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 CAD / Development / Organizations / LDraw / 214
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Subject: 
Re: Storage and Display of OMR Files
Newsgroups: 
lugnet.cad.dev.org.ldraw
Date: 
Thu, 1 Jul 1999 23:21:21 GMT
Viewed: 
942 times
  
At 02:41 PM 7/1/99 , you wrote:
In lugnet.cad.dev.org.ldraw, Tim Courtney writes:
[...]
One of the main problems I see is people posting files that have not been
approved/edited yet.  So if the newsgroup could be blocked except for the
model editors, that would work well.

To add some clarification to the original newsgroup idea, I didn't mean
that things like the Lugnet sets-DB would automatically root through the
newsgroups and point to any old version of a model that happened to appear
in the .models.sets group, but rather that a pointer would be established
manually if/when each time a model worthy of being linked to was recognized.
In other words, a touch of human intervention is needed to decide whether or
not to point to a new model, or to update a poitner from an old version to a
new version.  In that sense, it doesn't matter where at all or how the data
is actually stored -- just that it can be referenced.

Ok, I see.  And I can see advantages and disadvantages to that too:

Advantages:
- Set can be publicly accessible for comments and editing before placed on
a site and approved.
- Set can be sent to one place and multiple model editors can have access
to it.

Disadvantages:
- Possible confusion when linking to dat content.
- If the newsgroup URL's change like they have in the past, there will be a
whole lot of broken links.

But would a newsgroup really be necessary?

No, newsgroups aren't necessary.  Any method of storing data that can report
it back as a MIME type of application/x-ldraw is sufficient.  Anything more
than that is just a bonus.

I wouldn't mind having the newsgroup hierarchy reflect themes and subthemes:

cad.dat.omr.space.* (subthemes)
cad.dat.omr.town.*
cad.dat.omr.pirates.*

etc..

The point of a newsgroup is
discussion, and it seems a little silly to me to make it the main storage
area for dat content. This dat content is intended to be referenced to by
one website, not to be looked at by people browsing the group.

Isn't it for both purposes (and more)?  A way to browse models and their
ensuing discussions -- and keep them nicely integrated -- but with the
added option to extract all of the models out as a concise collection for
download as a ZIP or tarball, etc.

You're right there.  The newsgroup solution would make for easy discussion
on various models.  It also wouldn't be a bad idea to reference that thread
in the OMR pages so people can read what was discussed on that model.

Can your script package it as a zip, tarball, and mpd at the same time
while giving the user a choice of the format?

So would it
be better to store it within the subdirectory structure on ldraw.org?

Why not both?  Anything posted to the .dat.* groups, grab copies of and
store them in a subdirectory on ldraw.org, or make them available as a big
ZIP file, or whatever.  We can make it officially OK to grab content from
.dat groups and copy it to ldraw.org without having to ask each time.

Why both?  Would it be considered redoubling efforts and a waste of time to
store it both places?  Or would it be cleaner and more efficient to store
them on ldraw.org as well?  If they're on the newsgroup, the editors can
put in the link or enter it into the database (when that is done - and that
is still up in the air) themselves.

About not having to ask, that is good.  Anything posted to an OMR group can
be placed on ldraw.org without asking specific permission.  But the
ldraw.org legal page covers things like that - the site and contributions
(except for individually contributed original software titles and reference
works) fall under the OpenContent Licence (OPL) readable at
http://www.opencontent.org

And for the display - I need a clean concise way to store the information
for each model entry.  I like the new newsgroup pages and the way the
entries are displayed with the shaded tables, etc.  I wouldn't mind
alternating background shades of each entry to clearly separate them like
that and like download.com search results.  Is there a way to do that
cleanly or would it have to be done by hand?

I don't think HTML has any built-in way to do that.  DHTML and/or JavaScript
might, but most people are probably still running just plain HTML, and DHTML
hasn't standardized yet, and many people get mildly miffed by JavaScript.

Yeah.  I guess it is best to do that in html.

All of the set pages conform to this URL format:

   http://www.lugnet.com/pause/search/?query=nnnn-m

where nnnn is the set number (not necessarily 4 digits) and m is the issue
number (numeric sub-index) of the set number, in almost all cases 1.

Those URLs aren't guaranteed to be the final URLs in the system for sets,
but when they move to a better URL nomenclature for sets, there'll be
automatic backward-compatibility (URL-forwarding) functionality, just like
there is for the old-format URLs of news articles.  So it's safe to rely on
those URLs as being functional.

Ok.

Is there a possibility
that the server can sense the request is coming from ldraw.org and display
a small 'return to ldraw.org' or 'return to Official Model Repository'
image at the bottom of the page?

Yes, it can usally detect that, even through a URL-forwarding.  It can't
detect it if the user's browser doesn't transmit the URL of the referring
page, but most modern browsers do.

Well, would it be possible to consider links back to the OMR once it is up
and running?

-Tim <><

http://www.zacktron.com

AIM:   timcourtne
ICQ:   23951114

Give an airhead email and its the end of the world - three words: forwarded
chain letters.  Any questions?



Message has 2 Replies:
  Re: Storage and Display of OMR Files
 
(...) Ooops, I thought I covered that when I wrote this yesterday about the sets-DB: "Those URLs aren't guaranteed to be the final URLs in the system for sets, but when they move to a better URL nomenclature for sets, there'll be automatic (...) (25 years ago, 3-Jul-99, to lugnet.cad.dev.org.ldraw)
  Re: Storage and Display of OMR Files
 
(...) [...] (...) Nifty-poos. (...) Hmm... it could be more organized nixing the models.sets, but then again the discussion on each subgroup would be pretty minimal that a main group would be almost necessary to keep discussion going. We could of (...) (25 years ago, 3-Jul-99, to lugnet.cad.dev.org.ldraw)

Message is in Reply To:
  Storage and Display of OMR Files
 
I need some pointers and input on how the OMR should display the download pages and also where the files will be stored. I remember when discussions on the OMR first started the general consensus was to use a Lugnet newsgroup to store the (...) (25 years ago, 1-Jul-99, to lugnet.cad.dev.org.ldraw)

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