Issues to resolve
Anyterm has now reached a point where I think it can be useful,
but some problems remain. Here are the issues that I think need to
be addressed. If you have the necessary skills do get in touch.
Otherwise, watch this space for developments.
In the Anyterm daemon:
- Some serious thoughts about security are needed.
- The difference detection should be optimised to avoid short
fragments taking into account the overhead of each edit script
command.
- The difference detection algorithm could be improved to use
less memory; there are some notes about this in the source.
In the Javascript:
- Some keys auto-repeat but others (e.g. cursor keys)
don't.
- There are some problems with the keyboard code in Konqueror
and Opera. For example, if anyone can suggest how to tell the
difference between a double quote and page down in Opera, please
let me know: they both return keycode 34.
- Some keys may not work on some browsers. In particular,
ctrl-^ (ASCII code 30) doesn't work on Mozilla; as a work-around
for this particular problem you can type ctrl-. instead to get that
code. Please report any other combinations that don't work for
you.
General
- Multiple sessions between the same browser and server may not
work well since the browser may limit itself to two simultaneous
connections per server; correct operation of the display update
channel requires that each session can have a request in progress
at any time. Increasing Mozilla's
network.http.max-persistent-connections-per-server preference
fixes it. Can it also be fixed using any sort of HTTP header
magic, e.g. avoiding keepalive?
- There have previously been problems when sessions are closed,
e.g. processes hang around forever or become zombies. Apache may
fail to stop or restart because it cannot kill one of its children
(presumably the Anyterm backend process). Some issues have been
fixed in this area, but some problems may remain. Let me know if
you see any problems.
- Display glitches do sometimes occur because of limitations and bugs in
the terminal emulation.
- Not much testing has been done with several simultaneous
connections, since I don't have enough hands to do this
properly. Let me know if you find any issues.
There are probably thousands of other things to mention. Do get
in touch if you have found a problem, or a solution.