[texhax] Octave in LaTeX

[James Quirk]

Philip,

> 
> James, what does "Waiting on FNV server" mean ?
> Philip Taylor
> 
> 
>From past conversations I believe you are running Windows, yes? Therefore 
I'm not sure the example will work at your end. Anyhow, under OSX and 
Linux, if you ran one of:

   perl -x octave.pdf -help
   ruby -x octave.pdf -help

you would have activated the built-in man page:

FNV(1)                             FNV Proxy                            FNV(1)



NAME
       FNV (Facta Non Verba/Actions Not Words)

SYNOPSIS
       perl -x octave.pdf  [-view|-check|-list|-kill]

DESCRIPTION
       This PDF contains one, or more, localhost servers that allow the
       document to interact with your local machine so as to incorporate
       dynamic content. For safety reasons, the servers are designed to be
       launched by a custom helper application, FNV, that checks for computer
       viruses and the like. By design, however, FNV-based PDFs have a built-
       in proxy mechanism that allows the servers to be launched manually.

<snip>

So the message you're seeing -- Waiting on FNV server -- is exactly that.
The shell-widget in the PDF has made a request of the FNV localhost
server, which you've not launched, and so the widget will wait 
indefinitely. But the fact that you see the warning message is good,
because it shows that the /RichMedia annotation is working and
you will be able to view the server's source code, which is also
embedded in the PDF.

To do so: open the bookmarks panel and expand "stdlib" then click
on "BashShell.amr". This will bring up the library routine used
to add the shell-widget to the LaTeX document. You can then search
for the message "waiting on FNV server" by clicking the magnifying
glass, which appears on the source-browser's control panel.
The message lives inside of a fold::as3 i.e. it is ActionScript3 code.
After the search, hit the left-arrow icon to return to the opening view.
You can then work through the browser tabs, from left to right.

Afterwards, to locate the easter-egg I alluded to, you will need to bring 
up Amrita::Origami's splash page by clicking the group of three icons 
containing the magnifying glass, so as to hide the three panels which make 
up the source display. Then in the bottom right-hand corner of the splash 
page, you will see a small red circle. Position your mouse over the circle 
and you will activate said easter-egg, which you can then work through to 
gain an appreciation of why I've constructed this extended message.

Yesterday, Adobe announced it was shedding 7% of its workforce
and was end-of-lining flashplayer on mobile devices. This was
met by a wave of analysis in the media which can only be
described as weak. To understand my comment, take a look at:

   http://www.galcit.caltech.edu/~jjq/blind-pew-part2.pdf

It's UK parliamentary report HC856:
 
   Peer review in scientific publications

to which I've added a custom web-browser. By June 23, 2012,
I will have added a series of document threads that hopefully
will speak to the man on clapham omnibus (i.e. the beleagured
tax payer) regarding the document requirements of
computational science.

Now if you've read this far and can't appreciate the relevance of the 
above to TeX and this newsgroup then I'm afraid you will need to read 
HC856 from cover to cover. Groups such as "Beyond the PDF" which are 
arguing for the next generation of scientific document are implicitly 
arguing for moving beyond TeX and now that politicians are in on the act, 
there is no telling what mandates might come down the pike.

Returning to flashplayer, as hated as it is in many quarters it does
offer a path for migrating from a classical static journal article
to a rich featured one, in an orderly fashion. I believe this is
important so as not to throw the baby out with the bath water.

Anyhow, I've prattled on long enough. But to see that
the above has some relevance to this newsgroup, open
the bookmarks panel of blind-pew-part2 and work through
the TeX-related links. For best effect, uncheck the check
box which appears in the top-right corner of the FNV browser.
It controls whether the browser scales in size or it reflows
the page text.

James

p.s. I'm not trying to sell you on a piece of software.

p.p.s. Anyone who would like to pick up the above discussion offline,
       just drop me an e-mail.