Are there any standard or popular methods of storing external metadata for many generic purposes? I've heard of XMP but how popular is it besides embedded in JPEG images? I'm looking for a format I can use for anything including text files and compressed archives, especially something with implementations in many languages.
Or does everybody roll their own?
UPDATE
I'd prefer a solution not tied to any specific language or platform.
Have you ever watched a MKV movie?
Extensible Binary Meta Language
There are other implementations and related projects
Related
Is there a good hosted service out there that allows users to import either word docs or pdf's that can be converted into html5 forms. There are plenty of hosted html5 form builders out there, but I'm not having much luck finding anything that allows for a simple import of these standard formats. I have hundreds of pages to convert into digital forms, and would prefer to not have to rebuild each page from scratch.
I believe Crocodoc may be what you're looking for.
From what I've read of web storage in HTML5, there are a number of different storage options with varying support across different browsers.
Are there any popular libraries for abstraction of web storage in HTML5 applications?
There are a couple of YUI-based libraries for abstracting the underlying storage away:
YUI 2: Storage Utility
YUI 3: Storage Lite
You'd need to port them if you wanted to use them with another library, though it looks like someone has already done that for jQuery.
Basically I want to build a web interface to a server-side math engine. (Like a simplified version of QtOctave/GSL.) But I haven't seen many resources to generate mathematical graphs on the client side--bar plots, heat maps, etc. Support for this even in HTML5 seems to be lacking, as this short discussion suggests. Is there any web equivalent to Qwt, jCharts, etc.?
What about Protovis?
http://vis.stanford.edu/protovis/
Is it possible to serve a read-only pdf file to multiple computers in a local area network. say for example a library has one copy of an e-book. the library has multiple computers and the ebook is stored in a server. students are then to read the ebook simultaneously at the client units.
Ff it is, what solutions are available programming-wise (or is there a software available for this?). I would want to write a program that does exactly this, and maybe not just for pdf files.
IIUC, you are going down the Digital Rights Management path. A non-trivial task in itself. Adobe's PDF format supports various means of securing a file and they have LiveCycle Rights Management specifically for this. Adobe Digital Editions is something you will want to check out:
What DRM formats are supported?
Most libraries and bookstores that sell or loan PDF eBooks use Adobe’s
Content Server to protect their books.
This is the DRM format that was
supported by Acrobat and Reader 6 and
7. Digital Editions also supports books from such bookstores and
libraries, as well as migrating legacy
books that were downloaded with
Acrobat/Reader 6 & 7
Note that most online libraries already employ some sort of DRM and it is up to you to choose one. There are various types of DRM and you will have to read up on those and choose one.
Microsoft Reader also supports DRM -- something you may want to check out (if you are going to work with more than PDF files).
However, DRM is a contentious issue and enough controversy has already been created around DRMs -- so be sure if you want to go down this path.
I would strongly recommend you go through the Wikipedia article on DRM to get a fair idea of what you are up against.
We're not doing real web development. We get our HTMLs from our designers, and have our web app generate those HTMLs (with some specific content). Simply put, we don't use any major web development infrastructure (ASP, PHP, JSP etc). Having that said, we sometimes do need to edit HTML, JavaScript and CSS files, and I'm tired of using rocks and stones and having no proper backup. What I'm looking for is a rather simple editor that would handle those kinds of files, and most importantly - will support source control, and will be free (or very cheep).
I've been looking into Aptana, and it seems to be a bit of an overkill. It has a lot of features we can do without, and this makes it too heavy. VWD express is lighter, but has no source control integration. There are probably a million other HTML editors, but I couldn't find one that satisfies the basic requirements - relatively lightweight, supports source control and is (almost) free. Any suggestions?
Not exactly what you want but you could try and use Notepad++ combined with TortoiseSVN.
Eclipse is pretty good. It's also very popular among developers and can edit HTML.
Why is supporting source control a requirement? I find that the place for good source control is not in the editor. The editor just gets in the way and only implements a subset of functionality.
NetBeans can edit about anything, is free, cross-platform, and directly supports CVS, Subversion and Mercurial version control systems. It's not exactly lightweight, although it is lighter than any comparably featured competitors I'm aware of.
Pick your poison at Wikipedia's Comparison of HTML editors page.
The Revisionator is a cloud based html editor that has built in source control. It'll even do wysiwyg diffing and merging of different versions.