PADManager: free. More complex than PADGen. Published
by the Submit-Everywhere/RoboSoft people who also brought you the Rudenko <NewsFeed> PAD extension. You edit by filling in fields in a
collapsible tree. It is the most professional/serious PAD
editor I have used. It
supports a number of PAD extensions directly, but not PADmap or
PADRING.
Every time you make a change, e.g. a new version, you must do five things to make the change take:
| Tricky PAD Fields | |
|---|---|
| Field | Notes |
| Program_Name | Human name of the program. Do not embed the version number. |
| Program_Version | Program version number, usually containing a decimal point. |
| Program_Cost_Dollars | In US dollars |
| Filename_Versioned | deprecated |
| Filename_Previous | deprecated |
| Filename_Generic | deprecated |
| Filename_Long | deprecated |
| File_Size_Bytes | Size of the entire distributable zip in bytes. Bare number. |
| File_Size_K | Size of the entire distributable zip in K, i.e. kilobytes = bytes/1024. Bare number. |
| File_Size_MB | Size of the entire distributable zip in MB, i.e. megabytes = bytes/(1024* 1024). Accurate to two decimal places. Bare number. |
| Program_OS_Support | Which OS (Operating System) es will the program run under. The definitive list is posted as part of the PAD Specifications. Here is the list in a somewhat more readable form that it appears in the XML-based PAD specification. Some sites still expect the old PAD spec list. I email such sites to prod them to update to the current spec. |
| Program_Specific_Category | deprecated Despite its name, this is the broad category for the program. The definitive list is posted as part of the PAD Specifications. Here is the list in a somewhat more readable form that it appears in the XML-based PAD specification. |
| Program_Category_Class | Category class and subclass specified as a single field with :: separating the two parts. The definitive list is posted as part of the PAD Specifications. However submission sites usually leave out some of the categories and add their own. Here is the list in a somewhat more readable form that |
| Keywords | Make sure this field has no trailing punctuation. PADGen does not enforce this but some submission sites do. You can provide this list in various other languages. |
| Char_Desc_450 | PADGen insists this field contain no newline characters, (embedded, leading or trailing). Unfortunately
you can’t see them in the PADGen editor. To get rid of them, I often resort to editing the
*.pml file with SlickEdit. PADGen is
just being futzy trying to protect you from relying on alignment that will be reflowed by a browser
displaying the field. XML permits newlines wherever you would have a space. If
PADGen wants unusually tidy files, it should automatically convert newlines to spaces then trim lead and
trailing spaces. I wrote the author to get this corrected. He said he has little time, since PADGen is a
volunteer effort. It is such a frustration // convert newlines to blanks and trim lead/trail blanks desc450 = desc450.replace('\n',' ').trim();You can provide this text in various other languages. |
| Char_Desc_2000 | This long description should be complete in itself. The end user will see only one of the descriptions. It is not a continuation of Char_Desc_250. There is no point is carefully aligning your description. This is XML. It may be reflowed. Avoid any high ASCII (American Standard Code for Information Interchange) characters or entities. You can’t count on those displaying the file rendering it properly. Avoid any &, < or > even if they are not being used as HTML. Some sites reject PADs with URL (Uniform Resource Locator)s in this field, even ones not hyperlinked. You can provide this text in various other languages besides English. |
| Application_Screenshot_URL | *.png, *.jpg or *.gif, not *.bmp. Should be 200 × 200 or larger. |
| Application_Icon_URL | *.png, *.jpg or *.gif, not *.ico. Should be 32 × 32. Some sites accept *.ico files, but that is not kosher. A few sites refuse *.png. A PADSite should make a copy of the icon, convert it to their preferred form and serve it locally. This prevents malicious substitution of icons with pornography or advertising. |
| Application_XML_File_URL | full URL of where the master copy of your PAD *.xml file is posted. |
| Primary_Download_URL | full URL of where to download the program. |
| Secondary_Download_URL | Another full URL of where to download the program in case the first in not-available. Having multiple download mirrors gives your program extra status. |
| Distribution_Permissions | Free form text to describe licensing, restrictions and purchase options. |
| EULA (End User Licence Agreement) | Free form text to the end user license agreement, e.g. LGPL (Lesser General Public License), public domain, non-military use only. |
PADRING ![]() |
PADRING is an extension that lets you insert a list of all your other PAD URLs or a related set. You can also list other people’s URLs. This will help propagate knowledge of these PADs around the web. PADRING is not widely supported. It has been supplanted by the more compact, easier to update PADmaps. Its main advantage is it spreads your PAD URLs to even those who refuse to understand the PADRING or PADmap protocol. |
PADmap
![]() |
PADmap is an extension that lets you insert a reference to a list of all your other PAD URLs or a related set. This is an improvement on the PADRING idea. The advantage of this scheme is you don’t need to keep changing your PADs when you add new programs. All your PAD s, including obsolete ones, automatically point to the latest list, in my case at http://mindprod.com/pad/allpads.txt with a PAD extension that looks like this: Unfortunately, the padmaps.org people who invented it have gone out of business. |
| NewsFeed | an extension that lets you broadcast knowledge of your RSS (RDF Site Summary) or Atom newsfeed that describes updates and relevant announcements about your software. Details. |
PAD (Packet Assembler/Disassembler) has another completely different meaning. One of its jobs is to reassemble arriving packets in the proper order. It is a small computer owned by the local packet net company (Datapac in Canada). You can access it using your modem with a local phone call. The PAD will then route your call via digital satellite, fibre optic and microwave links almost anywhere on earth. Though static on the line between your computer and the PAD can cause errors, once it reaches the PAD, special error detection and correction methods guarantee your data gets to its final destination with no further errors added. This method is much cheaper than phoning long distance. Packet nets use long distance circuits about 250 times more efficiently than 2400 BPS (Bits Per Second) modems phoning direct. Many modems cannot call directly more than a few hundred miles because of the static and other distortions. Any modem using the packet nets can easily reach the four corners of the earth. Now, the pioneering packet nets are made obsolete by the Internet.
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You can get the freshest copy of this page from: | or possibly from your local J: drive (Java virtual drive/mindprod.com website mirror) |
| http://mindprod.com/jgloss/pad.html | J:\mindprod\jgloss\pad.html | |
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