Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Computing/2022 February 20

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February 20

How to view a file format (.wdl) that required old school software that seems to be unavailable (DynaDoc Reader)

Hi! I wanted to read some late 1990s lists of Hong Kong Schools, but they are in the .wdl format and supposedly require the DynaDoc Reader to view. https://web.archive.org/web/19991004162752/http://www.info.gov.hk:80/ed/school/schlist/schlist.htm

When I tried to download DynaDoc for Windows 95/98 (which I alone would have to attempt to emulate) from the Wayback Machine, the downloads seem to fail due to the file unable to be downloaded (perhaps the Wayback Machine does not have the actual files, or they got corrupted?).

I tried to see if Notepad or Notepad ++ could show the content if I use them to view the .wdl file format, but all I see is garbage text.

Is there another way to find a modern program that could read .wdl files? WhisperToMe (talk) 07:17, 20 February 2022 (UTC)

Have you tried TextPad? --←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 13:28, 20 February 2022 (UTC)

Thanks for the suggestion! I downloaded Textpad and opened the file using it, but it seems the file does not display. WhisperToMe (talk) 17:23, 20 February 2022 (UTC)

This page has a list of seven apps that have been claimed to open DynaDoc wdl files. If wdl stands for Worldox Link, perhaps this page will help.  --Lambiam 15:44, 20 February 2022 (UTC)

Thanks! I contacted Worldox and I'll see if they know of a reader I can use. I'll try the seven apps in the meantime. WhisperToMe (talk) 17:45, 21 February 2022 (UTC)

Emacs will open basically any file, but if this is an idiosyncratic binary format you may see only gibberish.  --Lambiam 00:42, 22 February 2022 (UTC)

While I cannot download the reader from the 2000 version of the site, I have no problem no problem downloding the 4.0 English reader for Windows from the 2007 site [1]. The installer doesn't seem to work on Windows 10 x64 for me although I didn't try very hard. Since it lists 2000 as a supported OS I suspect it'll likely work on Windows XP x32 but can't be sure. There's also a chance that the software it self will work on Windows 10 even if the installer doesn't. Nil Einne (talk) 10:13, 22 February 2022 (UTC)

Actually more searching revealed that lot of Chinese websites refer to a version 4.25 of the reader. While some offer this for download, I don't entirely trust any of these sites especially since I have little experience with them. Eventually I managed to find an Internet Archive copy of something which I'm fairly sure is an official site offering 4.25 [2]. I downloaded the non lite English version for Windows and it was able to install and seemed to worked fine with the one WDL file I tested it on. Note that some sites claims there is a 4.25S but this is 4.25E but I don't know whether this is some fake/error or even something only present in one of the Chinese versions but it probably doesn't matter for your purposes. (Some sites even claim a 5.0 but I strongly suspect this is fake.) Also Microsoft SmartScreen doesn't like this program because it's so obsure, so you may need to unblock it before you can install it. I cannot of course vouch for the safety of it, but I find it unlikely it's malware. Note that I'm fairly sure this is a program of DynaComware who still exist but only as a font foundry and I see no info of DynaDoc on their modern website. Interesting a Taiwanese vendor is still offering the full version for sale [3] Nil Einne (talk) 10:52, 22 February 2022 (UTC)

Questions about Pydroid

I've been looking everywhere through the UI and Googling but couldn't find the answers:

1. Would anyone know how I can specify command-line arguments in Pydroid (specifically on Android) when calling a Python script?
2. When I run a script using tkinter, how do I also view the terminal (where print() output goes)?
3. In my script, I've done

window.bind_all('<Key>', lambda event:input_key(event.char))

and later test for the character (including \x08 for Enter). It works for letters and Enter on a phone, but only letters (not Enter) on a Chromebook. Would anyone know a fix, besides having a separate bind_all?

Thanks,
cmɢʟee⎆τaʟκ 19:06, 20 February 2022 (UTC)

Why \x08? I thought maybe that was a keycode (these may vary between devices), but actually the tk docs say that event.char is producing an ASCII code (as might be expected, since ASCII codes were always called "char codes" in C). Well, ASCII hexadecimal 8 is backspace, so why does it work on your phone? I think you should be testing for 0A (line feed).

Command-line arguments: apparently, "Pydroid 3 provides a minimal Linux command line interface ... tap the menu icon in the top left corner of the app, and select Port." If you can run a script this way, it seems likely that the output of print appears here (it would be a bit bizarre if it didn't).  Card Zero  (talk) 00:08, 23 February 2022 (UTC)