This easy-to-use program converts mailto: webform results (puh!) to readable text, without the use of any cgi-script or that stuff. Normally, when you get a mailed response from a HTML webform, it might look like this: name=Carl+B%E4ckstr%F6m&www=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.algonet.se%2F%7Eattila%2Findexe.htm When this text is converted with Mailto Converter, it will look like this:
name: Carl Bäckström
www: http://www.algonet.se/~attila/indexe.htm
All special characters, spaces, linebreaks (not in the example), and so on is displayed correctly. (The web url in the example, however, is the current address to my school, Nya Lundenskolan) Mailto Converter can convert text in the clipboard or from a disk file. (Eudora, for example, use to save the result as an attachment on the disk) Also, you've the feature to select an entire folder to convert. You can change the delimiters between the titles and the items ('=' resp. '&'), remove the title and so on, and finally save all stuff in a single file. By using these options, you can convert a form-result and then open it from a datebase, without any futher convertions!
Mailto Converter is freeware, but if you feel generous to a 16 years old programmer, there's an optional shareware fee of $5 or $10. (Any commercial companies who're using this, you should feel generous...)
A shareware would be bery appreciated and encourage me to write (and debug) more stuff of this cind! If you decide to pay anything, please send normal bills (in which currency you like, but dollars is prefered), not cheques. It costs more than $10 to exchange it in Sweden, so it's a bit useless :)
Unfortunately, I'd to write this stuff in SuperCard. Well, SC a perfect and easy way to do it, but the final application is getting big. Very big. If someone wants to give me a free package of C++, and a week or two to learn the basics, I'd probably rewrite this program...
Version history:
10/05/96 --1.0
First release. I was a bit in hurry, so it had some stupid bugs...
13/05/96 --1.1
A lot of bugs were fixed, including the overwrite file bug and the preference handling bugs. Also,
v1.1 has a lot of new features. You can now save the converted stuff in a single file, an easier
way to port it to a datebase. You can also delete the converted files, choose the document types to
read, use the -key in the main window, use tab-spaces in the delimiters, and so on. And
there's a new, better, easier and more nice settings dialog, including some simple helptexts.
The program also remembers the last file directory, so you don't have to start in the program's
directory every time. The progressbox tells you which file is proceeded when you convert a
folder. Finally, there's some other minor features added.
23/05/96 --1.2
Now supports both the standard BinHex and ISO Latin-1 translation methods. Earlier versions
didn't worked properly outside the western Europe. Also fixed some nasty bugs and added a few
minor features. You can now reset the options without having to delete the preference file by
option-click "Settings". Also, files are not deleted until they're saved in a new one. This means,
if you click command-stop or cancel, the original files will be saved. Finally, the program can
now save files bigger than 30 K. It'll still only read the first 30.000 bytes of a file, but this
is a good feature when saving single files. Finally, each button in the main window now has a
related command-key stroke (actually V, F, A and Q), and the "Show clipboard" window have got
a new look. And... I think I've fixed the 'known bug', dialog contents won't disappear anymore!
23/05/96 --1.2.1
Fixed some painful bugs from version 1.2. You can now switch between BinHex and ISO Latin-1
decryption methods without having to reset all options. More important, title and item
delimiters is no longer resetted when the program is restarted. In v1.2, there was a problem
using tab and return characters in these delimiters. Also, the text field in the convertion dialog
is now longer, and can display all the text. Thanks to Michael R. Erb for bugreports!
In the future: If you want any of these options included, or have ideas for another, please let me know!
I've tested TEXT or HTML output, drag-and-srop via a small AppleScript program, autoscan
a folder at startup (like Stuffit Expander 4.01, but I don't thik I'll include that setting), save
single files in different files, depending on the first value (nice if you receive results from more
than one form), save filename with result, custom translation methods, etc... Maybe you'll find
those things in a future release, maybe not. Let me know what you think!
Contact Nisseb softwares:
All parts of this software is copyrighted Nisseb softwares / Carl Bäckström. Some externals are used under freeware license from other developers, please see inside the program. SuperCard is written by Allegiant Inc. For webpage writers, I also have a small (40K), free and fast online HTML library, if someone is interested. Look for HTML Vocabulary. And an "anti-award" webpage award, for all of us without a "Top 5%" sign on out pages... If you have any comments, bugreports or suggestions, please let me know! You can reach Nisseb by:
Nisseb softwares, Hackspettsgatan 8, SE-412 70 Göteborg, Sweden
