[brailleblaster] Re: Importing Files

  • From: Chris von See <chris@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • To: brailleblaster@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
  • Date: Tue, 7 Jun 2011 10:16:15 -0700

There are several free and commercial tools that can obfuscate Java code. I use one called ProGuard (http://proguard.sourceforge.net/) which is pretty popular and very good, but it has a fairly steep learning curve. Because the obfuscation process is very dependent on your particular code base I highly recommend not even bothering with obfuscation until you're ready to release something. 


Cheers
Chris

On Jun 7, 2011, at 10:08 AM, John J. Boyer wrote:


How did you obfuscate the jar files? We may want to do this for the
drivers of some embossers that contain proprietary information. Because 
of this using components that are not Open Source and obfuscated will
probably not be an issue. John Gardner knows more about licensing that I 
do.

John

On Tue, Jun 07, 2011 at 09:40:56AM -0700, Chris von See wrote:
TAMC is free, but it isn't currently open source and probably won't be 
for a while unless enough people express an interest in working on it
with me.

The JAR files are obfuscated.  I'm sure that with enough effort
someone could decompile them if they wanted to, but that's the price
of delivering Java or .Net applications to the desktop.  Considering
that the app is free and I'm willing to help just about anybody who
asks - within reason - I wonder whether it's worth the effort to
decompile the code :)

I'm open to making some sort of arrangement to provide TAMC's data
conversion libraries and other features available under a license that 
would be compatible with BrailleBlaster (or, for that matter, any
other project that is interested). If you really want source, contact 
me off-list.

For info about the OPF, I highly recommend reading through the DAISY
and/or EPUB specifications - you'd get much more and better info there 
than I could put into an email.


Cheers
Chris



On Jun 7, 2011, at 9:25 AM, John J. Boyer wrote:


Thanks for the info. Do you plan to make TAMC available as Open
Source.
If you make it available only as jar files, people can still decompile it to some extent. It sounds interesting for BrailleBlaster, but if it 
isn't Open Source that might be a problem.

What is the opf file?

Thanks,
John

On Tue, Jun 07, 2011 at 07:58:01AM -0700, Chris von See wrote:

The TechAdapt Accessible Media Center (TAMC) is a free product I
built
back in 2006, when the NIMAS standard was first being rolled out. It 
is used by many state and local education agencies in the US to
convert NIMAS and DAISY file sets into DAISY, HTML and RTF files.
Most clients use it to convert Bookshare DAISY files and NIMAS files 
from the NIMAC into HTML and RTF - the HTML has features to
facilitate
use of the material by students who are blind or low vision, and the 
RTF files are used by braille transcribers to import content into
DBT,
Braille 2000 or other braille translation programs.  Aside from
ongoing maintenance TAMC has not been actively developed because I've been occupied with other parts of our business that make money :) but I've recently performed a complete rewrite of the application and am 
planning to actively develop new conversions from more source and
target formats. In addition to the complete rewrite, the new version 
is completely accessible and adds support for Microsoft Word input
files; future versions will add support for audio output, braille
output, and other features.  You can find more info about TAMC at
http://www.accessiblemediacenter.com

A NIMAS file set is essentially the same thing as a text-only DAISY
file set.  It has the same XML and almost the same OPF but it does
not
contain SMIL or NCX files.


Cheers
Chris



On Jun 6, 2011, at 10:13 PM, John J. Boyer wrote:


A couple of questions. What is TAMC? How does NiMAS differ from
DAISY?
I've never seen a NIMAS file. they seem to be under wraps for only
students.
You are lucky to have survived the combinatorial explosion of trying 
to
convert various file formats to various others. Converting them
first to
a canonical form makes a lot more sense.

Thanks,
John

On Mon, Jun 06, 2011 at 09:25:30PM -0700, Chris von See wrote:

Yes, I'm very familiar with XSLT, XPath and related XML
technologies.
I co-authored a book on XSLT with a friend of mine back in 2002,
and
have been working with XML in various ways ever since.
For what it's worth: The early versions of TAMC converted DAISY and 
NIMAS into various other formats without converting first to a
canonical format, and it was admittedly kind of a mess.  The new
file
import libraries I've written as part of the foundation for the new 
version of TAMC convert to a canonical format first and then
performs
all operations on that standardized model - much, much cleaner.


Cheers
Chris


On Jun 6, 2011, at 8:39 PM, John J. Boyer wrote:
I have considered leaving all Daisy and html files as is and using semantic-action files as liblouisutdml does. However, i think this 
would
be inadequate for what BrailleBlaster is to do. liblouisutdml
doesn['t
manipulate the files, except for adding utdml when requested.
BrailleBlaster will have the capability to manipulate files. The
semantic-action-file approach is probably inadequate. Manipulation 
will
be much easier if all files are converted to a common format. This 
is
probably not hard to do, if we have someone who really knows
xslt. I
wouldn't be surprised if Chris does. The flavor of the xml or html document can be detected while it is being read in as soon as xom 
gets
the root element. The flavor can also be specified by other
means if
the
root element is ambiguous.

John B.

On Mon, Jun 06, 2011 at 06:49:11PM -0700, John Gardner wrote:

I agree, but should we convert them all to a common format?  My
understanding of UTDML is that it is not necessary.  If so then
maybe we
should just leave all DAISY flavors as is. The idea of UTDML is 
that the
DAISY file is still there but with lots of other content
included.
In fact,
maybe we should leave all standard HTML and XML imports "as is". 
John B, is
this a stupid idea?

John G


John G


-----Original Message-----
From: brailleblaster-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:brailleblaster-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of John J. 
Boyer
Sent: Monday, June 06, 2011 6:43 PM
To: brailleblaster@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [brailleblaster] Re: Importing Files

So what flavor of DAISY will BrailleBlaster use as its native
format? I
suppose the latest. Earlier versions can be converted easily,
so we
should import all of them.

John B.

On Mon, Jun 06, 2011 at 06:04:16PM -0700, John Gardner wrote:

Chris, I understand the new DAISY format, at least to some
extent.  We

must
certainly be able to import EPUB 3 into BrailleBlaster. That's 
not a big
problem, since it is, after all, HTML.  But HTML5 does include
MathML and
SVG, which we already intend to use. No problem there I trust. 

It is not quite so clear that we should also import DAISY 4.
However if
DAISY 4 will be used to author DAISY with braille information,
then we
should support it. It is my understanding that it will be used 
for that
purpose, but I not 100% certain I am right.

John G
-----Original Message-----
From: brailleblaster-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:brailleblaster-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Chris 
von See
Sent: Monday, June 06, 2011 3:50 PM
To: brailleblaster@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [brailleblaster] Re: Importing Files

The link that Susan references is for the Authoring and
Interchange
format. The next version of DAISY uses ePub 3.0 (aka DAISY 4.0 
Part
B) as its distribution format, which is what most end users will 
end
up with.

There's a brief blurb about this in the DAISY Consortium 2010
Annual
Report:
"The convergence of the DAISY 4 distribution format with EPUB 3 
will
open up great opportunities for readers with print disabilities. 
It is
our responsibility to continue our involvement in and
influence on
the
implementation of fully accessible EPUB 3 in commercial e-
books as
well as in non-commercial information such as public
information,
information necessary for political decision making, and
disaster
preparedness information. The DAISY Consortium's endorsement of accessible EPUB 3 content will require an even greater effort by 
the
Consortium in collaboration with print disability communities
around
the world, to influence the accessibility of mainstream e-book
publications."



http://data.daisy.org/publications/docs//ann_report_2010/AnnualReport2010.ht

ml?q=publications/docs/ann_report_2010/AnnualReport2010.html


On Jun 6, 2011, at 2:59 PM, Susan Jolly wrote:


With a growing number of apps adding "Save as DAISY" options,
I'd
focus first on getting BrailleBlaster to work with DAISY
files.  If
BrailleBlaster provides unique features that users need and
can't
easily obtain elsewhere then that should motivate them to find 
some
method to convert any non-DAISY files to DAISY so they can use 
BrailleBlaster.

Another important consideration is that the next-generation
DAISY
XML format known as ZedAI has already been developed and is
currently under review.  So this is not a good time to be
investing
a lot of resources in the old DAISY format.

You can read more here:
http://www.daisy.org/zw/ZedAI_UserDocumentation

SusanJ







--
John J. Boyer; President, Chief Software Developer
Abilitiessoft, Inc.
http://www.abilitiessoft.com
Madison, Wisconsin USA
Developing software for people with disabilities





--
John J. Boyer; President, Chief Software Developer
Abilitiessoft, Inc.
http://www.abilitiessoft.com
Madison, Wisconsin USA
Developing software for people with disabilities







--
My websites:
GodTouches Digital Ministry, Inc. http://www.godtouches.org
Abilitiessoft, Inc. http://www.abilitiessoft.com
BrailleBlaster http://www.brailleblaster.org
Location: Madison, WI, USA






--
John J. Boyer; President, Chief Software Developer
Abilitiessoft, Inc.
http://www.abilitiessoft.com
Madison, Wisconsin USA
Developing software for people with disabilities






--
John J. Boyer; President, Chief Software Developer
Abilitiessoft, Inc.
http://www.abilitiessoft.com
Madison, Wisconsin USA
Developing software for people with disabilities

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