Hi Jed,
I think, what you are looking for, is a Content Management System (CMS),
e.g. Joomla http://www.joomla.org/, which is free and seems to have a
nice and big community.
Once you have a layout (there are also websites which provide free
standard and minimalistic layouts), you can easily add new components
and edit everything directly from within your webpage. So you wouldn't
need to install a separated program on your computer but you can do
everything from within any web browser.
There is, e.g., the following component
http://extensions.joomla.org/extensions/living/education-a-culture/books-a-libraries/14935?qh=YTo0OntpOjA7czo3OiJsaWJyYXJ5IjtpOjE7czo5OiJsaWJyYXJpZXMiO2k6MjtzOjk6ImxpYnJhcnknLiI7aTozO3M6OToibGlicmFyeSdzIjt9
which seems to allow you to manage your own private or public library,
which could be especially useful in your case..?
What your provider must offer in this case is PHP and MySQL support.
Then the rest shouldn't be too difficult, I think / hope (however I am
no expert on CMSs).
Wolf
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
