Plucker Frequently Asked Questions

FAQ stands for Frequently Asked Questions. This FAQ answers questions about the Plucker viewer, Plucker parser, Plucker Desktop, and other Plucker tools.

If the question you have is not covered here, please consider submitting it for inclusion into a future copy of this FAQ, or check the mailing list archives for possible solutions to your question.

(click section titles to expand)

1. Introduction

2. Supported Platforms for Plucker

1. 2.1 What platforms does Plucker currently support?

2. The viewer should run on any PalmOS® device running version 2.0.4 or higher of PalmOS, while the desktop tools are supported on Linux, Windows, Mac OS X, and OS/2.

   The desktop tools will probably work on any Unix system with Python installed, but your mileage may vary, so don't get angry if they don't work. If you are able to get it running on a system not listed in REQUIREMENTS then please let us know so that it can be added to the list of known working systems.

3. How to Use Plucker

1. 3.1 How does Plucker work?

2. Plucker consists of three parts: the parser, the conduit, and the viewer. The parser and the conduit have been merged into one complete Python version and eventually there will also be a Perl version of the parser. The standalone conduit is written in Perl and there is also a conduit written in Delphi for the Windows users.

   The parser runs on your main computer (the one with the HotSync cradle or IR port physically attached to it, or on a networked machine which allows you to connect to it via Network HotSync). It gathers the web pages you specify and follows the links on those pages to a chosen depth (specified by you). You specify the web pages you want to gather by creating a "home.html" file, which also becomes your home page. The links on "home.html" are followed to a depth specified by the optional "maxdepth" attribute which you can include in the <a href="..."> tag in the home.html file. The parser finds new links to retrieve and converts the pages to a format that the viewer can read.

   The conduit takes the converted html files from a directory or from your computer's system memory (RAM; using the python parser) and places them in a database on your Palm device, or directs them to a file (which is the same as the database) on your desktop, which you can sync to your emulator or your "real" Palm device at a later time.

   The viewer displays the converted html files on your Palm device's screen. It allows you to use the stylus to tap on links which will then display the target page. It has a 32-page history, so you can move backwards and forwards through the pages just as you would with your desktop browser.

   Rendering is done in part by the parser (which works out things like which styles to use) and in part by the viewer (which works out line and document lengths, and renders <a>nchor tags).

3. 3.2 Why can't I see any images on my Palm device?

4. Either you have an old version of Plucker (image support was added in version 0.03) or you haven't installed all necessary tools. The Palm device uses a format called Tbmp (Tiny Bitmap) for its images, and the parser in Plucker needs (among others) a special tool called ppmtoTbmp to be able to convert images to the PalmOS bitmap format (depending on your version of Plucker, you may no longer need to use the ppmtoTbmp tool. It has recently been replaced by the netpbm2 package). Check out the REQUIREMENTS file in the main source archive for a list of necessary tools and where to find them.

5. 3.3 I have all the necessary tools, but I still can't see any images?

6. Make sure that you don't set a too high value for the maxwidth configuration option. Anything above 150 pixels (default value) for embedded images will give the result that no images are shown.

7. 3.4 Why do pages with images show [img] instead of images?

8. When you generate 2 or 4 bpp images you have to change the bit depth of the screen to view them. The default depth is 1 (Black/White), so when the viewer finds images of a higher bit depth it will display [img Nbpp] instead (N = bit depth for the image). You can change the bit depth in the Preference dialog within Plucker.

9. 3.5 The protocol is missing when the parser attempts to download a page?

10. Even if you don't tell us what OS you are running we would be very surprised if it's not Red Hat 7.0, 7.1, or 7.2.

    There is a bug in the python version (1.5.2) included with Red Hat 7.0, 7.1, and 7.2.

    A solution provided by Joe A. can be found at the following site (archived because the site is no longer online):

    http://home.earthlink.net/~joefefifo/plucker/fix.html

    A more detailed discussion of the problem can be found at the following site:

    http://home.earthlink.net/~joefefifo/plucker/fix_detailed.html

11. 3.6 How do I pluck a password-protected site?

12. We suggest using Sitescooper together with Plucker to pluck various hard-to-get websites. Sitescooper has many features for pulling over pages that will be slow to appear in Plucker.

    For more information on Sitescooper, see the Sitescooper homepage at the following site:

    http://www.sitescooper.org/

13. 3.7 I'd like to use Plucker for (ebooks, reports, etc.) which I sell. Is there any way to protect a Plucker document from theft?

14. Plucker documents can be built with an 'owner-id', which must correspond to the HotSync ID on a Palm for the document to be opened on that Palm. This is similar to the document-locking schemes used by many commercial sites. Use the --owner-id switch on the parser to do this.

4. Configuration

1. 4.1 How do I configure the parser to create ZLib compressed databases?

2. By setting the compression key in the configuration file (.pluckerrc for Unix/Linux, plucker.ini for Windows and OS/2) to zlib the parser will use ZLib instead of DOC compression for the databases. You can always change this behavior at run-time by using the --zlib-compression or the --doc-compression options.

5. Development

1. 5.1 Why does running 'make' only build the viewer application but never the ZLib library?

2. You didn't read the README file in the viewer directory, did you? The zlib package must be downloaded separately and put into the ./viewer/ZLib directory that you see there, before attempting to configure Plucker.

3. 5.2 Where can I get zlib?

4. You can download zlib from the zlib project homepage.

   Put the package into the ./viewer/ZLib directory before you run configure.

5. 5.3 Where can I get prc-tools?

6. There are two different versions of prc-tools, but both can be used.

   When running configure it will evaluate your configuration and set the correct version of prc-tools. It is also possible to set this manually using --enable-palmos-coff for prc-tools-0.6.0beta or --enable-palmos for Palm's version of prc-tools.

   Palm's version of prc-tools can be downloaded at the following site:

   http://www.palmos.com/dev/tech/tools/gcc/

   and prc-tools-0.6.0beta can be downloaded at the following site:

   ftp://ivan.Harhan.ORG/pub/embedded/palmos/

7. 5.4 Why is <module X> so messy?

8. Well, the old legacy parser (a bunch of awk scripts) was only a temporary solution and have been replaced with a Python-based parser. That should make it easier to comprehend what it actually does! We believe that the rendering of documents for the Palm device should be specialized, so we intend to continue to render the documents in the parser/viewer.

   If you haven't looked at the viewer since 0.02 then you would probably be surprised. The single source file of version 0.02 has been split up in several files and the viewer is approaching being optimal, but there are some issues, particularly with implied structure coupling, and lack of documentation, both of which we wish to address.

   The conduit is not clever. It will upload pages to the database even if they already exist and have not changed. This should obviously be fixed so that a full 360 degree synchronization process can be achieved.

6. Miscellaneous Questions

1. 6.1 Can you suggest some good web pages for Plucker?

2. In the appendix of the User's Guide you'll find a collection of links to some good web pages for Plucker.

3. 6.2 What are some of the features of Plucker?

4. Plucker has many, many features which make it very useful for a lot of different purposes and reading habits of a diverse set of users and platforms. Here are just a few:

   Plucker is designed for off-line browsing on a small screen. It doesn't attempt to make html pages look like they appear on a monitor; instead, it tries to make them readable and useful.

   • The history buttons always work, even from the home page.
   • You can scroll nicely with the scroll buttons or the pen.
   • On-screen indication of visited links.
   • Image support
   • Named anchors (such as <a href="#here">)
   • Very impressive compression of records to save space on the device.
   • Support for multiple databases and multiple versions of the same content.
   • Search function for current page and all pages in a database
   • Bookmarks
   • Possible to copy URLs to a Memo Pad entry for later use
   • E-mail support (through the use of mailto links)

   There are dozens more features not listed here, go ahead and give Plucker a go, and try them all out for yourself.

5. 6.3 What features does Plucker not implement?

6. The following is a (non-exhaustive) list of unimplemented features. Apart from frames, we intend to include this functionality in the future:

   • Frames (it might be possible to implement this in a links kind of way by rendering and converting the frames to tables, much like the links browser).
   • Document titles are not currently uploaded to the Palm device.
   • Various html tags (e.g. <font>, <sup>, etc) are not fully supported
   • Javascript, DHTML, Java, CSS
7. 6.4 What other features can we expect?

8. Here is a list of other ideas for Plucker. No promises! A TODO list sorted both by category and by date can be found on the Plucker developer's page.

   • We intend to integrate Plucker with the popular free desktop environments (such as KDE and GNOME). In these environments it would be great if you could drag-n-drop a URL into the Palm device for off-line viewing.
   • The ability to modify parameters, such as the maximum link depth, from the Palm device, so that the next HotSync will retrieve more/less data.
   • The ability to "send" a web page from the Palm device to an Internet mail address.
   • Cron-based gathering of html pages, prior to a HotSync (to significantly reduce HotSync time).
   • Parallel gathering/parsing/conduit (to reduce HotSync time).
   • Smart gathering/conduit; only update a document if it's actually changed. (Reduce HotSync time).
   • Compatibility with AvantGo's .subs files, and the .site files that a similar product Sitescooper reads.
9. 6.5 Where can I find e-books in Plucker format?

10. Apart from the samples you can find at the Plucker web site, there are other sites that have e-books as well.

    Memoware has a growing collection of Plucker e-books submitted by contributors and users of Plucker:

    http://www.memoware.com/

    You can also find several Plucker e-books at Byron Collins' site

    http://home.clarksville.com/~bcollins/PalmDocs.htm

    Curt-n-Dave's Plucker-book Repository

    http://www.pluckerbooks.com/

    Nick Vargish's Bandersnatch Unpress

    http://unpress.bandersnatch.org/

    The "Linux Documentation Project" (LDP) now releases all its HOWTOs and mini-HOWTOs in Plucker format. They are located under the 'Additional HOWTO-related items at the following url:

    http://tldp.org/docs.html#howto

    or

    http://ibiblio.org/pub/Linux/docs/LDP/pluckerdb