Installing javascript?

I recently upgraded to SuSE 11.1 from 10.2 and have rebuilt my mythtv box.

I am still fine-tuning the installation and so it is not yet setup for viewing. I noticed today, using Mythweb that I did not have as much data being downloaded as I thought.

I am based in Australia and download program info using Shepherd.

I had a look at the shepherd log and discovered that I had problems with cpan modules, fortunately with a bit of digging I was able to resolve the missing modules.

What has me beaten is getting Javascript to work. There are 2 or 3 sources that Shepherd retrieves data from that require JavaScript . I recalled I had previously
followed the instructions on the Shepherd wiki for SuSE 10.x and it appeared to have worked ok,

This does not work with SuSE 11.1

So I am getting messages in the shepherd log like "probably failed due to dependency on missing module ‘JavaScript’ " for a couple of grabbers.

I would like to resolve this Javascript issue. If I use Yast for installation there are several choices of Java, however it appears that the javascript most commonly used for shepherd is one from Mozilla (spidermonkey?). I tried installing the files for that from Yast and then to get the cpan JavaScript module working but failed.

Could anyone give me some advice on installing to SuSE 11.1? I have tried a couple of different java packages from the SuSE repositories and while they appear to be ok they haven’t resolved the issue with Shepherd.

I have done a little basic installing from source but would need a fairly detailed explanation if this is the way to go. Can one of the Gurus offer me some advice here?

Any assistance appreciated.

John

Javascript is not Java. They are different languages.

Javascript is built into your browser. You cannot not have it.

Be clear what it is the software needs, Javascript or a Java plugin?

Thanks for that information, I was totally unaware that they were separate languages.

I am looking to install JavaScript !

Separately, I have been advised of 3 or 4 lib packages that may be what is required, which I will try (hopefully tonight) after I first remove some of the present “mistakes”.

John

As I explained before you don’t need to install Javascript. Your browser already has it built-in. Lots of websites require it or you don’t get the full AJAX experience. Maybe you need to enable it. In Linux Firefox go to Edit > Preferences > Content > Enable Javascript.

Javascript is enabled by default in Firefox.
Make sure that you have installed the


java-<version>-sun-plugin

plugin.

Not you misunderstanding too?

The Java plugin is for executing Java applets. It is optional. Very few sites need the Java plugin, Flash seems to have won as the plugin language of choice. The Java plugin is not needed to execute Javascript. Javascript is built-in the browser.

Did you post if upgrading 10.2 to 11.1 made sense? You would have gotten tons of advice not to do so. You end up with a mix of upgraded and, for several reasons, not-upgraded packages, so it’s neither 10.2 nor 11.1 you’re running, but something inbetween.
My advice: do a fresh clean install of 11.1, if problems persist get back to us.

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Agreed… the plugin you posted is Java… not JavaScript (more-properly
known as ECMAScript) which is built into the browser and there is no
plugin/extension/add-on for it like there is for Java. The two are only
related by the first four characters of their names (if you count
JavaScript as the name).

Also, to be specific, you can run JavaScript outside your browser such as
with the Rhino project which lets you run a JavaScript engine under Java.
JavaScript is typically only used in browsers but it is not limited to
that one venue.

Good luck.

ken yap wrote:
> Not you misunderstanding too?
>
> The Java plugin is for executing Java applets. It is optional. Very few
> sites need the Java plugin, Flash seems to have won as the plugin
> language of choice. The Java plugin is not needed to execute Javascript.
> Javascript is built-in the browser.
>
>
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This post is not related to main topic, but i think important to say:
Java & Javascript is totally different except their similarity in syntax pattern & object oriented nature. But in some situation you may have javascript plugin (I don’t know about the mentioned app) which can be installed. Browsers doesn’t need javascript to be installed. But many other apps may have javascript. For example in IDE’s (like NetBeans etc) which shows errors and alerts while coding js also needs to have javascript inside them. Some apps emaluates js codes before applying in webpage, the also need the same.
Now suppose you have a app which serves many purpose. It may need javascript to be added later. Though I haven’t heard ever of anything called Javascript plugin, still suppose you have build a text editor program which highlight errors & color codes. By default it understands C & C++. But if you add plugins then it’ll be able to highlight those files also. Developers are busy on developing those plugins. Someday You build the PHP-plugin and after adding that beagletux is opening PHP files with that editor. Then i build javascript plugin and after adding js files are opened also. :slight_smile:
The main purpose of this *** is to say; javascript is not only in web browsers, it may be in other apps also. :slight_smile:

That is correct, like other scripting languages, Javascript could be embedded in other apps too. However be sure what it means when the documentation for an app says it has a JS plugin. It could simply mean that it has some customisation file that lets it do syntax highlighting and other help when editing. If vim has a JS plugin to make it colorise Javascript code, that doesn’t mean vim can run JS code. It simply know about the syntax of JS, but not the semantics.

I said I upgraded to SuSE 11.1, but in fact I installed 11.1 on a newly formatted drive (10.2 was completely wiped off).

So the issue I have is actually the need to install javascript for use by the grabber software (which is written in perl and designed for Australian users).

I can get program data ok using Shepherd, there are quite a few internal grabbers that it uses to obtain australian TV data, however 2 or 3 of these insist on having javascript available, and if theye can’t find I miss out on that data (which apparently is very complete program info.)

John

Just to clarify, I am using Firefox v3.0.8 javascript is enabled there and I have no issues with browsing.

I believe the core of the problem is getting JavsScript working within perl which is what sheperd is written in.

John

Sounds like this is the CPAN module you need:

JavaScript - Perl extension for executing embedded JavaScript - search.cpan.org

which uses the SpiderMonkey engine. You could use the cpan command to fetch, compile and install its dependencies (presumably SpiderMonkey in C(?) also) and itself. Might be a fair bit of work there but short of somebody providing a package, that’s what you’ll have to do.

Thank you for the reference to that information.

That is the problem area, so I will have a good read and see how I go.

thanks,
john

Some of the Perl modules which you may require as dependencies are available as openSUSE packages. For example if you need the XML::XPath module, the package to look for is perl-XML-XPath. This will show you all the Perl modules available:

zypper search perl-

Sorry for the delay in replying.

All my problems with setting up JavaScript appear to have been resolved.

The issue was using the Shepherd to get Australian TV programs, that program called various grabbers, and two of those grabbers (which appear to provide good quality data) needed JavaScript.

Following the various suggestions I did a new search on OpenSuse Build repositories and was able to find perl-javascript-spidermonkey, thanks to the contributors to the build service. Once installed the problem was resolved.