FaceSpan MiniApps are small applications created with FaceSpan™ by Digital Technology International <http://www.facespan.com/>. FaceSpan is a rapid application development environment that allows you to create sophisticated Macintosh applications in AppleScript. We highly recommend it for use with WebMiner.
If you own a copy of FaceSpan 2.1 or 3.0, you can open these applications in FaceSpan, run them, and examine the source code to help you program your own Internet-enabled FaceSpan applications with WebMiner.
If you do not own FaceSpan, we have included a free copy of the FaceSpan Extension which is required to run the FaceSpan MiniApps. Place it in your Extensions folder, reboot, and double-click to launch any MiniApp.
We have also included the source code for the FaceSpan MiniApps in SimpleText format. Even if you do not own FaceSpan, it's worth checking out the source code which has good examples of WebMiner scripting techniques.
Internet Dictionary MiniApp:
This applet which demonstrates basic form submission (via HTTP GET) and download. Type any word into the text box at the top of the window, press the "Define Word" button, and the applet will retrieve the dictionary definition from a website. This version of Internet Dictionary uses a public-domain 1913 Webster's dictionary, future enhancements may allow use of the modern Merriam-Webster dictionary.
Stock Watch MiniApp:
A more sophisticated example. This applet downloads stock quotes from a FaceSpan "table", displaying the last price quote and price change at two-minute intervals. Downward changes are displayed in red. You can type in new stock symbols into the leftmost column, cut and paste or drag and drop the data into any other Macintosh application.
The Stock Watch MiniApp retrieves its data from Yahoo, but the applet is structured so that it is easy to add download capabilities from other stock quote sites.
Future enhancements include: choice of quote download site, and fully exploiting WebMiner's multithreaded functionality to download multiple quotes at once and display them as soon as they are available.
This script features several handy string utility functions, including a "find & replace" and several "trim" functions. Use these functions to convert web data into a useful form for your applications.
