Colonial Despatches

The Colonial Despatches

Category: "Documentation"

April 23, 2020

Static release done, and old Cocoon version brought down

Posted by on 23 Apr 2020 in Activity log, Documentation

The static release site, which is on home1t/coldesp, has now been running for a few weeks without problems, so today I've brought down the old Cocoon version that was on tomcat-devel. After stopping it in the Tomcat manager app, I took a backup of it, which I zipped and stored in my home directory on Squash at Colonial_Despatches/cocoon_final_backup_2020/coldesp_old_peach.zip.

We could now undeploy the tomcat-devel app completely, freeing some space and resources on Tomcat; we should probably do that so that a restart of Tomcat doesn't inadvertently restart the old app. I'll wait for everyone's OK before doing that.

Regarding the new static site: I need to put together detailed instructions on how to deploy a new edition. Basically, you have to rsync the content from the build on Jenkins to the deployment folder (coldesp/www), but it's important to ensure that the rsync DOES NOT INCLUDE THE DELETE FLAG, since there is a lot of other material required by the site (such as hundreds of thousands of page-images) which are not part of the Jenkins build, and they must not be deleted. (They are backed up on Squash, though.)

September 11, 2014

Script for image upload

Posted by on 11 Sep 2014 in Activity log, Documentation

I usually do image uploads manually on home1t at the command line, but it's pretty mechanical so I scripted it and tested the script successfully with co_60_17 this morning. It's called publish_images.sh.

November 1, 2012

Stats for this round of funding

Posted by on 01 Nov 2012 in Activity log, Documentation

Generated these stats for CP's report on this round's grant funding:

Images processed so far this round for 1861:

CO 60:10, 60:11, 10:12
CO 305:17, 305:18
RG7 G8C:21

for a total of 4369 images, at 3 sizes = 13107.

1317 links to page-images have been added to the 404 documents for 1861.

According to my calculations, so far in 1861, 7150 names of people, places, and vessels have been linked:

5252 people
  65 vessels
1833 places

KSW will do some calculations for the next application, for 1862.

October 31, 2012

"Secret" document type removed

Posted by on 31 Oct 2012 in Documentation

We discovered that one of the old scripts we used to convert the documents ran amok a little and added a false "documentType" value of "Secret." Liekly becasue the script assumed that "Secretary" counted as "Secret"!

We removed <idno type="documentType">Secret</idno> from 1,862 files. Revision number prior to this mass-fix: 990. First revision number with ONLY this fix: 991.

Important: there are actually 6 "Secret" files. These documents have <head> elements containing "Secret" but not containing "Secretary":

  • B61023SP.scx
  • B67067SC.scx
  • B67128AS.scx
  • B68058SC.scx
  • B697061A.scx
  • V61025SC.scx

We have added the <idno type="documentType">Secret</idno> to these files, and this revision number 992.

July 26, 2012
March 29, 2012

Adding maps to the site

Posted by on 29 Mar 2012 in Activity log, Documentation

JT provided two new maps for the gallery, so I've added those. I had to refresh myself on the procedure for doing this, so I'll detail it here:

  • Extract the bitmaps from the PDFs (if that's the format they come in) using pdfimages -j [pdffile] [outputprefix].
  • Create meaningful filenames based on repo, id numbers, and year.
  • Copy the full-sized originals into the correct year in [coldesp]/maps] on local drive. These will just be backed up locally.
  • Create a quarter-sized "large" image (max width 5000) in maps_lg.
  • Create a 1000px-wide version in maps_1000.
  • Create a 200px-wide version in maps_200.
  • Create a 100px-wide version in maps_thumb.
  • Create an XML file with the same name as the image file, and a matching @xml:id. It's simplest to model this on an existing file. Save it in xml/maps.
  • Fill out the metadata, and point the facsimile graphic at the right file name, with the right dimensions.
  • Add the XML file to SVN and commit it.
  • Upload the images to home1t, and the XML file into the db.
  • Test to make sure the map shows up in the gallery, and works properly on the site.
December 20, 2011

Duplicate documents across collections

Posted by on 20 Dec 2011 in Activity log, Documentation

This concerns documents that appear in both letter-book and original form, and how to handle this crossover.

For example, we found a dozen or so documents in 1859 that are part of the 398/1 (BC series) and RG7G8C (VI series) collections, respectively. We decided that it was best to show both, but alert the reader to the copy or original, from each respective document.

So, in the RG7G8C version of this file, we added this note:

<note xml:id="B597018_1">Please note that this document exists as a <ref type="doc" cRef="V597018.scx">letter-book copy</ref>, as part of the British Columbia collection.</note>

And in this document, the 398/1 version, we added this note:

<note xml:id="V597011_1">The original form of this correspondence <ref type="doc" cRef="B597011.scx">can be viewed here</ref>. Please note that the original was marked initially as part of the Vancouver Island collection, and changed thereafter, presumably after receipt, to the British Columbia collection.</note>

For now, we have worked through most of the 1859 collection for duplicates. We will have to check in the CO410 collection for the same issue, and do the same for all applicable years.

October 26, 2011

How we handle incomplete entries for places, people, and vessels

Posted by on 26 Oct 2011 in Documentation

A detailed write-up of the information below has been added to the Guidelines document. For now, the following examples, where the attributes are emphasized, should suffice:

  • For places: <placeName type="incomplete">Point Aitch Bee Cee</placeName>
  • For people:<persName type="incomplete"> <surname>Andrews</surname>, <forename> J.</forename><forename> A.</forename></persName>
  • For vessels: <name subtype="incomplete" type="vessel" key="archer">Archer</name>
October 24, 2011

A note on the Peripheral Vessels file

Posted by on 24 Oct 2011 in Documentation

A "peripheral_vessels.xml" file was created to house vessels mentioned in files other than the despatches. For example, in Captain Cook's biography, we might mention his ship, Discovery, which does not appear in the despatches, at least not in the content transcribed currently.

As we discussed as a team, it seems odd that the online reader should encounter some vessels tagged and others not. After all, readers do not know which vessels occur in the letters and which do not. The peripheral-vessels file solves cures this potential for confusion.

Lastly, should a vessel that appears in the peripheral-vessels file one day be discovered elsewhere in the future, say, if the enclosures are eventually transcribed, then we would move the respective vessel entry over to the "vessels.xml" file, a simple copy/paste operation.

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