webCMS

Description

webCMS provides:

• embedding of content page in standard QC web page
• embedding of navigation bar
• managing "mailto"
• including common pages in instrument QC web site
• support for usage of QC styles in content pages

This is a tool for managing the QC web pages. It helps the QC scientist to focus on content, while structure, design and navigation is managed by the tool. It is called webCMS where CMS stands for 'content management system'. Of course a real CMS can do more than webCMS (manage formatting, page relations etc.) but having a tool controlling and providing certain structure elements in an automatic way is already a big step forward.

While making web page creation and maintenance easier, the tool also helps to make the pages better, in the sense that it guarantees uniform look and feel across the QC web site. This is a non-trivial achievement given the fact that otherwise the web pages inevitably evolve in different directions over time.

Another interesting aspect is that with the main structure controlled by the tool, it becomes very easy to change the design of the QC web pages and adapt it e.g. to a modified ESO style. Finally, it manages page ownership so that "mailto" tags of all web pages of an instrument are managed centrally.

The tool takes the user-provided and controlled input file (the content file, essentially a valid HTML file without initial and final tags) and puts it into a standard HTML table, adding the navigation bar (created by the tqs tool createNavBar), the footer and the header:

The tool also takes care about proper updating, author and maintainer names etc.

The tool handles both the specific content files and the common content files (like qc.html etc.).

Structure of QC web site

The new QC web site has two kinds of pages:

• common pages, and
• specific pages.

Although the common pages have a standard, non-specific content (hence the name), they need to get an instrument-specific navigation bar. They effectively are copied in each instrument QC web site, differing only by the navigation bar. This is done by webCMS. The content of the common pages is not modified by the tool.

The content of the specific pages is provided and maintained by the QC scientist. The tool assists them in adding the navigation bar etc. in a standard way.

Output

• HTML file with dynamic navigation bar and the QC web page design

How to use

Type webCMS -h for on-line help, webCMS -v for the version number, and

webCMS -p <page_name>

for creating the QC page from the content page,

webCMS -l

to list all pages known to it, and

webCMS -c

to copy all common pages into the ins-specific web site.

Installation

Use dfosExplorer or dfosInstall.

Configuration

The tool configuration file (config.webCMS) defines:

Web page maintenance

The maintenance pattern for QC web pages has now simplified (see above). So far, maintenance required editing on the local machine, plus ftp to web4, plus login there, plus webcp. Now, maintenance is reduced to the content page only. Only two steps are required, the second one on the dfo machine:

1. The user maintains a web content page on a local ("private") machine. Any content modification is done there, using a graphical editor like dreamweaver. It has the name name1.html if it will be later published as name.html. E.g., a pipeline page describing calibration data will be maintained as content page pipe_calib1.html. Under this name it is uploaded by the user after modifications onto web4.

2. In order to finish the page as a valid QC web page, the tool webCMS is called on the dfo machine: 'webCMS -p pipe_calib'. This will download the content page into the dfo machine, add header and footer (as HTML code), dynamic navigation bar and ownership file (as virtual include), modify the 'Last update' (upon request) and uploads the final page as pipe_calib.html onto web4. From there it is then finally published (webcp).

Content page. The content page has just the information to be provided, typically starting with a headline. It has no header, no title, no <body> tag, no navigation bar, no footer etc. It must nevertheless contain valid HTML code. This page will not be modified by webCMS, it will just be embedded in a common HTML structure.

Example: If you open this page, you will find a comment line " <!-- HERE STARTS THE CONTENT PAGE -->". If this page were to be managed by webCMS (which is actually not the case but we can ignore this for the purpose of illlustration), it would start exactly there. It would extend up to the comment line "<!-- HERE ENDS THE CONTENT PAGE -->".

QC style sheet. The user may use styles or classes. This is a common feature in web pages which controls the page design. For instance, the format of the ESO navigation bar is controlled by an ESO style sheet.

The QC style sheet is designed to provide a common QC web page design within the content pages. This will be expanded, once all QC web pages are maintained by webCMS. The QC style sheet is available here. Any style defined there can be used. E.g.