I received an email from Liz Wick regarding an error on the philosophy faculty web page. Apparently Cindy Holder's bio was incorrect (as it was a duplicate of Conrad Brunk's bio) so with Martin's help I was able to correct the professor bio and also add the CV and file information for Scott Woodcock and Allison Barnes.
August 14, 2007
August 9, 2007
Created and sent a Contribute Connection key to Jennifer, who got going with it. After trying it for a while she asked for additional capabilities, so I opened Contribute using the Administrator Connection key, then modified the attributes on the Publisher user to allow deleting of files, uploading of non-webpage files.
I also set that user to look at only one css file (humanities_contribute.css) for styles to include in the styles dropdown. I then moved a small number of styles from humanities.css to humanities_contribute.css. I then modified all the php pages on the site to include both the css files. Any style that is in that css file will appear in the dropdown in Contribute. I'll move or add styles based on input from Jennifer.
Sent Jennifer an updated Contribute Connection key for the Publisher user on that site.
August 8, 2007
Created pages and ported information for the researchers section of the Humanities site. I've pretty well done all I can do on that site for the moment. Jennifer is working on the resource handbook, and I've no content or instructions on the Alumni/Community and Chairs/Staff sections.
Also updated a few navigation and other elements throughout the site based on conversation with Claire.
The philosophy site makes extensive use of the fck web-based editor. The faculty list page seems to be too complex for the editor. All other pages on the site can be at least partially edited in the editor. For most pages, the entire text contents (i.e. not the navbar, banner and footer) are editable. The pages including course descriptions by specific instructor have one edit box per course description. Clifton's documentation is in the application files folder. The courses offered listings are generated dynamically by php from the uvic calendar site using the javascript arrays for courses offered and for courses taught by each professor. Now we'll see how it works for Liz in day to day use and compare that to how Contribute works for Jennifer in the dean's office.
Clifton obtained the final OK from James Young and Liz Wick to upload the new version of the Philosophy department site to their account. Most of the changes in the site are to simplify routine maintenance - in particular a system for allowing Liz to use a web-based editor to edit text on the pages. http://web.uvic.ca/philosophy
August 7, 2007
I had a meeting with both Liz Wick and James Young from the Philosophy Department to officially demo the new website that has been in development. The meeting went well and they confirmed that they wished that the new website replace the current website in use.
After the meeting Stewart backed up the old Philosophy websites and uploaded the new website to the lang account. I then briefly reviewed the file structure with Stewart and then delivered the website maintenance document to Liz so that she would be able to learn how to properly operate the new aspects of the philosophy website.
August 3, 2007
I have just completed the new philosophy website. I added all the functionality and changes that James Young requested as well as updated the help file (located on the login page (and found within the application_files folder)) which details the file structures within the new website as well as how to properly use the editing functionality.
The only pages/things that HCMC has to maintain for this website are...
The javascript array which specifies which course is offered for the current academic year
The javascript array which specifies which professor teaches which course
The main faculty list page
The file folder structure for professor bios
The file folder structure for the courses materials and professor section description (as each year the folders for professors teaching and the courses taught need to be added)
I have to schedule a meeting with the philosophy department to show them how to use the new website and get authorization for Stewart to replace the old one currently up with this one.
August 1, 2007
Tried editing some of the pages for the new humanities site using Contribute. The styletag dropdowns are not intuitive, but seem to work more or less. Have not tested styling using spans, but block elements are working and selecting text and applying an em tag is working.
Creating a relative link to a pdf, rtf or doc file requires that you open the link window to a web page on site, then click the advanced button and enter the filename in the href field - leave the URL field empty. If you try to put the filename in the href field you get a malformed URL because Contribute prepends the "http://" protocol wrongly.
To use Contribute, easiest thing is to get the appropriate "connection key" file from Stew's mac. They have the extension ".stc". I've created on for the publisher role (can edit pages quite fully, but can't create or delete pages) and the administrator role (full edit, creation and deletion).
To create new roles or edit a role, you have to be using Contribute as a Contribute_admin. To do that, drag and drop the admin stc file on the Contribute application icon. Contribute allows only one connection file to point to the same URL (Don't know why), so you may be prompted about that. Once Contribute is running as an Administrator, choose Apple-Administer Websites to get the user/role admin window.
By the way, the instance of Contribute on my Mac still won't launch properly, but I have been able to run the (as far as I know identical) instance on Cortland remotely with success.
July 30, 2007
Got a number of requests for updates to the new humanities site from Claire last week. They had to wait until I could get access to the account (see posting on that). Updated Dean's message and a couple of navigational items.