The Haiku/BeOS Tip Server » Applications http://betips.net Tips and tricks for Haiku/BeOS users Sun, 22 Nov 2009 17:48:52 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.9.2 en hourly 1 Missing NetPositive? http://betips.net/2009/10/01/missing-netpositive/ http://betips.net/2009/10/01/missing-netpositive/#comments Thu, 01 Oct 2009 18:09:53 +0000 Michel Clasquin-Johnson http://betips.net/?p=753 If you are an old BeOS user, likely one of the things you miss about Haiku is NetPositive, the native BeOS browser. Let’s all agree that its days as an actual web browser are over, this still leaves it as a great little reader of HTML documentation. MUCH faster than Bon Echo.

You can get Net+ running on Haiku if you are prepared to download a 39Mb file to get it. That file is BeOS for Linux. If you expand the tarball you will see a floppy image and a file called image.be. Don’t let the .be suffix fool you – it is actually in RAW format, and RAW images can be converted and/or mounted in different ways.

In my case, I use VirtualBox to run Haiku, so the following command in the Host OS:

VBoxManage convertfromraw –format VDI image.be beos.vdi

converts the .be file into something VirtualBox can mount as a second “hard disk”. From then it is just a question of drilling down to where Net+ is found (/boot/home/beos/apps – the one in /boot/apps is just a symlink) and dragging it to /boot/apps on your main Haiku disk.

Net+ requires a few directories in your settings folder, but it will recreate them the first time you run it.

]]> http://betips.net/2009/10/01/missing-netpositive/feed/ 0 Synchronize Bon Echo bookmarks http://betips.net/2009/09/25/synchronize-bon-echo-bookmarks/ http://betips.net/2009/09/25/synchronize-bon-echo-bookmarks/#comments Fri, 25 Sep 2009 10:09:48 +0000 Michel Clasquin-Johnson http://betips.net/?p=735 If you use Xmarks to synchronize your bookmarks across browsers and OS’s, you will know that life without your bookmarks is intolerable :-).
Xmarks requires Firefox 3 to run. But it used to be known as Foxmarks and the last available version (2.6.2) of that runs on the Bon Echo / BezillaBrowser included in Haiku alpha 1.
Download it at http://wiki.foxmarks.com/wiki/Foxmarks: Release Notes. In fact, from Bon Echo you just click on the link there to install the .xpi file.
Another little step towards making Haiku a full citizen in the world of OS’s :-)
UPDATE: Sometimes Foxmarks in Bon Echo will get stuck. But you can always go into its settings and force an update from the server.
]]> http://betips.net/2009/09/25/synchronize-bon-echo-bookmarks/feed/ 0 NetPositive: Clear your cache automatically http://betips.net/1997/09/09/netpositive-clear-your-cache-automatically/ http://betips.net/1997/09/09/netpositive-clear-your-cache-automatically/#comments Tue, 09 Sep 1997 09:36:29 +0000 shacker http://www.birdhouse.org/betips/?p=33 [Editor's note: NetPositive 2 has much better cache-handling features. Upgrade and you won't need this tip!]

NetPositive’s cache will get large if you don’t trim it, but who wants to have to check repeatedly? It’s possible to have the cache files erased on startup, but that can be a pain if you reboot often or don’t use your computer for extended periods.

The following chunk of code, when placed into your UserBootscript (/boot/home/config/boot/UserBootscript) will clear NetPositive’s cache on startup, but only when it exceeds the size in K specified as “max” below, which is currently set to 4 megabytes in this example.

let max=4096
let size=`du -s $HOME/config/settings/NetPositive/NetCache | cut -f1`
if [ $size -gt $max ]; then
rm -f $HOME/config/settings/NetPositive/NetCache/*
fi
]]> http://betips.net/1997/09/09/netpositive-clear-your-cache-automatically/feed/ 0 Adam vs. the mail_daemon http://betips.net/1997/09/09/adam-vs-the-mail_daemon/ http://betips.net/1997/09/09/adam-vs-the-mail_daemon/#comments Tue, 09 Sep 1997 09:36:29 +0000 shacker http://www.birdhouse.org/betips/?p=42 The commercial mail client from Adamation, called Adam, uses a mail daemon to watch for your mail. BeMail also uses a mail daemon. The BeMail daemon will supersede the Adam daemon if you are running both, and you won’t be able to check multiple accounts or have different popups in the mailbox in the Deskbar.

To fix this problem, make sure you unclick the box for “Autolaunch mail_daemon” in your email prefs panel. You may need to restart if you already have Adam installed. This currently applies to Adam 1.5.1 – it may change in the future.

Also, try these Adam plugins.

]]> http://betips.net/1997/09/09/adam-vs-the-mail_daemon/feed/ 0 BeMail: Select text for quoted reply http://betips.net/1997/09/09/bemail-select-text-for-quoted-reply/ http://betips.net/1997/09/09/bemail-select-text-for-quoted-reply/#comments Tue, 09 Sep 1997 09:36:29 +0000 shacker http://www.birdhouse.org/betips/?p=49 If you want to reply to a message in BeMail, and quote only a portion of the message text, select the text you wish to quote BEFORE using cmd-R (or “Reply To Sender” from the menu). The new mail message window that opens will contain ONLY the text that was selected, and it will be quoted.

This tip also works in BeatWare’s Mail-It.

]]> http://betips.net/1997/09/09/bemail-select-text-for-quoted-reply/feed/ 0 diner: Convert NetPositive bookmarks http://betips.net/1997/09/09/diner-convert-netpositive-bookmarks/ http://betips.net/1997/09/09/diner-convert-netpositive-bookmarks/#comments Tue, 09 Sep 1997 09:36:29 +0000 shacker http://www.birdhouse.org/betips/?p=64 If you want to turn your hierarchy of NetPositive bookmarks into a single, Netscape-style HTML document, install the diner Web server. Once you’ve got it up and running, save the following code as an HTML document and load it into NetPositive via diner. Pull down File | Save and you’re done.

<html>
  <head><title>Bookmarks</title></head>
  <body bgcolor=white>
    <table border=0>
      <tr><th>Title</th><th>Link</th></tr>
      <Block List "/boot/home/config/settings/Netpositive/Bookmarks">
        <tr>
          <td><Var META:title></td><td><a
 href="<Var META:url>"><Var
META:url></a></td>
        </tr>
      </Block>
    </table>
  </body>
</html>
]]> http://betips.net/1997/09/09/diner-convert-netpositive-bookmarks/feed/ 0 NetPositive: Monitoring traffic http://betips.net/1997/09/09/netpositive-monitoring-traffic/ http://betips.net/1997/09/09/netpositive-monitoring-traffic/#comments Tue, 09 Sep 1997 09:36:29 +0000 shacker http://www.birdhouse.org/betips/?p=93 You can launch NetPositive 2.0.2 or later from the Terminal with the –ezdebug flag to get a list of all URLs that NetPositive has opened:

NetPositive --ezdebug

Later on, you can save this list to a text file for a complete record of the sites you’ve visited during the current session.

NetPositive 3.0d1 adds the –dump switch:

NetPositive --dump

which will spit out a complete log of your transactions for every page you visit, including HTTP headers and all binary data for images. Hint: think scripting possibilities.

]]> http://betips.net/1997/09/09/netpositive-monitoring-traffic/feed/ 0 BeMail: Launch returned attachments http://betips.net/1997/09/09/bemail-launch-returned-attachments/ http://betips.net/1997/09/09/bemail-launch-returned-attachments/#comments Tue, 09 Sep 1997 09:36:29 +0000 shacker http://www.birdhouse.org/betips/?p=111 Certain kinds of attachments, including the attached contents of returned e-mail, cannot be easily displayed by BeMail. The reason is that they use the Internet standard MIME type “message/rfc822,” rather than the BeOS standard text/email.

You can fix the filetype of each attachment as it comes in by using the Open With / FileType dialog, but here’s how you can make the fix permanent:

Open up Preferences | FileTypes and add the MIME type rfc822 to the message group. Close FileTypes. Now navigate Tracker to /boot/beos/ apps and right-click on StyledEdit (you can’t do this from a link to StyledEdit). Choose Add-Ons | FileTypes and add the new message/ rfc822 type to its list of handled filetypes. Save and close.

Return to your BeMail message, click on the attachment link, and it’ll pop up in StyledEdit.

]]> http://betips.net/1997/09/09/bemail-launch-returned-attachments/feed/ 0 BeMail: Hotkeys http://betips.net/1997/09/09/bemail-hotkeys/ http://betips.net/1997/09/09/bemail-hotkeys/#comments Tue, 09 Sep 1997 09:36:29 +0000 shacker http://www.birdhouse.org/betips/?p=128 If you’ve ever been frustrated by the fact that the Home and End keys in BeMail go to the top and bottom of the document rather than to the beginning and end of the line (argh!!!), there’s hope yet — BeMail employs overrides to the system text engine to emulate a few of the more popular emacs key bindings.

The ^ symbols below represent the Ctrl key.

^e end of line
^a start of line
^b back 1 char
^f forward 1 char
^o open new line
^n next line
^p prev line
^k kill to end of line
^y paste kill buffer

]]> http://betips.net/1997/09/09/bemail-hotkeys/feed/ 0 NetPositive: Fixes for crashing bugs http://betips.net/1997/09/09/netpositive-fixes-for-crashing-bugs/ http://betips.net/1997/09/09/netpositive-fixes-for-crashing-bugs/#comments Tue, 09 Sep 1997 09:36:29 +0000 shacker http://www.birdhouse.org/betips/?p=130 If you have problems with NetPositive crashing when launched, you may be dealing with a corrupt settings file. Try deleting your /boot/home/config/settings/NetPositive/settings file. It may be crashing trying to write its settings out to the file before it quits. If that doesn’t work, try blowing away your /boot/home/config/settings/NetPositive/NetCache folder in case you’ve got a corrupt cache.

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