Internet Access

PMIO includes a certain amount of Internet integration. The location system supports not only regular folders and baskets, but also Internet locations.

An Internet location is a web site. If you type a URL into the location text box at the top right of the browser window and press RETURN, PMIO will attempt to access that URL.

When you first install PMIO, the shortcut pane contains a shortcut called 'Example'. The URL of this shortcut is:

http://pink-mouse-productions.com/pmio/example/index.htm

You might also like to try this example:

http://pink-mouse-productions.com/pmio/example2/index.htm

These pages exist solely as examples and test URLs for PMIO. If you type a URL into the browser or double-click the example shortcut, PMIO will attempt to open the URL in the browser. This will cause the following behaviour:

If the URL does not specify a HTML page, PMIO will try various combinations of possible index page names. If it does not find a suitable page, an error message will be displayed.

In order to open the images for analysis, PMIO will download each image to its internet cache folder. Thereafter, the images will not need to be downloaded again unless the cached files are deleted.

Notes

While an Internet location is being viewed in the browser, the location browser will highlight the My Computer icon.

If you open the Site Properties window (under the File menu) you will find tool buttons that allow you to:
- Open the URL in your web browser
- Open the PMIO cache folder of the URL in Windows Explorer
- Delete the PMIO cache folder of the URL

Because the Internet access is integrated into PMIO's addressing system, any part of PMIO that is presented with an Internet address may appear to 'hang' while PMIO is busy downloading the image. It should resume once the download is complete.

There are certain problems associated with PMIO's Internet integration, notably the inability to cancel a download (since it all happens 'under the hood'). I hope to work these issues out in a future version. For now, this feature should be considered somewhat experimental.

This feature was originally conceived as a way of leeching pictures from web pages. The author recognises that this practise can adversely affect servers and asks that you do not use PMIO on servers that expressly forbid such access. Since many servers do not allow access without the correct referring page, PMIO will fail on those servers anyway. In any case, PMIO tries to lesson the load on the server by incorporating a small delay between each download.

The Internet system has not been tested on dial-up connections. I'd welcome feedback from anyone who has successfully (or unsuccessfully) tried this.

See also: