2g2 are considering something like that already - where you specify the font colours & the display is modified according to which skin it is being displayed in.

Apparently, great minds think alike

;^)#

*grins* Ah...

I didn't know that...

Thanks for the info, Bruce... But do you know any further details, like when it will be introduced? Because some people need it *now*...

And besides, I really don't see how Javascript can have been such a big security issue... They didn't *have* to block it, now, did they?

Sorry I don't know any more detail than that.

On the javascript security issue, according to Jim Lynn, the recent Lovebug virus was a good example of the type of security issues that scripting languages can raise.

;^)#

You don't seriously want to tell me that they are afraid of lovebug type viruses on their site?

They should know it's impossible to do something like that outside a mail with a mailing program that has severe security issues... I mean, what was the problem with this bug? You had to be stupid enough either to let your mailer execute it, or to double-click it, which would have it run locally & have all the privileges of a "normal" program... This isn't possible from a website...

Definitely...

Except for some bugs in IE, which are so obscure no one ever cares about them...

I just don't see the logic of it...

Sorry if I'm the only one...

Well there are/were a number of specifics that did work - but I'm not going to give specific examples, now am I?

As I don't even work for h2g2 perhaps it would be better if you could ask Jim

;^)#

Hm... I'll have to ask him if I meet him...

Do you know where I can find him?

http://www.h2g2.com/U6

;^)#

ah...

Ta...

Java (and, therefore, Javascript) are not given permissions for most things which could cause problems. This is one of the fundamentals of Java.

Well one of the things javascript can do is extract various 'personal' details from a users browser (depending on the security of the browser) & publish those details at h2g2 - as h2g2 guarantees not to publish users personal details in its Privacy statement...

;^)#

Well... I have to contradict you on that, Bruce...

Yes, Javascript can gather personal details...

But it can't publish them *at h2g2*... The most it can do is print them on the page the user is viewing, but as only he himself will see it, that's not really publishing...

I have to admit that it can send them to some email address or CGI script for processing, though...

This idea is also good for things alignment and order. If the skins were parameters of the font tag it would not make this possible. This way, it's possible to enclose a whole section of code within these tags. But unfortunately overlapping tags is illegal XML. So it's a tough call...

Oh well, that page that posted IP numbers & other details to an h2g2 forum must have been a figment of everyones imagination then

;^)#

OK... OK... OK...

I admit I was wrong, Bruce...

I had forgotten that there were CGI scripts that the data could be sent to for processing on the h2g2, too - the forums...

And... as for it not being legal XML...

As far as I'd got the idea of gadgets, they're not going to be interpreted as XML, but be replaced by Javascript code or something...

In this case, the opening font tag would be in a string that is printed - or not printed - into the document depending on if the right skin is used...

In this case, it wouldn't be illegal XML...

LOL - as I understand it the Gadget would be defined as an XML tag in the DTD - h2g2 would then generate HTML, j/script, WML or whatever when a page is requested as appropriate to the output device, skin etc requesting the page.

So the GuideML page that was input by the user would be XML but the output from h2g2 might or might not be XML compliant depending on the capabilities of the device/browser requesting the page.

;^)#