About the files in the Edit folder


(*) What are the files in this directory for?
is directory contains a very buggy text editor which may be able to save to an ssh server.
(*) What is the main application class here?
The EditPanel class is the main application file. It contains a main method which should start the editor. The SimpleEditPanel is similar but does not contain any support for saving to an ssh server.
(*) What is the status of the editor?
The editor is not really usable because it does not save properly.
(*) What does the WindMillLabel class do?
It provides a gui label which animates an ascii character spinning around. It was intended to provide information to the user when some process is being carried out. It should become a general ProgressDisplay class or implement the ProgressDisplay interface. A ProgressDisplay would provide a way to show the work being carried out by another object, such as a Task object, but the ProgressDisplay would not need to know about the nature of that work. It could have methods such as 'showTotalWork' and 'showChunkWork'. In a console environment, the showChunkWork method might just print a dot or other marker to the console to indicate that a chunk of the work has been carried out, for example, a certain percentage or number of bytes of a file has been downloaded.
(*) Do the batch scripts work?
In this directory are a number of batch scripts such as 'compile.bat' and 'run.bat'. Obviously these only work on a Microsoft Windows computer. The point of them is to make the setting of the classpath slightly more easy. However, the path to the javac compiler is hardcoded in the scripts and therefor will not work if the path on your computer is different from the path on mine. Also, under very old jdks such as 1.1 if you set the classpath on the command line it appears that you also have to set the path to the 'classes.zip' file in the jdk lib directory. In other words the batch scripts are very unlikely to work without modification if you try to use them. Probably something like the ant http://ant.apache.org build tool would be a better idea.
(*) Can the editor run as an Applet?
No, but the SimpleEditPanel should in theory be able to run as an applet eventually. The page edit.html contains the applet. Generally ssh requires access to the local file system in order to store the host key, so an unsigned applet would not be able to use the ssh function.
(*) Why not just use FTP to transfer files to the server?
Mainly because the sourceforge server does not support FTP and also because ssh is more secure, in that the password for the server is encrypted and the file contents as well I believe. This means that your transfers would be secure from packet sniffing attacks, but ssh would not help you against local keyboard loggers which are a real possibility in internet cafes.
(*) What needs to be done on the text editor?

  1. When a file is loading some kind of progress messages should be displayed.
  2. The editor should make backups of files on the server before it overwrites things.
  3. The sshtools should be reduced to their absolute essentials in order to make the jar file smaller

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