A City Goes to War

The lack of a search feature in NextGen gallery creates a bit of a problem for us, now that there are over 4000 pictures in the galleries. After a considerable amount of banging my head against a wall I have a query that I can run against both the images table and the custom fields table and return sensible values. For posterity, this is the query (looking for 'currie'):

SELECT pix.pid,pix.galleryid,pix.description,pix.alttext,ref
FROM wp_ngg_pictures pix
INNER JOIN (
   SELECT cf.pid,group_concat(cf.field_value)AS ref
   FROM wp_nggcf_field_values cf
   GROUP BY cf.pid
   ) cfv ON pix.pid = cfv.pid
WHERE (
   pix.description LIKE '%currie%' OR 
   pix.alttext LIKE '%currie%' OR 
   ref LIKE '%currie%'
)
ORDER BY pix.galleryid ASC

Next up is to figure out how to create an on-the-fly gallery out of the results that looks and feels like the other galleries.

Just a post to bring my hours to 440 on the blog.

The last of my hours spent uploading, and corresponding with a few archives simply to confirm that information was entered as they wished.

Continued content. Redesign navigation and organisation as per last meeting. Added profile list, searched names online and Great War Project. General tidy up, remove old menus, collapse pages etc. Added Teaching Package to Resources tab.

I spent some time today figuring out how to display the custom fields with the images - you need to edit the template(s) being used. For example, in the

wp-content/plugins/nextgen-gallery/products/photocrati_nextgen/modules/nextgen_basic_gallery/templates/thumbnails/index.php

template, I changed the display of the thumbnail to include the source field by adding this:

<br/>Source: <?php echo nggcf_get_field($image->pid, "Source");

to the existing title attribute. I expect this will be transferable to other templates and fields.

In preparation for an elegant search tool for the site, I've begun trying to find simple methods of including scrapers for the Library and Archives Canada site and the Commonwealth War Graves Commission site. This post is just some documentation for how to scrape these sites. The scraping was done in Linux.

Straightforward retrieval of CWGC info: if you know the CWGC id (in this case 922332 - Eric Bowen-Smith) of the soldier use
http://www.cwgc.org/find-war-dead/casualty-details.aspx?cid=922332

Not-so-straightforward retrieval of CWGC info, scraping soldier info from page:

curl --silent "http://www.cwgc.org/find-war-dead/casualty-details.aspx?cid=922332" | tr '\n\r' ' '|sed 's/  //g'| grep -o 'dottedBoxContent"><h2 class="redText">.*<div class="casualty_buttons">' | sed 's/dottedBoxContent">\(.*\)<div class="casualty_buttons">.*/\1/'

Which returns some HTML like:
<h2 class="redText">BOWEN-SMITH, ERIC</h2>
<dl>
<dt>Rank:</dt><dd>Private</dd>
<dt>Service No:</dt><dd>13152</dd>
<dt>Date of Death:</dt><dd>02/06/1916</dd>
<dt>Age:</dt><dd>23</dd>
<dt>Regiment/Service:</dt><dd>Canadian Infantry</dd>
<dt>&nbsp;</dt><dd>"D" Coy. 5th Bn.</dd>
<dt>Panel Reference</dt><dd>Panel 18 - 26 - 28.</dd>
<dt>Memorial</dt><dd><a href="/find-a-cemetery/cemetery/91800/YPRES (MENIN GATE) MEMORIAL">YPRES (MENIN GATE) MEMORIAL</a></dd>
</dl>
<h3>Additional Information:</h3>
<p>Son of Sidney C. and Jessie M. Bowen-Smith, of 2247, Albert St., Regina, Saskatchewan.</p>

which is totally digestible for inclusion in a report. It might be useful to use as a simple method for checking on a suspect record.

~~~~~~~~
Straightforward retrieval of LAC info: if you know the LAC id (in this case 236439) of the soldier use
http://www.collectionscanada.gc.ca/databases/cef/001042-119.01-e.php?&id_nbr=236439

Not-so-straightforward retrieval of attestation record images, creating two links (note that I'm using an actual LAC ID here - in this case 105755):

curl --silent "http://www.collectionscanada.gc.ca/databases/cef/001042-119.01-e.php?&id_nbr=236439" | grep -o 'image_url=.*\.gif' | sed 's/image_url=\(.*\)&.*">.*=\(.*\)/<a href="\1">First page<\/a> - <a href="\2">Second page<\/a>/'

Which returns something like:
First page - Second page

Some files have been digitized, and a PDF can retrieved by running this:

curl --silent "http://www.collectionscanada.gc.ca/databases/cef/001042-119.01-e.php?&id_nbr=236439" | grep -o 'href=.*\.pdf' | sed 's/href="\(.*\)">.*/\1/'

Which returns something like:
http://data2.collectionscanada.gc.ca/cef/9001-10000/9032-35.pdf

Hi folks, sorry about being late to get this update up, I have stopped checking emails on the weekends. Here are my hours updated for the past four weeks.

July 15-19: 30 hours (Short week because I had the Paint-In that weekend and required time off to do volunteer training).
July 22-26: 40 hours (with the city council meeting being a long day).
July 29-Aug 2: 37 hours (this is when I finished the microfilms).
Aug 5-9: 34 hours

Total: 141 hours or 8,460 minutes

I have been mostly focused on content. I have also done some small bits of coding and talking with Jim and Ashley about ways to tweak NextGen. Built horizontal menu and vertical and styled in css. Tried to make Adobe form.

Minutes noted below are from the 22nd to today - they've been impacted a bit by a week and a half's worth of a really nasty flu that's not quite done with me...

Since I last posted, I have continued working in the microfilms at UVic and have sent out permissions documents to all of the archives and museums I've worked with so far. Only one has responded - the 5th Regiment Museum - and Jim was able to convince him to accept our preferred license. I'll try to get ahold of the rest of my contacts before the end of this week, but all have granted verbal permission on previous occasions. As for the website, I've used feedback from team members to change things up a bit. We currently have a khaki color theme, a header featuring a photograph of marching soldiers, and a background of the mud at Passchendaele. I've found out how to remove the sidebar from the home page slideshow, but have left off further tinkering with the slides until we decide what images we would like to have there. There are several ways we can do that, and I thought it would be something we could discuss at the meeting on Monday. Three of my write-ups are uploaded, footnoted, and set up with images, there are submenus on my navy pages, and I've started work on some extra navy history articles. I'm really hoping to have kicked my flu by Monday, but at least I now have full-time internet access again!

Just in case anybody needs them, here are the hex codes for the website's color scheme: Dropdown Menu Background, Ubermenu Hover Background, and Content Links: 778260 Container, Ubermenu Background, and Submenu Hover Links: f5f2e4 Ubermenu Titles, Content Text, and Submenu Static Links: 222409

Just a post to update hours for the last two weeks.