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Posted to user@lenya.apache.org by Jonathan Linczak <gr...@mac.com> on 2005/11/24 17:09:51 UTC

serving PDFs in Lenya - still a problem

Hi all,

Finally got back to being on the list again after working with Hiram 
College on their Lenya installation.  Hope everyone is well.

So I'm going to resurrect the PDF serving problem in Lenya once more.  
I started a thread earlier about this back a few months, but it's time 
to come back to it because: a) it still hasn't been resolved, b) you 
know how everyone gets upset when things don't work, and c) I have some 
new research under my belt about this problem.

Please take a look at this entry 
(http://redarrow.textdrive.com/article/34/troubles-with-serving-pdfs) 
on my personal site that explains the problem and what I did to isolate 
it.  In summary, certain PDFs will not load for people using IE on 
Windows.  By testing PDF documents in different applications, I think I 
was able to isolate the problem to either Lenya or Cocoon and their 
methods for serving PDF files.  I've included Request and Response 
headers in each case to bring some of the problems to light.

If anyone out there knows anything at all about how to fix this or even 
continue the testing of this problem, please let me know.  It's become 
a thorn in my side at Hiram and if we can't get anything resolved here, 
I may resolve to paying one of you guys personally to look at and solve 
the problem.  :)

Thanks!
Jon Linczak


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Re: serving PDFs in Lenya - still a problem

Posted by Jonathan Linczak <gr...@mac.com>.
On Nov 24, 2005, at 5:54 PM, Michael Wechner wrote:

> Jonathan Linczak wrote:
>
>> If anyone out there knows anything at all about how to fix this or  
>> even continue the testing of this problem, please let me know.  It's  
>> become a thorn in my side at Hiram and if we can't get anything  
>> resolved here, I may resolve to paying one of you guys personally to  
>> look at and solve the problem.  :)
>
> so, I won't answer your question ;-)
>
> Seriously, what version is Hiram resp. you using? IIRC this was fixed  
> recently
>
> http://svn.apache.org/repos/asf/lenya/branches/BRANCH_1_2_X/src/ 
> webapp/lenya/resources.xmap
>
> by setting the byte-range parameter to false (which has other  
> drawbacks ...)
>
> Michi

Hey Michael!  Glad to hear from you.  I didn't even realize this had a  
patch!  I applied the fix to the resources.xmap file and so far every  
PDF file I've tested seems to be working, which I guess is a good sign,  
eh?  :)  We are using the 1.2.4 release, no SVN releases.  But applying  
the fix was easy nonetheless.  I'll ask some people at Hiram to test  
out the PDFs from their end and see if we are still having problems.

Thanks!
Jon


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Re: serving PDFs in Lenya - still a problem

Posted by Felix Röthenbacher <fe...@wyona.com>.
Jonathan Linczak wrote:
> On Nov 24, 2005, at 5:54 PM, Michael Wechner wrote:
> 
>> Jonathan Linczak wrote:
>>
>>> If anyone out there knows anything at all about how to fix this or  
>>> even continue the testing of this problem, please let me know.  It's  
>>> become a thorn in my side at Hiram and if we can't get anything  
>>> resolved here, I may resolve to paying one of you guys personally to  
>>> look at and solve the problem.  :)
>>
>>
>> so, I won't answer your question ;-)
>>
>> Seriously, what version is Hiram resp. you using? IIRC this was fixed  
>> recently
>>
>> http://svn.apache.org/repos/asf/lenya/branches/BRANCH_1_2_X/src/ 
>> webapp/lenya/resources.xmap
>>
>> by setting the byte-range parameter to false (which has other  
>> drawbacks ...)
>>
>> Michi
> 
> 
> Oops, I guess I should ask: what are the drawbacks to using this patch?  
>  Are there certain settings you should have when you create a PDF?

PDF's have an option called FastWebview. If this is enabled, the reader
on the client side tries to load single pages with byte-range request
instead of loading the full document. This speeds up response time when
loading.

hth

- Felix

> 
> Jon
> 


-- 
Felix Röthenbacher                  felix.roethenbacher@wyona.com
Wyona Inc.  -   Open Source Content Management   -   Apache Lenya
http://www.wyona.com                      http://lenya.apache.org

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Re: serving PDFs in Lenya - still a problem

Posted by Felix Röthenbacher <fe...@wyona.com>.

Josias Thoeny wrote:
> On Fri, 2005-11-25 at 09:41 +0100, Felix Röthenbacher wrote:
> 
>>
 >> [...]
>>
>>Actually, if the pdf's are not prepared for page-at-a-time downloading
>>(fast web-view in acrobat 6.x), they will not appear more quickly
>>in the reader. I think it makes a difference wether the documents are
>>prepared for fast web-view or not. Or am I mis-understanding something?
>>(By the way, for PDF's smaller than 250k byte serving does not apply
>>on a fast connection, but on a slow modem connection, pdf's are always
>>byte-served (if they are prepared for this)).
> 
> 
> What I wanted to say is that since the patch to Lenya has been applied,
> the server will always respond with 
>   Accept-Ranges: none
> to any PDF request handled in the above-mentioned sitemaps, thus the PDF
> plugin won't try to do "fast web-view", independent of the document.
> Sorry if I was not clear.

Thanks for the clarification! Are there any efforts on the Cocoon side
to make the ResourceReader multiple byte ranges aware?

Thanks

- Felix

> 
> Josias
> 
> 
>>- Felix
>>

-- 
Felix Röthenbacher                  felix.roethenbacher@wyona.com
Wyona Inc.  -   Open Source Content Management   -   Apache Lenya
http://www.wyona.com                      http://lenya.apache.org

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Re: serving PDFs in Lenya - still a problem

Posted by Josias Thoeny <jo...@wyona.com>.
On Fri, 2005-11-25 at 09:41 +0100, Felix Röthenbacher wrote:
> Josias Thoeny wrote:
>  >>
>  >> ....
> > 
> > 
> > Hi Jonathan
> > 
> > Good to see you back.
> > The drawback of the patch is that the browser now has to download the
> > complete pdf before it can display something. For large pdfs and slow
> > connections this can be annoying.
> > Furthermore, the "resume interrupted download" option of download
> > managers does not work anymore for pdfs.
> 
> Does this only apply to pdf's or to all binary downloads?

The patch of the resource.xmap and resource-shared.xmap affects only
pdfs. Other binary files should be fine.

> 
> > Whether the pdf documents have fast web-view enabled or not should not
> > make any difference.
> 
> Actually, if the pdf's are not prepared for page-at-a-time downloading
> (fast web-view in acrobat 6.x), they will not appear more quickly
> in the reader. I think it makes a difference wether the documents are
> prepared for fast web-view or not. Or am I mis-understanding something?
> (By the way, for PDF's smaller than 250k byte serving does not apply
> on a fast connection, but on a slow modem connection, pdf's are always
> byte-served (if they are prepared for this)).

What I wanted to say is that since the patch to Lenya has been applied,
the server will always respond with 
  Accept-Ranges: none
to any PDF request handled in the above-mentioned sitemaps, thus the PDF
plugin won't try to do "fast web-view", independent of the document.
Sorry if I was not clear.

Josias

> 
> - Felix
> 
> > 
> > - Josias
> > 
> > 
> >>Jon
> >>
> 


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Re: serving PDFs in Lenya - still a problem

Posted by Felix Röthenbacher <fe...@wyona.com>.
Josias Thoeny wrote:
 >>
 >> ....
> 
> 
> Hi Jonathan
> 
> Good to see you back.
> The drawback of the patch is that the browser now has to download the
> complete pdf before it can display something. For large pdfs and slow
> connections this can be annoying.
> Furthermore, the "resume interrupted download" option of download
> managers does not work anymore for pdfs.

Does this only apply to pdf's or to all binary downloads?

> Whether the pdf documents have fast web-view enabled or not should not
> make any difference.

Actually, if the pdf's are not prepared for page-at-a-time downloading
(fast web-view in acrobat 6.x), they will not appear more quickly
in the reader. I think it makes a difference wether the documents are
prepared for fast web-view or not. Or am I mis-understanding something?
(By the way, for PDF's smaller than 250k byte serving does not apply
on a fast connection, but on a slow modem connection, pdf's are always
byte-served (if they are prepared for this)).

- Felix

> 
> - Josias
> 
> 
>>Jon
>>

-- 
Felix Röthenbacher                  felix.roethenbacher@wyona.com
Wyona Inc.  -   Open Source Content Management   -   Apache Lenya
http://www.wyona.com                      http://lenya.apache.org

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Re: serving PDFs in Lenya - still a problem

Posted by Josias Thoeny <jo...@wyona.com>.
On Thu, 2005-11-24 at 21:05 -0500, Jonathan Linczak wrote:
> On Nov 24, 2005, at 5:54 PM, Michael Wechner wrote:
> 
> > Jonathan Linczak wrote:
> >
> >> If anyone out there knows anything at all about how to fix this or  
> >> even continue the testing of this problem, please let me know.  It's  
> >> become a thorn in my side at Hiram and if we can't get anything  
> >> resolved here, I may resolve to paying one of you guys personally to  
> >> look at and solve the problem.  :)
> >
> > so, I won't answer your question ;-)
> >
> > Seriously, what version is Hiram resp. you using? IIRC this was fixed  
> > recently
> >
> > http://svn.apache.org/repos/asf/lenya/branches/BRANCH_1_2_X/src/ 
> > webapp/lenya/resources.xmap
> >
> > by setting the byte-range parameter to false (which has other  
> > drawbacks ...)
> >
> > Michi
> 
> Oops, I guess I should ask: what are the drawbacks to using this patch?  
>   Are there certain settings you should have when you create a PDF?

Hi Jonathan

Good to see you back.
The drawback of the patch is that the browser now has to download the
complete pdf before it can display something. For large pdfs and slow
connections this can be annoying.
Furthermore, the "resume interrupted download" option of download
managers does not work anymore for pdfs.
Whether the pdf documents have fast web-view enabled or not should not
make any difference.

- Josias

> 
> Jon
> 
> 
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> To unsubscribe, e-mail: user-unsubscribe@lenya.apache.org
> For additional commands, e-mail: user-help@lenya.apache.org
> 
> 


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Re: serving PDFs in Lenya - still a problem

Posted by Jonathan Linczak <gr...@mac.com>.
On Nov 24, 2005, at 5:54 PM, Michael Wechner wrote:

> Jonathan Linczak wrote:
>
>> If anyone out there knows anything at all about how to fix this or  
>> even continue the testing of this problem, please let me know.  It's  
>> become a thorn in my side at Hiram and if we can't get anything  
>> resolved here, I may resolve to paying one of you guys personally to  
>> look at and solve the problem.  :)
>
> so, I won't answer your question ;-)
>
> Seriously, what version is Hiram resp. you using? IIRC this was fixed  
> recently
>
> http://svn.apache.org/repos/asf/lenya/branches/BRANCH_1_2_X/src/ 
> webapp/lenya/resources.xmap
>
> by setting the byte-range parameter to false (which has other  
> drawbacks ...)
>
> Michi

Oops, I guess I should ask: what are the drawbacks to using this patch?  
  Are there certain settings you should have when you create a PDF?

Jon


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Re: serving PDFs in Lenya - still a problem

Posted by Michael Wechner <mi...@wyona.com>.
Jonathan Linczak wrote:

> 
> If anyone out there knows anything at all about how to fix this or even 
> continue the testing of this problem, please let me know.  It's become a 
> thorn in my side at Hiram and if we can't get anything resolved here, I 
> may resolve to paying one of you guys personally to look at and solve 
> the problem.  :)

so, I won't answer your question ;-)

Seriously, what version is Hiram resp. you using? IIRC this was fixed 
recently

http://svn.apache.org/repos/asf/lenya/branches/BRANCH_1_2_X/src/webapp/lenya/resources.xmap

by setting the byte-range parameter to false (which has other drawbacks ...)

Michi
> 
> Thanks!
> Jon Linczak
> 
> 
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> To unsubscribe, e-mail: user-unsubscribe@lenya.apache.org
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> 
> 


-- 
Michael Wechner
Wyona Inc.  -   Open Source Content Management   -   Apache Lenya
http://www.wyona.com              http://cocoon.apache.org/lenya/
michael.wechner@wyona.com                        michi@apache.org


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