[Maf] MAF v0.3.0

[Christopher Ottley]

Hey Chee Kueh,

Thanks for the feedback. Let me tackle your questions on a point by 
point basis as you've listed them:

>1. As I understand it, MAF is able to save webpages in the .MHT or a
>user-defined archival format which is by default .ZIP. Is the
>archived ZIP readable/browsable by browsers (any browser) without MAF
>installed? My primary purpose is to create long-term archives with
>maximum cross-platform/format compatibility.
>  
>
This one is easy, no. :). If you decompress the archives any browser 
could read them though.

>2. When I attempt to save an archive, the "Save As" dialog gives me 2
>similar options for "MAF Zip Archive". However, choosing one saves
>the webpage as a ZIP without a .ZIP extension while choosing the
>other saves the webpage WITH a .ZIP extension. 
>So in effect, the drop-down menu in "Save As" provides 1. "MAF
>Archives" 2. "MAF ZIP Archive" 3. "MAF ZIP Archive" and 4. "MHT
>Archive". Are there any functional or other differences between the 2
>"MAF ZIP Archive" options?
>  
>
Functional differences nope. The ZIP archive scripts have file extension 
associations, by default two of them: *.maf.zip and *.zip.maf. Windows 
hides the file extension information from you so the entries look like 
duplicates, but they're not. Enough people have reported this as a bug 
for me to consider adding the extension information to the display text 
for Windows installations. In Linux you see the extension info by default.

>3. I am not too clear about the .MHT format. AFAIK, this is a
>widely-used MS IE-based format. What, if any advantage would it
>provide over a simple ZIP? I've noticed that saving in MHT takes a
>much longer time than saving in MAF ZIP.
>  
>
The MHTML format isn't an IE based format. It's a standard (RFC2557 if I 
recall correctly), but IE is the most known browser that implements it. 
The only reason I included MHT support (other than there was a code 
bounty out there for it) was that people kept saying MHT support was 
necessary for them as they have tons of MHT archives around and need to 
be able to open and save them to interact with others using IE. The only 
advantages MHT has over the native MAF format are that you can send the 
MHT to an IE user and they don't have to install anything, and since MHT 
is a text based encoding you can search and index MHT files easily.
    As far as the speed of the MHT implementation is concerned, yeah, 
it's dog slow. That's because it's written entirely in Javascript as 
opposed to the MAF ZIP implementation which executes a script with a 
natively compiled binary. Eventually I'll get around to implementing the 
MHT support in an XPCOM native module. That should speed it up quite a bit.

>4. This is a suggestion: Would you consider incorporating the ability
>to add/update pages to semi/permanent archives? For example, if I
>wanted to archive a certain webpage everyday, instead of having a
>separate ZIP for each day, I can choose to add an arbitrary number of
>pages to a MAF ZIP. In this way, I can archive, say, a whole month of
>webpages to a monthly ZIP etc.
>
With MAF you can do this already. When saving the page, select the 
archive you would like to add to. It should ask you if you would like to 
replace it, but for the MAF ZIP archives, it really adds to it.

Regards,
Chris.