| Description: |
We had an interesting chat about Shell extensions in WinNT in the Thread "Windows Drag and Drop".
I think that viewing POD from the Explorer window would be a useful use of Windows Shell extensions.
So this code is a) a wrapper around pod2html, and b) some instructions on how to create the Shell extensions.
As per Drag and Drop thread, I'd appreciate any clarification from a WinNT guru, but it works for me.
Proof of concept: please note all warnings in documentation
Update:v 0.002: Added an option to create a hyperlink to the source code the POD is taken from. You can switch this off by setting constant SOURCE=>0 |
use strict; use warnings;
use Win32; # Yes, this is a Win32 module: see POD
use HTML::Entities qw(encode_entities);
my $PERLBIN='c:\perl\bin';
use constant SOURCE=>1;
my $time=time;
my $file=$ARGV[0];
my $temp=$ENV{TEMP} || $ENV{TMP} || '.';
# 'cos we're being lazy and just redirecting HTML to a file
# I don't think we want to use array form of 'system'. So
# I'm checking that the File is a genuine file and Temp is
# a genuine directory (e.g. this means that they can't contain
# any shell escapes). Is this robust enough ?
unless ($file && -e $file) {
$file ||="no file specified";
my $error= "File doesn't exist! [$file] \n" ;
Win32::MsgBox($error);
die $error;
}
unless (-d $temp) {
my $error= "Temp directory isn't a directory! [$temp] \n";
Win32::MsgBox($error);
die $error;
}
if (SOURCE) {
open (FILE, $file) or die;
my @file = <FILE>;
close FILE or die;
open (SRC, ">$temp\\$time.src");
open (SRCHTML, ">$temp\\$time.src.html");
# prepend source file with html instructions for viewing source
print SRC qq(=begin html\n<a href="file://$temp/$time.src.html">Vi
+ew source</a>\n\n=cut\n\n);
print SRCHTML <<EOF_HEAD;
<html>
<head><title>Source of $file</title></head>
<body>
<pre>
EOF_HEAD
for (@file) {
print SRC $_;
# encode_entities escapes any characters that might be
# special in HTML
print SRCHTML encode_entities($_);
};
print SRCHTML <<EOF_FOOT;
</pre>
</body></html>
EOF_FOOT
close SRC or die;
close SRCHTML or die;
$file="$temp\\$time.src";
}
system qq($PERLBIN\\pod2html $file --title="POD from $file" > $temp\\$
+time.html);
system qq(start $temp\\$time.html);
system "pause";
=head1 NAME
podview
=head1 DESCRIPTION
A wrapper around the standard pod2html utility to view POD.
Following a thread on www.perlmonks.com about Drag and Drop for callin
+g Perl
scripts (which I think is a bad thing by the way) I thought this might
+ be a
better use of Windows NT Shell extensions to make WinNT more useful fo
+r Perl
programming.
(Not the other way round obviously).
If you implement the WinNT registry changes listed, you should be able
+ to
right-click on a .pl, .pm or .pod file and choose a "View as HTML" opt
+ion.
This B<should> open in your default browser.
=head1 WARNING
This is proof of concept. It involves manually editing the registry.
+ DON'T
DO THIS!
(I am only doing this because
=over 4
=item *
I know why it's bad (!)
=item *
I don't have anything too important on my Win2K box
=item *
I won't whinge at myself if it all goes
wrong.
=back
For more warnings about how dangerous editing the registry is, try
www.microsoft.com)
=head1 HOW TO SET UP
I'm assuming that your perl is in C:\perl\bin\perl.exe. If not please
+ edit the
variable in this script, and in the registry entries I mention.
=item 1
Save this script in C:\perl\bin as podview.pl
Note that you can now use the script as a wrapper around pod2html by c
+alling
podview.pl {filename}
Where {filename} contains some POD.
=item 2
Open the registry. Then read again the warnings above.
Go to
My Computer\HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT
Make sure that keys exist for the following
.pl Perl
.pm PerlModule
.pod POD
I've suggested what I think could be values in the "Default" value.
+But
If you have different values already existing then another program (a
+ Perl
IDE for example) may have registered them, so just make a note of wha
+t that
value is.
For each of the above values go to
My Computer\HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\{value}
for example
My Computer\HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Perl\Shell
Notice that there is already a sub-key called "Open". In Open there
+is a
subkey called "Command".
This has a value like:
C:\Perl\bin\perl.exe "%1" %*
This is the command that will be run when you double click on a Perl
+script
in the GUI, or you right-click on it and choose "Open".
Under Shell, create a key called "View POD", and under that a key cal
+led
"Command" Now you have a key called
My Computer\HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Perl\Shell\View POD\Command
All we need to do is to add a command in here. Double click on the d
+efault
value and add the following
C:\Perl\bin\perl.exe C:\Perl\bin\podview.pl "%1"
We need to put %1 (the parameter - e.g. the name of the file being vi
+ewed
in quotes in case the name has any spaces in it!)
=item 3
Now test: right click on a .pl, .pm or .pod file. Do you have the C<V
+iew Pod>
option? Choose it. If it opens up your POD in a browser that's good.
If not something went wrong. Check that you typed the Registry value
+correctly
(I managed to type it wrong 3 times while testing).
=head1 AUTHOR, VERSION, ETC
hakim@earthling.net (osfameron on www.perlmonks.com / www.perlmonks.or
+g)
version 0.002
This is Proof Of Concept. Use at your own risk: no warranty express o
+r
implied.
I cannot offer any support on this, but would welcome any comments.
=head1 BUGS
If the document has no POD a blank HTML document will be opened.
Did I mention that this was test code? Let me know!
=cut
|
