HCMC Blogs

Found and fixed some problems with bio encoding and display:

• Some empty (incomplete) bios were lacking a type attribute to indicate that they were incomplete, causing them to display no message when clicked on. Fixed the source XML.
• <div> tags generated from empty <p> tags in the XML source were often self-closed. This is not terribly wrong, but can cause problems in some browsers, so I added a non-breaking space to the end of the output from any <p> or <ab> tag to prevent them from being self-closed by the serializer.
• Links from one bio to another were not working when bios appeared on document pages, because they were simply showing up as in-document links. Added some code to the handling of <ref> tags so that in that context, a link to the bios document is constructed.

Uvic's php.ini sets the config item session.cookie_domain to "uvic.ca". So, if one tries to write values to a session from "canadianmysteries.ca"
(running on uvic's server) and then read them on a subsequent page, the session variables are not available.
Before starting the session, you have to include ini_set('session.cookie_domain', (strpos($_SERVER['HTTP_HOST'],'.') !== false) ? $_SERVER['HTTP_HOST'] : '');
to set that config item to whatever the current host is (canadianmysteries.ca, canadianmysteries.uvic.ca, or whatever)
I've implemented this in the teacher login section of the CanMys site, but have commented out the code with the explicit SID call, just in case we have to go back to it. Thanks to Ryan for identifying the specific solution to the problem.

In early, then out to the dentist for a couple of hours, then stayed past four; also did half an hour extra that I didn't track yesterday. All in all, I'm down an hour.

Met with SK, TH and TK to review progress on the site, and did some testing. Found and fixed some issues with missing files, and also:

• We discovered a problem with audio-heavy pages; after generating and using about 14 or 15 players, the page would refuse to produce any more. Also, when returning to a page with the back button, all players previously used would reappear and play, all at once. I fixed this by editing the JavaScript, such that when a new player is created, the old one is destroyed; and when leaving the page, the final player is also destroyed. This seems to work a treat.
• Rebuilt all the index pages without the section index button.
• Made a plan for a change to the main Index page, so that it the contents would move to the left, and an introductory audio clip will be presented on the right. Below it will be a link to the Audio Settings page, with a note to click on it if the audio doesn't work. This is a simple way to get people to test and set up their audio early in the process.
• Checked out the preferences page which says Safari doesn't support stylesheet disabling. This still appears to be true (although Opera now does support it, so I've enabled that page code for Opera). Quirksmode says Safari does support it, though, so there's room for more research here.
• Moved the site to the new location on lang04/hulq, and created the hrd link to it as hrd/hulq. We also removed the old lancenrd/salish site and put a redirect page in the root of it.

processed webquests 22 through 30 through those parts of the process that I am responsible for (making the pages html valid) approximately 70 files in 9 batches each batch going through six steps

Will turn them over to Pat for him to do the rest (replacing links to PDF files with links to PDF and to HTML files)

Went through the vol 17 cover Illustrator file with PVH, and tweaked the kerning for the volume number which appears in the circles. The only remaining things are:

1. When the PDF is finalized, rebuild the contents section if the page references have changed.
2. When the final page-count is known, and the details of the paper used in volume 16, set the crop marks appropriately for the spine.

With copyright issues become more complex, the UVic Faculty Association, Royal Roads Faculty Association, CUFA/BC and CAUT are pleased to be co-sponsoring a workshop for Faculty, Librarians and Graduate Students about the importance of copyright in teaching and research at our universities and the implications of fair dealing, and other copyright issues brought into question by Bill C-61 (An Act to Amend the Copyright Act).

The workshop is scheduled for Wednesday, October 22, 2008 from 1:00 pm to 3:00 pm, Snowberry/Honeysuckle Rooms, University Club. Refreshments will be served.

Please RSVP uvicfa02@uvic.ca by October 15.

Who says real philosophers eschew digital technologies? Not me. I'm a fan of the Philosophy Bites blog, from David Edmonds (co-author of Wittgenstein's Poker and a BBC radio documentary writer) and Nigel Warburton, Senior Lecturer in Philosophy at the Open University.

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