Logo


BIPED
(BI-protocol Page EDitor)


Current version of BIPED is v1.03 by Doug Dunlop <dunlop@eol.ists.ca>

What is BIPED?

BIPED is a nifty little Perl5 CGI script that allows you to view both the source code and the rendering of your page within a single screen.

But there's more... If you change the source code you can save it back to it's original location again (or to a different location).

But wait, that's not all... I'll bet when you're making changes to your pages you want to see what the page looks like too, don't you? How about check your HTML? And how about checking for those misspelled words? Well now you can and that's where the bi-protocol part comes in.

You are going to need Netscape because it seems that browsers can be very different when if comes down to doing this bleeding edge stuff and I just haven't handled all the possibilities. Yikes!

How does BIPED work?

BIPED uses uses 2 protocols to get the 2 views of the your page so that you can both see the source code and also how the page is rendered through both the server (httpd, gopherd etc) and the WWW browser. What all this means is that in the FTP Protocol section you will see your source code as it exists on disk without any filtering, interpretation, etc. that normally happens when your httpd server sends the document in response to an http protocol request and without the HTML rendering that your Browser normally does to make things look nice. BIPED presents all of this source in a TEXTAREA form element so that you can scroll around to see all the source, and edit it, in a small (user defineable sized) box.

BIPED also does a GET using a standard URL (i.e. you can get http, gopher, news, file, ftp) and presents that fully rendered document just like if you had retrieved the document directly with your browser (well almost). CGI scripts will be interpreted by the httpd server and the HTML will be interpreted by your Browser.

How much does BIPED cost?

Order today! If you place your order right now you'll get:
  1. The BIPED CGI script
  2. The updated ftplib.pl
  3. This great documentation
All for three easy payments of $0.00. That's right free! No payment til '96, no payments in '96, no payments after '96. Please heed the copyright though.

Go ahead, give it a try right from BIPED's home site now. You don't even have to install it and you can already use it.

What are all the form fields for?

So here is what the User Control section of the page looks like:
(If you can't see the form elements here then you can forget about using BIPED with your current browser. BTW, this form is fully operational)

BIPED (BI-protocol Page EDitor) by Doug Dunlop
User Controls
Host:       Username:  Password: 
FTP Path:   for editing
URL:        for rendering
Options:   Show FTP dialog Reuse password Render Page Ruler 
Edit Area: RowsCols      Actions:

All the field values in the User Controls will be maintained from one form submission to the next so you won't have to keep entering them as you make changes and save the document. One exception is the Password field which can be maintained as a user configurable option but is not maintained by default for security reasons.

And here's what the individual User Controls are for:

Host:
The fully qualified host name of the machine where the file you want to edit resides. For example eol.ists.ca.
Username:
The username for login via FTP. This is you actual account username so be sure to read the section on Security Issues below.
Password:
The password for login via FTP. Same as for username but also you should also know that your password will be passed around the Internet in cleartext. Be sure to read the section on Security Issues below.
FTP Path:
The actual path to the file when using FTP. If you get this wrong and the file doesn't exist (or cannot be read for any reason) then the BIPED will remove up to the first "/" and try to list the directory.
URL:
If you don't know what a URL is then you shouldn't be using BIPED. Do keep in mind that the document retrieved via FTP and the URL are independent and may bear no relation to one-another. It is up to you to make sure that you viewing the same document because they don't have to be the same document or even on the same host.
Options:
Show FTP dialog
To help you figure out why you are not getting something via FTP this gives you all of the dialog between BIPED and the FTP daemon on the Host.
Reuse Password
This is a very insecure convienence feature so that you don't have to type in your password each time you submit. It is off by default. If you turn it on then your password will be contained in the form that you receive back in cleartext. The password field may look like it's unreadable by try viewing the source for the page. Be sure to read the section on Security Issues below.
Render Page
Sometimes you don't want to see the rendered page, sometime you do.
Ruler
Hokey ruler that allows easier character column counting.
Edit Area
Rows / Cols
The number of rows/cols to use for the TEXTAREA box for editing the file.
Actions
Spell
Send the document to a spell checker. All HTML tags will be ignored. The result is a list of words found in the file which were not found in the dictionary. The document is retrieved using using the URL not the Host, Username, FTP Path.
Weblint
Send the document to a Weblint checker which reports on HTML coding errors found in the file. As for Spell Checking, the document is retrieved using the URL.
Reset
Reset the form to how it was last sent. This does not undo saved changes!
Load
Load the document specified by Host, Username and FTP Path. If a URL is given and Render Page is on then the page will also be rendered.
Save
Save changes made to the location given by Host, Username and FTP Path. This does have to be the same as where it was loaded from so be careful when saving. It is very easy to wipe out files other files accidentally.
FTP Status
FTP Status is meant to let you know if the FTP operation was successful or not and, if not, why not. Some of its output is a bit raw. Be warned there are a few FTP servers out there that BIPED just can't connect to and the error when that's the case is "Invalid argument". If this happens to you then BIPED probably won't work for you, but double check the values you entered for Host, Username, Password and FTP Path just to be sure. If anyone knows what causes this please let me know.

Cool Stealth Features

  1. If you use the Back button of your Browser (i.e. Netscape) then you can "Undo" Editing changes that you have saved. Just back up to the last version that you like and click Save again. The contents of the edit area on that page will be save to the FTP location.
  2. If you can't remember the exact name or path of the file on the FTP server then just enter a "/" in the FTP Path and you will get a directory listing. Append a "/" to directory name that you want to decendend into until you find the file name.
  3. Want to know the Read/Write permissions, Ownership and File size, then use the Stealth Feature above to get a directory listing. Use another window if you are in the middle of an Edit.
  4. If you discover that you have started editing something but can't save because of write protections then save it somewhere else that you do have write permission by changing the FTP Path. Be careful with this feature or you could wipe out a file accidentally.
  5. Save the biped page with the form elements filled in and you can edit off-line. Connect again later to the net and click "Save". Be sure to save "Source" and not "Text" or this stealth feature won't work.
  6. Now with Netscape 2.0 lines are wrapped automatically making editing even easier.

Relative URLs

A quick word about inline graphics and/or relative URLs contained with your document. Because BIPED is getting the document for you and including it within the BIPED page, relative URLs won't work unless you include the following tag within the portion of the document (substitute your own actual document URL).

Security Issues

Warning I feel that I should tell you that the BIPED script presents some serious security concerns to it's users. Please consider the following points carefully:
  1. You must supply your real username/password for FTP access to your account and this will pass in cleartext form over the Internet each time the form is submitted for any type of operation (i.e. Load, Save, Weblint, Spell)
  2. A script like this could save copies of your username/password as it runs. Be sure you can trust the web administrator controlling the script's operation.
  3. If you select Re-use Password then your password is sent back in the form as cleartext even though only bullets appear in the form. If you view source you can read the password in cleartext.
  4. This script cannot render documents that are protected using the access control methods of the www server (e.g. httpd, htaccess). This is because the CGI interface does not pass the AUTHORIZATION part of the MIME header and this script does not have the smarts to carry on the conversation to perform the authorization on your behalf. This does not affect the ability to edit the document, BIPED just can't render it.
If in doubt about security problems but you want to try BIPED out anyway, then you can use BIPED to accesss an anonymous ftp server. Note that you must still enter values in the Username/Password fields but for anonymous ftp this is should be either ftp/username@your.host or anonymous/username@your.host. Doing this poses no security risks to to your personal Username/Password.

You could even upload the document, that you wish to work on, to an anonymous ftp server and use the anonymous login procedure and use enter the value in the URL field to get the file from the anonymous ftp server for rendering. For example: . When you are done making changes then retrieve it from the anonymous ftp server and put it back where it should be. Doing this, again, poses no security threat to you Username/Password, however someone else could edit or download your file document too, because if you can access it anonymously, then so can everyone else on the Internet. Also, the processing of any WWW server-side scripts will not happen.

Getting and Installing BIPED

If you have a burning need to install BIPED then you can pick it up right from here. But just hold on a minute! You can just use BIPED right from it's home site. But, even if you are determined to install BIPED for yourself, then first we need to discuss what is required. You are going to need: If you are sure that all the requirements are met and functioning, then you will need to copy the BIPED script (i.e. biped) to a directory that allows you to execute CGI scripts and ftplib to your perl lib directory (likely /usr/local/lib/perl5). Change the first line in biped to point to your working version per perl5.

Well that's it. Any questions? Ask them using the HyperNews link at the bottom of this page.

Acknowledgements

Many thanks to:

History


v1.00   Sep 28, 1995     Initial Release.
v1.01   Sep 29, 1995     Made security warning more prominent, no other changes.
v1.02   Nov 30, 1995     Improved handling of bad ftp paths.
v1.03   Nov 15, 1996     Updated for current libwww-perl use of is_success

Copyright © 1995, Doug Dunlop

HyperNews on BIPED

This page last updated: , Number of accesses:
biped-1.03.tgz last updated: , Size is:
ftplib-1.2.tgz last updated: , Size is: