Ed Storms, Akira Shirakawa and others have suggested I update the look and feel of the LENR-CANR.org website. In particular, the library indexes are badly out of data and useless. I was thinking of doing this a few years ago but a large organization said they might take over the maintenance of the site, so I put it off. I have not heard from them lately so I guess that's on hold. Anyway, I've been thinking about doing this.
The actual work is trivial because the website is simple. I could do it in a week. It would save me time and prevent errors if someone who knows about modern rituals would assist. I could pay a consultant but it am a cheapskate and this is a volunteer effort anyway so I don't feel like paying. Please contact me by direct e-mail if you're interested in assisting. This is off topic here, but let me briefly what I have in mind. LOOK & FEEL Converting the screens to a modern look should take a week. It could use some reorganization along the way. I welcome any suggestions. The thing about the "look and feel" is, I do not like the way modern websites look so I have not bothered to do it. I have no strong opinion about this, but changing it seems pointless. If someone who likes modern web design would be willing to lend a hand and get me started I would be happy to finish up. I do not want to burden it with pop-ups or lots of graphic images. Akira suggested I look at Wordpress instead of HTML editors. I see it has some advantages but it seems more suited to blog-style web pages than a library. I use Namo Webeditor 9. That is a creaky, unfriendly old program. LENR-CANR.org pages is so rudimentary I often just edit the HTML directly by hand. INDEXES In the present version of LENR-CANR.org the indexes are crude, static HTML code. The obvious way to do this is with SQL. When we started, the ISP did not even offer an online utility SQL. Later we moved to ISPs that offer this kind of thing but it cost a lot of money. So I never bothered to convert. Now that MySQL and PostgreSQL are free, I might as well use SQL instead of my home-grown indexes. I downloaded the manual. Relational databases have no changed much since the 1980s. This is simple database with only 3000 items so it is a piece of cake. I tested the PostgreSQL at our ISP, which is Jumpline.com. There is nothing to it. I can reformat the database into their import format and make the one-to-many links and whatnot. The problem is, Namo Webeditor 9 does not want to talk to Jumpline's SQL utilities. Maybe I just can't figure out the right parameters. Companies such as Jumpline and Namo offer no help for things like that. I have been poking around with Wavemaker.com and some other SQL utilities. I do not like the idea of using two different programs to maintain the website. Perhaps someone can recommend an integrated solution? One program that does it all and works with the latest version of PostgreSQL? I don't mind paying for a program. I am not that much of a cheapskate! I do not want any Microsoft web programs such as Frontpage. I am allergic to Microsoft. Frontpage was a nightmare to work with. It generated outrageously bloated HTML with lots of nonfunctional stuff. I mean stuff like HTML that does not display! You wonder how they managed to do that. HTML is an idiotic standard in many ways. It has lots of ad hoc stuff lying around. But it is simple and relatively foolproof. How do you manage to crank out HTML code that flies off the screen or makes the background the same as the foreground?!? It takes a kind of genius. I have to convert Word files to HTML sometimes, for the abstracts in the database. I ended up writing a Pascal program to clean out the garbage. I see that Frontpage has been replaced with Microsoft Expression. Probably just as bad. As I said, contact me directly if you would like to assist. For free. Bearing in mind that virtue is its own reward. - Jed
