HCMC Blogs

Leaving early...

Got some basic layout styles done, and then added the note and reference popup code. The way I've done it means that if JavaScript is turned off, note and reference links simply bounce you to the bottom of the page (or the appropriate place); if JS is on, then the href attribute is removed, and an onclick event pops up the relevant info in the right margin. This is basically working, except for some types of link (internal links to tables, appendices etc.), which need to be looked at.

But we're nearly there for the XHTML!

Document types handled so far are books, journal articles (with and without authors), book chapters, and presentations. This covers everything in the first two documents. Checking the previous entry to see if the name list is the same, and replacing with a dash, actually turns out to be unnecessary; the APA style guide doesn't seem to mention it, and shows examples of multiple items by the same authors with names shown in full (p.220, section 4.04).

Abstracted the regexp period-adding code into an external function:

<xsl:function name="mdh:addPeriodIfNeeded" as="xs:string">
    <!-- Incoming parameters -->
        <xsl:param name="inNode" as="node()" />
        <xsl:sequence 
            select="if (not(matches($inNode//text()[last()], '.*[\.\?!]{1}$')))
                then '.'
                else ''" />
    </xsl:function>

My second day on lates, and I ended up staying later than intended, AND I missed my lunch because I was descended-upon while trying to eat. Tiring day.

Spent a little time with Leif as he started working through the first article markup. He's done the header with no problem, and had a first shot at the body, and will finish the bibliography by the end of the day.

Met with John and Luke, who advised us that we should use Google Analytics for site statistics, and register with the Google Webmaster tools. I tested Google Analytics, and there are two problems with it:

• Using it requires making a JavaScript call the Google server, which is slightly iffy (we're sending usage data and user information to a company in the States without warning the user).
• The Google server is down, so any page which uses it generates JS errors.

Still waiting on JT's decision as to whether to go with this. Registered the ScanCan Google account for Google's Webmaster Tools, and verified the scancan.net domains.

Had some back and forth with various people, by email and in person, about the hosting of a new departmental site which has been written by an outside contractor, and which makes use of functionality not available on the UVic server.

Turns out that the plan is for this functionality (essentially a CMS) is to be hosted on the contractor's server permanently, with faculty and staff using their site when generating new content for the UVic site.

Went to today's meeting, and learned about the new web.uvic.ca system and its load balancer, along with plans for Exchange Server, uSource, Urchin stats and other stuff.