Software

As you may have noticed, I blog a lot about code, computers and operating system configurations. In writtern form, it is very convenient to use Teletype Text -formatting. Here is a demo of the difference:

Do Until NoMoreSwaps = True
     NoMoreSwaps = True
     For Counter = 1 To (NumberOfItems - 1)
          If List(Counter) > List(Counter + 1) Then
               NoMoreSwaps = False
               Temp = List(Counter)
               List(Counter) = List(Counter + 1)
               List(Counter + 1) = Temp
          End If
     Next
     NumberOfItems = NumberOfItems - 1
Loop

and:

Do Until NoMoreSwaps = True
     NoMoreSwaps = True
     For Counter = 1 To (NumberOfItems - 1)
          If List(Counter) > List(Counter + 1) Then
               NoMoreSwaps = False
               Temp = List(Counter)
               List(Counter) = List(Counter + 1)
               List(Counter + 1) = Temp
          End If
     Next
     NumberOfItems = NumberOfItems - 1
Loop

(Code sample courtesy of Rosetta Code) 

Any experienced software developer will prefer the fixed-width font. However, an out-of-the-box Serendipity blog software won't make that possible. I don't get the logic behind that, but there is a drastic change in functionality. To the not-so-user-friendly direction, I'd like to add.

Since version 2.0 S9y has been using CKEditor as HTML-editor on the admin-side. It is a pretty good component and has a number of excellent plugins already available. Getting a codeTag-plugin to work shouldn't be too hard, I guess. Yep! Guessed wrong.

Just downloading a zip-file, and uncompressing it at serendipity/htmlarea/ckeditor/ckeditor/plugins/-directory. Is a good start, but the editor won't react to that, something more is needed.

After a lot of investigating, I figured to add the name of the plugin into into serendipity/htmlarea/ckeditor_s9y_plugin.js. It has a line in it:

var customplugins = 'mediaembed,procurator,cheatsheet,';

adding codeTag into the list does absolutely nothing. It does load the plugin, but as a default, the plugin does nothing that you can see or touch. There is another file with list of editor's icons at serendipity/htmlarea/ckeditor_s9y_config.js. It has an array with list of icons to display:

config.toolbar_Default = []

It looks like this:

After adding this hash-definition into the config.toolbar_Default -array:

{ name: 'codetag',        items: [ 'Code' ] }

makes the icon to appear:

... but it doesn't do much when you click it.

Yet another round of debugging revealed, that there is a fixed list of allowed HTML-tags in the same file. The variable is called config.extraAllowedContent. The line is very long, but abbreviated version is something like this:

config.extraAllowedContent = 'mediainsert[*]{*}(*); ... ;pre[*](*);';

I added this to the end of the list:

code;tt;

Now it works as expected!

If you're planning a patch, here are my changes. Run it in serendipity/htmlarea/:

--- ckeditor_s9y_plugin.js.orig 2015-07-24 15:02:54.000000000 +0300
+++ ckeditor_s9y_plugin.js 2016-01-01 15:52:18.333527235 +0200
@@ -17,7 +17,7 @@
  // Plugin Dependencies: widget Add-on Dependencies: Line Utilities and Clipboard
  // mediaembed is a fast and simple YouTube code CKEditor-Plugin: v. 0.5+ (https://github.com/frozeman/MediaEmbed, 2013-09-12) to avoid ACF restrictions
  // procurator and cheatsheet are S9y only plugins
- var customplugins = 'mediaembed,procurator,cheatsheet,';
+ var customplugins = 'mediaembed,procurator,cheatsheet,codeTag,';

   // for any new instance when it is created - listen on load
  CKEDITOR.on('instanceReady', function(evt){

--- ckeditor_s9y_config.js.orig 2015-07-24 15:02:54.000000000 +0300
+++ ckeditor_s9y_config.js 2016-01-01 16:07:39.055518012 +0200
@@ -65,7 +65,7 @@
           - Allow for custom attributes/classes in code blocks
     */
     // protect
- config.extraAllowedContent = 'mediainsert[*]{*}(*);gallery[*]{*}(*);media[*]{*}(*);script[*]{*}(*);audio[*]{*}(*);div[*]{*}(*);span[*]{*}(*);img[height,width];pre[*](*);';
+ config.extraAllowedContent = 'mediainsert[*]{*}(*);gallery[*]{*}(*);media[*]{*}(*);script[*]{*}(*);audio[*]{*}(*);div[*]{*}(*);span[*]{*}(*);img[height,width];pre[*](*);code;tt;';
     // Do not use auto paragraphs, added to these allowed tags (only!). Please regard that this was marked deprecated by CKE 4.4.5, but is a need for (our use of) extraAllowedContent - check this again by future versions!
     config.autoParagraph = false; // defaults(true)

@@ -252,7 +252,8 @@
         { name: 'mediaembed', items: [ 'MediaEmbed' ] },
         { name: 'others', items: s9ypluginbuttons },
         { name: 'document', groups: [ 'mode', 'document', 'doctools' ], items: [ 'Source' ] },
- { name: 'about', items: [ 'About' ] }
+ { name: 'about', items: [ 'About' ] },
+ { name: 'codetag', items: [ 'Code' ] }
     ];
 // console.log(JSON.stringify(config.toolbar_s9y));

Earlier I wrote about Storix and it's author Mr. Johnson.

The story developed further on 15th Dec when a jury gave its verdict about the copyright infrightment claim. A court decided that the copyrigt was transferred to company on 2003. Mr. Johnson claimed that a written memo of 2004 as an annual report didn't transfer the copyright:

It foolishly stated that my sole proprietorship was changed to an S Corp and "all assets" were
transferred over. Of course, I was referring to the cash in the business account, the furniture and
computers. But the jury, based on the courts generic instructions which were contrary to actual
copyright law, decided that it should include any personal assets related to the business,
or any "language that might encompass a copyright".

Obviously this is not the end of the story. There will be a round of appeals.

Btw. In their press release Storix claims to be "the #1 provider of disaster recovery solutions for more than 2,000 global customers". I think there has to be some other player in the disaster recovery business having more customers.