Technical Topics

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Introduction

This page describes some of the technology with which this site is put together. It includes description of the hosting environment and some of the scripts that are used. Some of this will be blindingly simple for some but innovative for others, so please be patient. If you can see a better way of doing something, then please let me know. This page is UNDER CONSTRUCTION so please check back later

Toolbar and embedded menus

The principal menu bar is the one at the top of the page. It is generated by javascript code - which i didnt write myself but 'cloned' from the Novartis web site. I had to modify it so it would work with Netrscape 6. I use an applet menu in the Family Tree sectionThe menu uses the Java applet by Apycom. Its a little slow to load, but does a nice rollover and has the capacity to add cascades if required.

Photo Album

I use the Slooze Photo Album, extensively customised by myself. ("Butchered" might be a better term!). I modified it to:

Create thumbnails "on the fly", with a size selectable by the user
display the topic as the page title and add summary and topic to the page Keyword and Description META tags
Display the topics in folder / album indented hierarchy
...more things I cannot remember but which will come to me later!

The Slooze discussion forum hosted on Sourcefourge is well worth a visit if you plan to implement Slooze - but read the threads before posting - there is a good chance your question has already been answered.

Messageboard (forum)

The Messag board is produced by Prozone . it seems easy to configure, although the customisation of appearance could be better, and it doesn't seems to remember the login name between sessions. However, I have not updated my version for a while so maybe its already been improved. The system uses MySQL to store the messages.

Tables with Rounded Corners

I use Finetable a very simple-to-use class which generates the rounded corners for tables. The class is still being updated so further enhancements will appear. I have modified this so its entirely wrapped up in a class and the style class name can be passed as a parameter. This demo page provides more detail.

Family Tree Integration

The personal Ancestry File Software produces some fairly basic layout. To make it a bit more presentable I hack it with a text editor. See the integration notes . I should really automate this with PHP, rewrite all the pages, but its uploaded fresh only quarterly, or thereabouts, so hardly seems worth the effort.

Tips

Learn about synchronising your PC or server clock with internet time (ntp)
Rsync is a great tool for synchronising the data on two machines but seems to have been derived from Linux; with these notes and cwrsync tool you won't have to wade through any linux-speak

Resources

Visit PHP Classes which has a valuable collection of free PHP classes - some very sophisticated, others that a novice will easily be able to 'plug in' to his / her site. Register with the site so that you receive news of new classes.

Problems

There are some problems I haven't yet worked my way around.

Running a left border down the page to be the same height as the body, without using frames. I set the column as 10,000 pixels, but sometimes its just the height of the existing text; others it runs for miles

'Last Modified: Sunday, April 23rd, 2006