MT requested that the domain name editingmodernism.ca point to an account on lettuce. Greg knows more about this than I do. He put the request in to the sys-admins.
June 29, 2010
Followup to earlier posting. I wrote a version of the php-based page replacing the php elements with hard-coded html and the DreamWeaver Design view was no better at displaying the page, so the problem has nothing to do with php. The file validates and appears fine in browsers.
I then grabbed a copy of the static html as provided by the web developer office and opened that in DreamWeaver, and even that was pretty well unusable in DW design view.
Blair called to say that the central web developers might help port material from existing template-based sites to the new CMS, but I expect that applies only if no modifications have been made to the templates - and all the sites we've had anything to do with violate that assumption, as the templates as provided are difficult to work with.
June 25, 2010
Done at MK's request.
June 24, 2010
Blair reported that in DW, none of the style attributes seemed to be working, despite the fact that the pages appear OK in the browser and validate.
Checked into it and confirmed that DreamWeaver Design view does not seem to work with php variables, so any include statements which include variables in the path are ignored by DW (e.g. include '../main.css' works, but include $pathToRoot . 'main.css' doesn't, even when $pathToRoot = "../".
So, I replaced variables with their literal values and then the Design view just doesn't have what it takes to display the pages properly. Specifically, the secondaryNavbar. I can't see any way of making the php-based templates work with DreamWeaver Design view. I suggested that he use DW (code view or Design view) for editing only and that he use a real browser to check how things look.
June 23, 2010
Changed contact phone number at DR's request.
June 22, 2010
Heard from BS that his PHP required php5 features, but that the server has providing php4. Told him how to force server to provide php5:
Create a .htaccess file in the www folder (or open that file if you already have one)
add this line to the file
SetEnv UVPHP_VERSION 5
save the file
try it
If that doesn't work, then you can try this.
Create a PHP.ini file in the www folder (or open that file if you already have one)
Add this to the include path
/usr/local/php5/lib/php
He reports that the first worked.
Since migration to new site, it looks like the pdf file for the student handbook were lost, so LW sent me the doc files which I assembled into one big doc file and then turned into a pdf and posted to the site. Took a couple of iterations until I had all the current files from LW included. Also created link in the appropriate place to that pdf file. In future Judy will maintain this.
Grabbed a copy of the philosophy site and stripped it down to the essentials. Modified it slightly to accommodate one secondaryNav file per section folder rather than one global secondaryNav file.
Created folder for each section of site, included an index.php, pageN.php and secondaryNav.inc file in each. Edited primary navigation bar. Created a number of pages in the aboutus section and ported content from the old site to the new one as demonstration for Blair. Site now has working primary navigation bar and a reasonably complete aboutus section demonstrating content and the secondaryNav system.
The current site keeps images in a variety of places, so I suggested to Blair that he rationalize that.
Posted site to the www-dev directory in their account and Blair will start working on it.
Met with Blair to discuss porting of existing Humanities department site to the php-based version of the templates we prepared for philosophy site. He's going to work in Dreamweaver and is comfortable working with the include files used for the banner, footer, primary navigation and separate secondary navigation files for each site. Porting the content from the existing site to the new one should be fairly straightforward.
Met with Judy and Caitlin
Uni101 wants the layout of their application form improved. http://web.uvic.ca/uni101/application/AppForm_Jan2010.html
All the elements they need are on the page, and organized into 'parts'.
The submission mechanics are working.
They'd like a simple columnar layout, consisting of the eight parts identified on the page, and each part consisting of the input elements on the page.
The layout must be simple to use and navigate; it need not be identical to the print-based application form.
I took a quick look at the page and it is making extensive use of the fieldset element (including nesting of fieldsets), which I suspect is causing a lot of their layout problems. We'll likely want to simplify or reduce the use of the fieldset element and increase the use of other elements.
The page does not validate, so we'll have to make sure it does.
If we have to, we'll twiddle the css.
Will get Judy to do most of the work on this, as she hasn't had much work with layout of form elements and handling of data in them.