Update of Humanities Sites

Created php files which include htm files for content and for title, and include .inc files for everything else.
Put editable htm files into an html folder inside each of the four section folders to simplify finding the files for Jennifer.
Created new site with four sections and minimal dummy data.

Tested two approaches:
1) php template using a lot of php includes for all the shared content and unique content hard-coded
2) php template containing all the static content and then a php include for the unique information
Former has advantage of one copy of shared content, but Contribute can't make sense of what's left.
Latter works in Contribute, but has disadvantage that every page has hard-coded all the common stuff.
Installed DW to see if there were some way to create in DW a php page that gave me the advantages of only one shared source, but which appeared to Contribute in a way it could deal with it, no success.

So, I think I'll just have to go with a template for each section, each containing all the common code, with php includes for the nav and css specific to each section. Editing of common bits will have to be by multi-file search and replace.

Got Contribute to "connect to" files in the lang02 account.
Spent a bit of time getting used to the Contribute interface and to the tags in the html that Contribute is sensitive to, specifically <!-- InstanceBeginEditable name="tabs" -->
Tested what happens with php files being edited in Contribute. Results seem promising: Contribute viewer displays the php-generated material properly, Contribute editor replaces each instance of php code with a php icon that is non editable or deletable.
Include files have to have a .htm or .php extension (not .inc) for the Contribute editor to parse them rather then show the source code.
Also grabbed three generic banner images for the student, faculty and public sections.
Next on to analyzing which bits of the template files I can extract.

Reviewed specs and templates. Have to decide whether to modify them as little as possible, even though they're kludgy vs. modify them radically to streamline them.

Tried to get Contribute installed and working - failed on my mac, but worked on Cortland (helpdesk and cstore had no reports of similar and neither I nor Greg could find reports in the knowledgebase or the web).

Created a couple of little files in a folder in lang02.

Almost, but not quite succeeded in getting Contribute to "connect" to those files, which is preliminary to editing them.

INITIATION:
Dean Rippin's request

OBJECTIVES:
Goal is to update the website for the Faculty of Humanities to ease maintenance and to optimize the content and structure for each of three specific audiences

PARTICIPANTS:
Andrew Rippin to set objectives and review prototypes, Jennifer Lefler to review for maintainability as she'll be maintaining the content of the site.
Robin Sutherland of web coordinator's office providing templates for UVic standard site.
Stewart will take those templates and create site within them to meet objectives. Will also use project to become familiar with the templates and with the Contribute editor, specifically testing Contribute's abilities with php. Content similar to current, but updated where necessary and centralized where possible.

COMMITMENT:
Andrew Rippin and Jennifer Lefler already maintaining current site (using Contribute) and intend to continue to do so as much as possible.
Jennifer and Andrew willing to apply their current knoweldge of content editing to this new site and to learn enough to do that.

TECHNOLOGY:
Based on UVic standard template, though may be modified to support php includes.
Site will be hosted on unix.uvic.ca

FUNDING AND RESOURCES:
HCMC time and resources out of normal operating budget.

MILESTONES AND END OF THE PROJECT:
Analysis of content and proposed new structure: end of Dec 06
Research into Contribute and how best to use it for this site: end of Dec 06
Prototype approved: end of January 07
Completion of site: end of February 07
Training on maintenance of content: March 07
Likely target date for end of project: March 2007

CRITERIA FOR CESSATION OF PROJECT:
In the unlikely event that the web coordinator announces new templates during the course of this project, this project will be suspended to determine which templates to use.

FIT WITH EXISTING WORK:
Will allow Stewart to become refamiliarized with templates and in better position to comment on needed changes for new templates
Will allow Stewart to become familiar with capabilities and limits of Contribute, and with writing pages (in whatever editor) that are amenable to content editing in Contribute

Derived from work documented in the Depts blog.

Took all the elements of the existing site and placed them as appropriate in normalized structure. A handful of elements are orphans, so I'll need to check with Jennifer and Andrew about them. The list of departments and list of faculty members and research interests should probably be combined and centralized somehow as they appear for all three audiences. I'll use that as my data for testing inclusions in Contribute.
I'll review this in a day or two, but expect that I won't be able to proceed on this until I've got the templates, got a copy of Contribute and have spent time seeing what happens in Contribute when I make various kinds of modifications to the templates (specifically making the files php rather than html).

As optimal structuring of data may entail duplicate presentation of blocks of content, research into how best to do that in a way compatible with Contribute.

PHP with html includes

Task completed 30 jan 2007