HCMC Blogs

I notice I haven't posted hours since last week of March, will report in slightly more detail again next week. net for week of Mar 29 - Apr 2 +1 (can't remember) net for week of Apr 2 - Apr 9 +1 (F +1 catchup after TRUTH) net for week of Apr 12 - Apr 16 +2 (M +1 moving, T+1 moving, W -2 CSG, R +1 philosophy site, F +1 help Marc with windows activation)

ML asked to be able to filter search results based on whether either of two boolean values in a record were true. Took a couple of tries to figure out how checkboxes behave with regard to the POST array, but I finally figured it out with help from Greg and Martin 1) To report the status of a checkbox in the POST array and use that in PHP to set the state when the page reloads itself. If the checkbox is not checked, then no value is sent in the POST array, so the PHP that checks has to check not the value, but if isset($_POST[checkbox_element_id]). If that returns true, then write 'checked="checked"' into the page and if it returns false, then write nothing. If the PHP writes 'checked=""' or includes the checked attribute at all, then the checkbox is checked. In search.php: $is_nurse_or_support_care_checked = ''; if (isset($_POST['is_nurse_or_support_care_checked'])) { $is_nurse_or_support_care_checked = "yes"; } In includes/searchformbasic.inc: <label for="is_nurse_or_support_care_checked">Has Nurse or Support Care</label> <input name="is_nurse_or_support_care_checked" type="checkbox" id="is_nurse_or_support_care_checked" <?php if ($is_nurse_or_support_care_checked == 'yes') {echo ' checked="checked"'; } ?> value="checked" ></input> To modify the where clause to include only those records in which either of the two affected fields have the value 1 (as opposed to the only other possible value, which is 0) in search.php: if (!empty($is_nurse_or_support_care_checked)) { if (!empty($where)) {$where .= " " . $combine_fields_using_value . " ";} $where .= "("; $where .= "(exams.food_rest = '1') "; $where .= "OR (exams.nursing_care = '1') "; $where .= ")"; }

Dean reports that only major construction will only be happening in the A wing. New windows will only be happening in the A wing. New sprinklers in all the wings, most of the trunk lines will be in hallways.

Staff (with HCMC specifically in mind) has been added as recognized partners in academic research projects for inclusion in the guidelines for evaluating non-traditional research appendix to the academic review policy.

Dean proposes splitting the "Chairs and Directors" committee into two: a Chairs committee and a Directors committee - not specified which, if either, a representative of the HCMC would attend.

Discussion of variability of directions given to the Review, Promotion, Tenure committee from departments and implications of that for academics submitting for promotion or tenure.

ML of French had XP and wanted to update to 7. Helpdesk told him he had to go through Vista, so he installed Vista just long enough to update that to 7. When he tried to start Vista after installing it, the computer wouldn't start, so he ended up doing a clean install of 7 using what appear to be update disks. He reported getting "Windows could not be activated | Key management services host could not be located in domain name system" error. Helpdesk suggested another clean install. Greg and I found a specific page on the Microsoft help site that addressed this issue, so I put ML on to that and said he might take it to the Helpdesk. He decided to follow the instructions himself and reports that the activation alert has not reappeared.

Got Judy an account on the Cascade CMS test install. Went through the login process with Judy and introduced her to the web application and asked her to try to do things in that environment that she had been doing on the dept sites she's been working on and to report back to me.

EW is adding new sessionals and prof-specific course descriptions to the department website. She had little problem creating new course descriptions for existing professors, but of course didn't know all the details for creating a new professor. Had a couple of minor errors introduced in the courses_taught.php update, which had catastrophic results, but were fairly easily fixed.

Here's the full procedure when a new person is added to the department.

in your FTP program (FileZilla), Edit inside the people folder :
- create a folder for the person, using their last name in lower case (e.g. "wick")
- copy (rather than move) the index.php file from people/prof1/ into the people/wick/ folder

in a text editor, Edit the people/wick/index.php file :
- replace one instance of "proflastname" with the professor's last name in lower case
- replace two instances of "profname" with the professor's full name in normal case

in Contribute or a text editor, Edit the file people/wick/index.php :
- edit the content of the page

in a text editor, Edit the file includes/course_listing/courses_taught.php :
- copy the five-line block of code for professor xxxxx
- paste it just after the last name on the list
- replace xxxxx inside the single quotes inside the square brackets on each line with the prof's lastname in lower-case
- replace Xxxxxx, x inside the double-quotes on the first line with the prof's display name

in a text editor, Edit the file includes/secondaryNavbar.php :
- add an entry for the person.

in a text editor, Edit the file people/index.php :
- add an entry for the person

in an FTP program, Edit inside the folder people/wick/ :
- create a folder called "courses"
- create a folder called "cv"

In the folder people/wick/cv/ :
- if you upload a file called cv.pdf, then a link to that file will appear on the person's page

And here's the procedure for each new course:

in an FTP program, Edit inside the folder people/wick/courses/ :
- create a folder for each course that person teaches and name it the number of the course (e.g. "330")

In the folder people/wick/courses/330/ :
- create (or copy) a plain text file called description.inc (that is the text of the professor-specific details of the offering that appears on the courses page and on the professor's page).
- If you upload any other files into the 330 folder, it's name will appear and a link to it will appear at the end of the description.

in a text editor, Edit the file includes/course_listing/courses_taught.php :
- add the course number to the appropriate line in that professor's block (course number goes in quotation marks and is separated from previous course number by a comma - see example in file)

BC reported navigation irregularities which turned out to be in the navigation bar of the home page of the social justice studies site. I fixed. Each page on the site has hard-coded navigation, so I had to check them all (couple of dozen) to make sure they were ok - the html-based templates provided by university aren't viable for a site of any size, so my work to php-ize them for other sites (philosophy) was worth it.

EdR met with me to talk about new poems he's got and ways of presenting them based on the two installations we have for Coup De Des. Also talked about other kinds of presentations. All rely on a structured representation of the snippets of text in the poem and the various "readings" (arrays) of those snippets, so that's where he's going to focus his attention first.

University is updating all their cards, so I took old card over to purchasing, where it was destroyed, and they issued me a new card. Same terms of use - which aren't very helpful for us as they make it very difficult to buy software, licences or hardware, which is about all we use it to buy.

Got request from AY to create a tertiary level of navigation for Major, Honours, Minor and Applied Ethics programs. Took a look it and proposed that each of those would have to go on a separate page to make the navigation consistent with rest of site and workable mechanically. Haven't heard back.

Also discovered that the home page had hardcoded certain blocks of code which all the other pages were obtaining from PHP includes, so modified the home page to use those includes as well.