I have a cpanel account that seems to have an image management panel
that is likely just a front end to the convert binary....

--
Todd H.
http://www.toddh.net/

Afaik there is a Perl module that interfaces with ImageMagick.

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Yes there is a module to interface to about 20 different programming
languages. But it still doesnt look like anyone did anything with it.

Besides, Id rather just have a CGI that made use of ImageMagick rather than
a "get this language, get this library, get this module, then this will
work" finished product. But if anyone has done one Im willing to look at
it.

Gandalf Parker

I am 100% sure that several people have used the ImageMagick library
with perl:
http://groups-beta.google.com/groups?q=imagemagick+perl
<http://groups-beta.google.com/groups?q=imagemagick+perl+group%
3Acomp.lang.perl.*>

Already on your host, normally

I guess it's just using ppm and off you go

See urls above, I am sure there are plenty of examples:
http://www.google.com/search?q=imagemagick%20perl%20examples
http://www.google.com/search?q=imagemagick%20perl%20cgi

http://archive.mmdc.net/archives/2004/12/g...ng_imagema.html
might be useful.

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OK so far the answer seems to be "no".

Thats too bad. Well I guess I can probably muddle thru the html and cgi
part, and ask harder questions in the graphics forums. Sure looks like a
fun toy.

Gandalf Parker

Or the question not terribly well asked.

Give a specific example of the sort of thing you are looking to do
with it.

Best Regards,
--
Todd H.
http://www.toddh.net/

You can add me to the list. I found the ImageMagick library very easy to
work with.

--
Bob Broughton
http://broughton.ca/
Vancouver, BC, Canada
"Not all carcinogens are known to cause cancer in humans."
- Todd Benson, mailto:[Email Removed] , Oct. 24, 2004

I use it with Perl on my own computer to preprocess image files for
webpages.

You might try searching around in here:
http://cgi.resourceindex.com/Programs_and_Scripts/Perl/

Since you're posting agent is Xnews, I assume you're
on GNU/Linux. Image Magick is probably already on your
computer. It can be scripted with the bash shell quite
easily. Try googling for a "bash Image Magick script" or
the like. But that doesn't get you to CGI.

Over dialup, Image::Magick perl module might take 30 minutes over dialup
from CPAN.

http://search.cpan.org/~jcristy/PerlMagick-6.20/Magick.pm

You won't need to download Perl on a Linux machine. It is already
there. At the top of your perl program, after installing the
Image::Magick module, just put:

use Image::Magick;
use use CGI qw/:standard/;

The CGI module will already be installed.
Image::Magick comes with its own documentation.
So does CGI. And, image magick will likely be
on your machine already. If you do a search for
Image::Magick at CPAN there are several pages of
related modules.

For complete scripts that use Image::Magick, you
are going to have to do the download anyway.
--
mbstevens
http://www.mbstevens.com/

Well I tried to forestall the usual google responses. Im barely above an
average user on many things but I consider myself a fairly expert
googler. :) Most of the google links on ImageMagick tend to be
instructions how to install it, or links to the ImageMagick
documentation. Or they are information on how to use IM with Perl, or
Javascript, or C++, or PHP. There are only 2 sites Ive found with real
info on USING ImageMagick and none which seem to use simple HTTP for
interfacing.

I was hoping that someone here had actually done some CGI->ImageMagick
stuff

Well it would most likely be for my linux server. And I wanted to find
something that was baseline simple so I could expand on it. Now it looks
like I might end up looking for pieces and work from there.

IM has commands which can create some majorly kewl backgrounds. Plasmas,
swirls, blurs, speckles, all kinds of stuff. It also has some slick
commands for creating graphics of a text phrase. Im suspecting that sites
such as this one...
http://linuxenvy.com/bprentice/Banners/Banners.html
call ImageMagick with the form results in order to create their effects.

So the pieces that I might be interested in now would be for selecting
colors, for selecting fonts, for inputting a simple line of text, then
calling a program to create the image (probably go with PNG even though
it will make anything) then display the result.

At this point I guess Im looking for html examples of the selection
process. Im probably going to write my own CGIs in basic or shell since
all I need is simple text processing and a random.

Gandalf Parker
--
I knew DOS before you thought it was spelled DoS
I knew Unix before you thought it was spelled Linux
and I knew Internet before you thought it was spelled WWW

Xnews does have a confusing name, but it's really a Windows program
(written in Delphi IIRC).

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CGI is a gateway interface. It's just a set of rules how a webserver can
talk with a program, and the program can talk back.

Since most stand alone programs can't interpret the webserver lingo, nor
talk back in the right lingo, you need a kind of glue.

Perl is glue.

So if you want to write a CGI solution using ImageMagick, you have to
use glue like Perl

But it probably doesn't know how to send back the correct header. You
might even use a shell script, e.g.

#!/path/to/shell

echo "Content-type: image/jpeg"
echo
imagemagick call which outputs the picture

(Note there might be errors in the above, haven't been shell scripting
for ages).

Hence, you need to obtain the form results, massage it in something IM
can use, and send the resulting image back. I am sure IM can't do that
alone, so you need help: Perl, shell script, C, PHP, etc.

Form

You missed a step: you need to extract the form input from the data the
webserver makes available using CGI (if you use Perl, use the CGI
module, don't make a bad wheel).

Again, you have to do some extra work, you have to send the right
headers before the image.

You need a CGI library. If that's available for BASIC, use BASIC. Shell
can be used for simple output, but for handling forms you must have a
very firm understanding of how CGI works.

I would say, learn Perl, reading a form parameter (e.g. message) is
just:

#!/usr/bin/perl -T

use strict;
use warnings;

use CGI::Carp 'fatalsToBrowser';
use CGI;

my $cgi = new CGI;

my $message = $cgi->param( 'message' );
defined $message or die "parameter 'message' undefined";

# ...

print $cgi->header( 'text/plain' );
print "Your message is: $messagen";


You *should* check $message further (for example length). Also note that
the die reports an error. $message is undefined if either the script was
called without using the form, or if you made an error in your form. I
recommend *not* fixing this (for example by supplying a default message)
since both fall outside normal usage.

Now try to do something simple as the above using BASIC or shell...


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how so? seems the name has all the necessary attributes for a modrern
world news interface ... well it contains 'news' and the rather groovy 'X'
prefix. What could be more simple? :)

--
William Tasso

** Business as usual

Heehee. Ive gotten jumpy at anything starting with an X also. I like to
use my linux server as just a server with no GUIs. And my WinXP is for
desktop stuff and GUI stuff.

XNews is a great news program that I NEVER recommend to users. :)
It does a sweet job of handling news servers for those who have access to
multiple news services. I can group different newsgroups and have it go
to different servers to get them. Very handy for admin types.

Unfortunately users tend to screw it up. They create multiple folders to
organize their binarys from their games newsgroups from their news
newsgroups, but they leave them all going to the same server. They get
the dreaded "too many connections" error which leads them to believe that
their ISP is being cheap on the service allowing too few people in at a
time without realizing that they themselves are trying to get in as 10
users every time they connect.

Gandalf Parker

X is in no way owned by GNU:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X_server
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNU

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Yes I understood that. But Ive seen it "develop" over time into meaning
java, perl, or php. Ive even seen people say things like you HAVE to have
such things to do a CGI. Or that other languages such as Basic or Lisp
could not be a CGI.

Im not sure how you would interpret CGIs which call a text input/output
program and has nothing more complicated than shell commands in it.

Hmmmm that might be worth trying. It would represent the most basic level
of a call to the program. From there I could work upward thru a form for
the variables.

I understood that. I dont seem to find any but if anyone has one they
have done then I would be glad to look at it.

Right. OK form->cgi->ImageMagick->graphics->pageBack2User

Exactly. That is why I was looking for examples. I guess it could be any
simple cgi that called any program.

All that a CGI library amounts to is someone else writing parts of the
code for you. I would call it a shortcut maybe but then so is buying a
program. :)

Oh yeah that was real simple. Definetly worth switching to perl for. :)

But I have loads of CGI on the machine already. C, C++ Java, php, python,
perl, etc etc etc. They all have their advantages and I could use them
fine. BUT my question would remain the same. I provided more info because
it was asked but the reason I didnt do it in the first place is because I
didnt want to get into the pros and cons of various languages. They all
can do it, and ImageMagick has even has interface modules for C, C++,
Java, Perl, PHP, Python, Ruby, Tcl/TK. But I have yet to find any decent
examples of someone doing it. In any of them.

Gandalf Parker
--
It used to be that politics, religion, and were not subjects for a
polite social gathering. Now that is ok I guess its become politics,
religion, and programming languages.

That's wrong :-)

Yes, you have to have a programming language to do CGI :-) CGI alone is
nothing, it's just a set of rules.

They can implement the CG interface as long as they can handle
processing stdin, writing to stdout, and reading environment variables.

CGI is a set of rules, if your program can handle the rules, then it
works. You can create simple shell scripts that work, e.g.

#!/bin/sh

echo "Content-type: text/plainnnHello World!";

(not sure if I got the syntax right here), but as soon as you want to do
something with the QUERY_STRING, or handle a POSTed form you need to
write a lot of code to do the decoding, etc. You will make many errors
that others have made before you, hence I recommend using a library, for
example in combination with Perl.

Trust me, you don't want to parse form results in a shell script.

Pointers have already been given. Moreover, check the site:

http://www.imagemagick.org/script/perl-magick.php

A word of warning: the Perl examples are horribly written, don't use
them to learn Perl.

Yes, if cgi = CGI module of Perl.

CGI, as an interface is just: the webserver set some environment
variables with values, and optionally makes data available to the STDIN
of the program. The program returns a result on STDOUT.

CGI is not simple, hence most sane programmers use a library :-). I have
seen so many flawed hand written CGI implementations to state the above
:-)

If you study some CGI implementations you will very fast learn that what
you just wrote is an oversimplification. It's not just writing the
parts, but also debugging it, and making it work in many different
situations. Again, most handcrafted CGI implementations I have seen had
more bugs then Windows XP :-D.

Programming depends a lot on being smart. Reinventing the wheel is not
being smart. Moreover, badly written CGI implementations can be quite
insecure...

You don't see it today, but maybe in the future.

That are not CGI, that are programming languages. Most of those
languages one can use to implement a program that can talk with a
webserver. In the past one had to write a wrapper for Java btw.

ImageMagick has a website, and I was able to find examples with one
Google search. Not that they are good examples (Perl), but they are
examples. The ones I found assume a stand alone script. If you pick a
language, interfacing with a webserver is often just importing a CGI
library.

CGI sounds simple, but the number of huge security issues, bugs, flaws,
etc in uncountable badly written scripts prove the opposite.

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Hmm, released in 1987. I started programming X in C++ about '89, with a
package called Interviews on a Sun risc box. The assignment was GUIs,
a huge let down from controlling a lab out of the back of a computer --
real systems stuff. I'll take the command line and vanella C anytime.
Unseemly amounts of programmer time gets wasted writing stupid GUIs.

It is easy to write a basic CGI handler -- just takes a few lines.
Unfortunately, such a handles are virtually guaranteed to have security
holes.

High level modules like CGI.pm are the only way to go, unless you plan
to devote large chunks of your future life to honing your handler.
CGI.pm also has transparent ways to maintain state. This is another
place a basic handler fails.

I know what CGI is. I was around for its birth.

CGI is strictly a gateway. Something as simple as this works..
#!/bin/sh
/bin/touch
echo

Ive used things like that before to create saftey backdoors on systems.

Well I suppose in the above example you could count the shell as your
"glue" but the only thing you get from it is a blank screen.

Ahh now we are getting somewhere, use of words like "recommend" is good.

Because it would a rough road already trodden by others? Thanks.

You sent me to the home site of ImageMagick and then say the examples are
horrible? Yes Ive seen those. Im fairly sure Ive seen anything that can
be googled.

WHAT?

Hosting a security group on my machine and many honeypots I can say the
same, thanks.

Well some people have to hack or we would never progress. But thanks for
providing warnings to the masses. Try not to pepper in absolutes which
make it sound like there are no choices.

Yes they are CGI (well maybe not the PHP but thats getting technical).
Ive been sysadmining since before there were any CGIs. I do know the
difference between them and other code on the machine :)

Correct. So *sigh* you are saying that you have no examples to provide?
Thank you.

Well its not something I was going to offer others. And security issues
are fun.

Gandalf Parker
--
www.alt-hacker.org
the home of the alt.hacker newsgroup
(only white-hats need apply)

I am reminded of the curse: "may you have an interesting life"

--
William Tasso

** Business as usual

Which the new version has become: "may you give up Mac and start using
Windows" :)

Gandalf Parker