InventoryWiki

 

LocatingTheFiles

Page history last edited by Patricia Hswe 3 yrs ago

Once you have access to the Slavic server (spxweb on Samba server), you will be able to open all the files relevant to the Inventory website. The instructions below are meant to give you an idea of where the files are and how to get to them. Making changes to them (making changes to the website), however, means accessing them through various software such as Dreamweaver (a Web authoring/editing software) and Microsoft Access (database creation/management software), instructions to which also are included here.

    1. Getting to the files in spxweb on Samba server
    2. The Inventory and Dreamweaver
      1. What are the HTML files about?
      2. What are the PHP files about?
      3. How do the HTML files relate to the PHP files?
    3. The Inventory database in Microsoft Access

 

Getting to the files in spxweb on Samba server

  • Right-click on the Start button in the lower left of the computer screen.
  • In the menu that pops up, click on Explore and you'll get an interface that allows you to see what kinds of folders are available in which drives.
  • Next, using the scroll bar, scroll all the way down to My Network Places (just before the "Recycle Bin").
  • Click on My Network Places and on the interface that appears you'll see the heading "Local Network" and underneath that spxweb on Samba server (cooper).
  • Click on spxweb on Samba server (cooper). Next, you'll see all the file folders that are on the Slavic server. The one for the Inventory is, simply, inventory.

 

The other file folder on the Slavic server that is relevant to this GA position is winters, where the files for the Winters project website are kept.

 

The Inventory and Dreamweaver

 

Tip: Before you start using the Dreamweaver, here is a link that offers different tutorials having to do with HTML encoding ot texts, programming, and databases.

 

Open Dreamweaver by clicking on the icon for it on your desktop. (This means you've already made a shortcut to Dreamweaver after getting authority for the various files and servers mentioned in the box on the first page of this wiki.) Once in Dreamweaver, you may open a file in one of two ways:

    • Go to the file menu and click on Open.

 

 

This will take you to a dialog box that, on the left, shows icons for, among others, the Desktop, My Computer, and My Network Places. The rest of the box shows the files that are in whatever folder happens to be open (typically, for frequent Dreamweaver users, the last one that was worked on). =>Choose My Network Places, then spx on Samba server, then Inventory.

    • OR you can open a file by clicking on Files, in the right side of the Dreamweaver interface.

 

 

This enables you to see a hierarchy of drives and files.

=>Choose My Network Places, then spx on Samba server, then Inventory.

What are the HTML files about?

  • The Inventory files in HTML are essentially the Web pages for the Inventory.
  • The main file (from which sections of the Inventory are linked) is index.

What are the PHP files about?

  • PHP (which stands for PHP: Hypertext Processor) is an open-source server-side scripting language that can be embedded in HTML for the dynamic generation of Web content.
  • What this means for the Inventory is that through PHP, the Inventory database (in Microsoft Access) can "talk to" the Web browser so that information in the database gets displayed on an Inventory Web page. HTML alone cannot do this.
    • The PHP files for the Inventory are:
      • .BrowseProject.php - needed for project browsing function
      • .BrowseColl.php - needed for collection browsing function
      • .closeconnection.php - associated with project & collection browsing functions
      • .constants.php - associated with fields in database
      • .dbsetup2.php AND .dbsetup.php - associated with database
      • .editcollection.php AND .editproject.php - needed for editing function(for more about editing submissions, see the box below).
      • .functions.php - associated with dbsetup2.php
      • .retrievecollection2.php, .retrievecollection.php AND retrievecoll.php - have to do with searching (and maybe browsing, too) in collections
      • .retrieveproject2.php., retrieveproject.php, AND retrieveprojects.php - have to do with searching (and maybe browsing, too) in projects

 

A mock-up of a page for editing submissions is at: http://media.library.uiuc.edu/projects/spx/MockEdit.htm. It looks similar to the search/browse page; in order to edit, one first has to type in the project name (or keyword for a project).

 

 

How do the HTML files relate to the PHP files?

  • The PHP files often incorporate HTML. If you open, in the Inventory folder, via Dreamweaver, the file .BrowseColl.php, you'll see that there is HTML code that represents various collection browsing pages (such as for subject (light blue box), chronological focus (light green box), geographical focus (medium green box), etc.).
  • PHP is needed in a file like .BrowseColl.php, because these various collection browsing pages (in HTML) need to be linked to the Inventory database in order to facilitate the browsing function, and PHP enables HTML (the encoding language that makes text readable in a Web browser) to communicate with the database.

The Inventory database in Microsoft Access

The database for the Inventory reflects the field scheme that is explained here.

As of now (29 June 2006) there are a few fields in the field scheme that are not yet in the database; this is the result of a meeting/discussion that Kevin Hawkins (a 2002-2004 GA on the project), Patricia Hswe (2004-2006 post-doc on the project), and Sergei Pavlov (2005-2006 GA on the project) had in mid-June 2006. A research programmer, working with either the current or next GA, will need to be consulted in order for changes to be made to the database fields.

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