Contact Us on 0800 123 4567 or info@example.com

Mariage

le mariage sous l'ancien régime
March 8, 2007

Progress on the back end

Posted by on 08 Mar 2007 in Activity log

Made some progress in preparing the system for the new look:

  • Wrote a replacement for index.xq called biblio.xq. This creates a TEI document with a <listBibl> element in the header, containing all the <biblStruct> and <bibl> elements, acting as a formal index for the collection.
  • Added new code to index.xsl, to process this data into the TOC.
  • In the process, discovered a big hole in the metadata: all the documents drawn from Cabinet Satyrique share a single XIncluded file containing a <listBibl> with two <biblStructs>, but naturally this is the metadata for the collection; it doesn't include the title etc. of the extracted document. Using the doc a_une_femme_mariee.xml, I began working on a solution.
  • This revealed a big flaw in eXist's XInclude code. It ONLY handles fragment identifiers when they're encoded in a way which is explicitly banned by the W3C; it doesn't handle them correctly when they're encoded correctly.
  • To get around this, I broke up the cab_sat_sourceDesc.xml into three separate little files, and XIncluded each of those in the right place. That now seems to work for a_une_femme_mariee.xml.
  • Next I need to port that fix to the other documents that use the XInclude. Adding that as a task.

Style updates

Posted by on 08 Mar 2007 in Academic

Discussed style with Martin and Claire. Decided to pursue a complete redesign rather than a touch-up.
For my own reference:
Elements we're looking at include a change in palette (purple or green perhaps, but definitely less sombre and more white(space)) with some flourishes utilizing something iconic like a rooster/hen motif (cuckold theme) and/or a fleur-de-lis. Found some good images at openclipart.org and wikipedia.
The menu will go to the left, and remain open (and short). We talked about capping it with imagery from the collection (such as the loupe dude at the top and a dynamic one at the bottom).
Popups generated from <bibl> entries will be to the right as discusssed; Claire has already begun work on some descriptive text.

Minutes posted are (again) catchup for the last few days and include discussions earlier this week.

TASK: migrate to Greg's new look

Posted by on 08 Mar 2007 in Activity log, Tasks

As part of the move to the new design, we should refactor a lot of the original site code. Here are things we should do:

  1. The index XML generated through index.xq is not TEI XML; it's a temporary format just used for rendering. Now that we have explicit biblStruct elements for each document, we should actually construct a proper TEI document containing a <listBibl> element which simply lists the <biblStructs>. The only question is, when there is more than one, do we include both? We could include both using the corresp attribute to link them both to the same document id, and then process only the first.
  2. This is an appropriate document format: 
    <TEI xmlns="http://www.tei-c.org/ns/1.0">
    <teiHeader>
        <fileDesc>
            <titleStmt><title>test</title>
            </titleStmt>
            <publicationStmt><p></p></publicationStmt>
            <sourceDesc>
                <listBibl>
                    <bibl></bibl>
                </listBibl>
            </sourceDesc>
        </fileDesc>
        
    </teiHeader>
    <text><body><div></div></body></text>
    </TEI>
  3. There is also the problem of the classCode element, which is not in the <biblStruct>. We need to find a way to get that information into the <biblStruct> (where it should presumably be encoded anyway).
  4. Having updated index.xq, we'll then need to update index.xsl to process the results.
  5. The XML will then serve as a useful bibliographical reference for the whole collection, and can be made available directly.
  6. The JavaScript inserted by the index.xsl file should be abstracted into a separate file (if it's actually needed -- it's to do with the menu display, which is changing anyway).

This is urgent -- we need the design working next week before the showcase.

March 7, 2007

Recording some decisions...

Posted by on 07 Mar 2007 in Activity log

...arising out of discussions with Greg and tests of his redesign of the site:

  • We should take the JavaScript code used for note display in EMLS and re-purpose it for displaying notes in text documents, and teasers in the document index. The old system based on the target pseudo-class doesn't work reliably on Opera, and causes some jumping in other browsers. We can leave it in place, though, to handle the cross-document linking between notes in images and texts.
  • The menu should be a single button which shows and hides a drop-down menu. This reduces clutter, and enables us to have the same menu on the image markup pages.
  • Document titles, where they are too long, should ideally be replaced by an editor's preferred short title. However, in the meantime, we can truncate them more aggressively because you'll be able to click on them and see teasers.
  • The links to various document formats can be removed from the table and put into the teasers instead. This will again reduce clutter (but it does require that teasers work on all browsers, so we must abandon the CSS-only approach).
  • We should clean up the original images and the reduced-size versions, using Greg's GIMP procedure. They'll look much clearer.
  • We need to have the look installed by the end of the week so that we can create posters and a handout based on it, for the Showcase.
March 6, 2007

Discussion with Greg about site design

Posted by on 06 Mar 2007 in Activity log

We determined that we need to go for a static menu in a conventional location for the main site pages, so the main pages are obvious, and perhaps make the same menu available as a popup from a button in the top right of the image markup pages. There should also be a gallery of images, using thumbnails which expand on hover to show slightly larger versions of the images. All the documents could do with some editorial introduction; at the very least, it could be a more chatty version of information which is already in the teiHeader, but ideally it would also include explanations of the significance of the item, reason for choosing it, and so on. This would enable us to make the TOC and gallery more tempting for readers.

March 5, 2007

Fixed a regression in one image markup file

Posted by on 05 Mar 2007 in Activity log, Academic

The file aggresseure.xml (Présage malheureux) in the regular tree on the network seems to have been overwritten by an older version, lacking the <biblStruct> tag Claire and I added the week before last, and containing a link to an image mapped on drive Z. I imported the <biblStruct> code from a newer backup, and corrected the image path.

Work on AJAX

Posted by on 05 Mar 2007 in Activity log

Worked on the problems in Opera and Safari with the search page. The problems are:

  • Opera fails to import the retrieved responseXML from the AJAX request into the page. It performs the retrieval, but apparently can't handle the proper importNode code which I've been trying to use in order to get around innerHTML.
  • Safari inserts the XML correctly into the document, but apparently considers it to be XML rather than XHTML, so although links appear, they are not clickable, and you can't get to any of the documents your search retrieved.
  • Konqueror behaves like Opera (at least, the oldish version of Konqueror I have).

The only solution I could find to all cases was to sniff those browsers and cause them to set the BadBrowser variable; when this is set, the script reverts to using innerHTML to set the content of the results div using the XMLHttpRequest's responseText property, rather than using proper DOM methods with responseXML. What this means is that no browser except for Firefox currently works properly in this regard. Nevertheless, Safari is close, and WebKit doesn't show the problems we have with Safari, so it seems that in future Safari and Konqueror may be off the BadBrowser list.

Installed IMT 1.5 on two machines

Posted by on 05 Mar 2007 in Activity log

Built an installer for IMT 1.5 and installed it on Endive and Chicory. Seems to work OK. I opened and re-saved all the old files using it, in order to get rid of the old appDesc blocks, and then re-edited them to change the schema filename to mariage.rng. In future, it shouldn't be necessary for any version of the IMT to mess with schema processing-instructions, so future upgrades should be less problematic.

Converted all documents to RelaxNG schema

Posted by on 05 Mar 2007 in Activity log

Since the IMT is being converted so that it uses a RelaxNG schema instead of an XSD schema, this project also needs to be converted. I took out all the XSD and XSI namespace and schema references, and also added the Oasis and oXygen processing-instruction links to a new mariage.rng schema.

Moved these changes, along with the new schema (which is a single standalone file, although large) back onto the project account. Validated all the files, fixing some errors in paris.xml (which had line elements in a paragraphs instead of in line-groups), with the exception of Sonnet de Courval. Uploaded all the files into the database.

Now, before any further work is done on the image markup files, I need to make sure there's a working installation of IMT 1.5 on the two work machines.