OAImages Blog

Thumbnail images have returned to the lodge pdf files users can create within the members area of this site. 

I’m guessing this stopped working about the time I was having trouble with the site’s server last Winter.  Either no one ever mentioned this to me, or I forgot if they did, and I didn’t realize it was a problem.  Most likely when I restored the site’s files, I reposted an older version of the Perl script that is needed to create thes pdf files that was not entirely error-free.

I apologize for any inconvenience. 

For the tech-oriented folks reading this post…

I use a program called HTMLDOC to convert HTML code generated by a Perl script into a pdf file.  It has served me well.  However it handles how images are included a bit differently than what most folks would consider “normal”

In HTML an image tag’s source is normally a complete or partial URL for an image file, creating code that looks like this:

< img http: //www.oaimages.com/some-image-here.jpg ... > (obviously that’s not a valid filename!)

However, HTMLDOC needs to use the true file paths and names. This generates results in HTML code that looks a little different:

< img src="/var/www/html/some-image-here.jpg"      ...>

The problem was very easy to fix once I knew what it was but it was hard to find at first as the “wrong” way (the first example) is actually valid HTML code.  It was frustrating.   After getting aggravated and spending some time working on my new deck, some adult beverage and a perusal of the online documentation was all that was needed to figure this out.
Anway, all is better now.