Re: Stuff from Jens...

["Jens Ch. Restemeier" <jenschrr@post.uni-bielefeld.de>]

Hi !

> It's not very difficult to create a script doing this but then I
> realized that it would eat up a lot of bandwidth which is very
> expensive (at least here in germany).

I've got a contact where to store my own server... I just hope that I
can finance the place through banners. 
This would be only "for fun", if the banners are covering 90% of the
bandwidth I'm happy. 
I think I can save some bandwidth if I don't allow a "get all filters in
one file" option.
I'd just allow online playing with one filter at a time - maybe with a
java applet to reduce bandwidth and to avoid reloading...

> You don't even have to create a database - you could use FFL files
> directly. And you even don't need to store preview images per
> filter since the filter would be applied online.

I'll have an SQL backend anyway for other stuff. And just think, I can
use all SQL features to handle filters, like sort by author, sort by
type. And I can store extra-information, that is normally not contained
in an .txt or .8bf: Most important I want to keep the IP-address of the
uploader, but e-mail addresses or http addresses should be stored, too.
And finally the "license" issue: There are some freely available
databases out there for Linux, and most of them already have a nice
interface into popular scripting languages, for example PHP3.
Applying filters "on the fly" should be a bad idea, I think it's better
to cache the previews on disk.

> Some neat cgi extensions could do a filter source code import
> (upload or forms-based) and an export script would generate a filter
> binary in either PC 8BF or Mac format - for download.

... and GIMP <GRIN>

> This would be the heaven for lurkers and suckers ;-) but also a very
> good place for commercial banners and such, once established. I don't
> know how many hits Steves site receives a day but I bet it's A LOT.

This would've been my next question: Who has experience with banner
advertising ? I just need to cover the cost for bandwidth.

> The question is, what the filter developers are thinking about this
> idea???

I'd start with freeware filters, then every author can decide for
himself.

Jens