[albatross-users] Re: Albatross-users digest, Vol 1 #176 - 14 msgs

[Eric S. Johansson]

Matt Goodall wrote:

> Hi Eric,
> 
> I realise you have posted quite a bit to the list recently (which is 
> definitely not a problem!) and got some answers but could you quickly 
> and clearly summarize the problems you are still facing with Albatross. 
> Perhaps we could then address each issue again and see if we can help you.
> 
> Cheers, Matt
> 
thank you Matt, if the rest of you folks can take another long-winded 
description, here's a big chunk of the problem I'm trying to code up.

If you go to:
harvee.org/cgi-bin/correct.cgi

Login with username: albatross password: albatross

you'll see what I'm trying reimplement.  The reason for the reimplementation is 
that I will be doing something similar with the spam dumpster and I also need to 
create something totally unrelated which is the user configuration editing tool.

by the way, don't worry about pushing on the buttons because I've filtered out 
any real action from albatross.

The vast majority of the web page is quite simple.  The "refresh display" link 
just refers to the CGI so that you can refresh the list of currently trapped 
spam below.  The number of messages contained in the spamtrap is obviously 
dynamically created at p. construction time.  The button "spam on top/bottom" is 
simultaneously state information and user information.  I set the value of the 
button to display the sort order for the list.  One of my first attempts at 
converting to albatross forced me to change the message and just set the text to 
spam on top/bottom and have the button become "click to reverse sorting".  I 
then used a hidden variable to store the state sort of direction.

I would like to figure out how to store the sort state direction information so 
that it would persist even though someone refreshes the display.

On the top and bottom of the spamtrap display are to train buttons.  We've gone 
around the barn a few times on the vocabulary for the buttons and I'm probably 
going to make it "process spamtrap" although there is a vocal minority that 
prefers "lather, rinse, repeat".

Now we come to the messy part, the spamtrap display.  This is what prompted my 
question about displaying two-dimensional data.  Internally, I need to look at 
all messages in the spamtrap, read the messages, extract all fields and correct 
for errors created by spammers, sort the list, truncate to the display size, and 
build the display list.

The easy forms of the display list are either tuples of all the display elements 
or dictionaries of the same.  I've implemented an object model version but it's 
not significantly better than the straight iterative form.

as you can see, each line consists of:

    * a checkbox which is checked or unchecked automatically
    * a background color set according to score
    * destination mailbox
    * from address
    * subject

the subject field is also a link which takes you to another CGI which displays 
the contents of the message.  This is useful when trying to evaluate whether or 
not a message truly is spam.

You will also notice that as you check and uncheck each line, the color changes 
from yellow to red and back again.

the last piece is the periodic refresh.  it's a JavaScript clock that counts 
down and reloads the page.  It's not perfect because tries to repost data from 
the last time a button was pressed.  Obviously, I need to figure out what's the 
right way to do the refresh.  Also, I would like to make the countdown time 
dynamic based on the users configuration at some point.

as I said in my other piece, what has consistently tripped me up is the 
difference between the Python data model and the albatross data model.  Bridging 
the gap is essential in enabling new users to be successful with albatross.

---eric