"I cannot figure out how to download and install plugins manually. I can see how to allow the application to do this but I am *very* reluctant to take this route. I don't know the source of the plugins, I cannot run them through a virus-scanner before installing/decompressing."
Plugins come from:
http://books.aetherial.net/downloads/Plugins/
The ones downloaded from the app are in
http://books.aetherial.net/downloads/plugins.xml
You can download any of these files, uncompress them, scan them, and place them in
~/Library/Application Support/Books/Plugins
to replicate the built-in functionality.
"I would also like to know if the application respects proxy settings when contacting sources for quickfill information - and I would like to know the precise addresses it is using to do so."
Some plugins respect proxy settings (HTTP-based ones) and some others don't (Z39.50 ones). You can explore the packages and look at the scripts for the hosts that are being contacted. For the compiled Amazon plugins, Books talks to the following servers:
This is all in the source if you care to inspect that.
"I note that the project page on Sourceforge has not been updated for sometime and that there is no obvious link to a source release of the current version (as opposed to source from the svn repository). I tend to rely on Sourceforge's emailed notices about updates to projects and I (sometimes) like to see and/or compile the source."
I've been a bit lazy in maintaining the SF source distros. The SVN is the one you should use, but I also try to make actual source releases at
http://books.aetherial.net/downloads/
that correspond with releases.
"This looks like a very promising application, but it is not quite as transparent as I would like - especially for an application that is going to be "calling out" a lot."
If you have any further questions, e-mail books@aetherial.net and I'll be happy to point out exactly where all this is in the source code. I don't know how to be any more transparent than that. :-)
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Security/Plugins - Chris Karr
"I cannot figure out how to download and install plugins manually. I can see how to allow the application to do this but I am *very* reluctant to take this route. I don't know the source of the plugins, I cannot run them through a virus-scanner before installing/decompressing."Plugins come from:
http://books.aetherial.net/downloads/Plugins/
The ones downloaded from the app are in
http://books.aetherial.net/downloads/plugins.xml
You can download any of these files, uncompress them, scan them, and place them in
~/Library/Application Support/Books/Plugins
to replicate the built-in functionality.
"I would also like to know if the application respects proxy settings when contacting sources for quickfill information - and I would like to know the precise addresses it is using to do so."
Some plugins respect proxy settings (HTTP-based ones) and some others don't (Z39.50 ones). You can explore the packages and look at the scripts for the hosts that are being contacted. For the compiled Amazon plugins, Books talks to the following servers:
http://ecs.amazonaws.ca
http://ecs.amazonaws.de
http://ecs.amazonaws.fr
http://ecs.amazonaws.jp
http://ecs.amazonaws.co.uk
http://ecs.amazonaws.com
This is all in the source if you care to inspect that.
"I note that the project page on Sourceforge has not been updated for sometime and that there is no obvious link to a source release of the current version (as opposed to source from the svn repository). I tend to rely on Sourceforge's emailed notices about updates to projects and I (sometimes) like to see and/or compile the source."
I've been a bit lazy in maintaining the SF source distros. The SVN is the one you should use, but I also try to make actual source releases at
http://books.aetherial.net/downloads/
that correspond with releases.
"This looks like a very promising application, but it is not quite as transparent as I would like - especially for an application that is going to be "calling out" a lot."
If you have any further questions, e-mail books@aetherial.net and I'll be happy to point out exactly where all this is in the source code. I don't know how to be any more transparent than that. :-)
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Sunday, April 06 2008 @ 05:49 PM PDT