HCMC Blogs

There was little useful response to the issue of changes in <rendition> on the TEI list, so I'm going to have to make an executive decision to change the header encoding myself. This is what I think should be used:

<rendition xml:id="Transcription">
  <label>Transcription de texte</label>
  <code lang="text/css" rend="ellipse">color: #ff0000</code>
</rendition> 

Since I've already converted some files to an intermediate format, I've worked out a strategy for making the change:

1. Change the app so it writes out the new code format.
2. Load and re-save all of the files which have been changed so far (all three files in the tutorial folder are candidates, and some in test_data).
3. Rewrite the app loading code to read the new format.
4. Test file loading with the files previously saved as 1.6.
5. Update the conversion XSLT files to add the new rendition change.
6. Load a variety of known-good 1.5 files to check they load correctly, then save and reload them to ensure the 1.6 round-tripping is good.
7. Update the docbook conversion files so that they also use the new system, and test round-tripping some files to and from docbook.

Once docbook i/o is working, we need to start testing the help building system, which is based on mdh_docbook_to_html.xsl in the mdhHelp folder. Changes should not be required, but it should be tested.

Went through the list of outstanding tasks assigned to me on the blog, and marked as completed many which have actually been done, as well as some others that have gone obsolete for various reasons. Nine remain, mostly minor.

Created the image for the menu/toolbar icon in Inkscape. However, when I tried to export it using my ScriptFu script in the GIMP to create all the BMP files, the script failed to run, presumably because of problems with the latest beta of the GIMP, which I'm running on my work machine. I'll have to try doing the operation at home, where I have older versions of the GIMP.

Made the final improvements to the RSS feed system for including calendar events from the UVic events calendar on departmental pages. This is being tested on the GRS site, but we'll use it elsewhere in future. These are the final details:

• The code is now encapsulated as a class called RssReader. You just call the class constructor and pass it all your preferences, then tell it to write out the events in the format you want.
• The class can be instructed to use a cache file, in which case it checks the time on the cache file to see if it's obsolete or not, and uses the cache instead of going back to the server if the file is OK. If the cache file is out of date, then the class gets a new copy of the feed to use, and caches that copy.
• Usage of the class is documented fully in the head of the file (rssReader.php).
• One point of interest: while we need to use cURL to access the feed, because it's coming from a different server, we don't have to use it to access the cache file, because that's stored in the same account on the same server that's executing the PHP. For the cache file, we can just do a regular file read.

Now I'm just waiting for approval from GRS replace the current site pages with versions containing the new code.

Taking off a bit early, when my backups are done.

I've now received the manuals, all the data, and a sample volume of the printout, so I have what I need. Today I set up the blog, and took some time to look at the manuals and the data. We have some decisions to make about the nature of the conversion and the kind of encoding we're aiming to produce; I've started a discussion off on that by email.

At the request of the department, we changed the faculty page so that each name in the list links to an individual page for that instructor. Stew and I had worked out the details with Luiz beforehand, but Clifton did the actual work. I uploaded the results to the site.

Created new XSLT for import/export of DocBook files in 1.6. The only change so far is the date/@value to @when change, but there will be more when the issue of rendition is sorted out. That's still being discussed on the TEI list.

Also made the change to @when in the Pascal object code.

Based on an enquiry from a researcher, I asked the sys-admins if they have an ms-based server infrastructure available for faculty to use. Turns out they do.

- Windows 2003 Server
- MS SQL 2000 Server with SP4
- Microsoft .NET Framework Version 2.0 Redistributable Package

Before implementing for a researcher, they have the standard questions about size of data, volume of traffic, complexity of query processing, nature of access by developer, etc. but seem to have no problems with this sort of request.

Created an alternative view of the events calendar RSS feed, for the GRS home page, and a sample page showing it.

I still have to implement caching for this page. I don't think we need to cache the feed output on the Events page itself, because people will only go there occasionally, and will want to be guaranteed an up-to-date list. However, we should have caching for the home page, because it gets more hits, and we should probably allow the events page to look for the cache if it can't contact the feed server, so we ought to cache the XML feed rather than the output HTML.