Subject:
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Re: Storage and Display of OMR Files
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.cad.dev.org.ldraw
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Date:
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Sat, 3 Jul 1999 17:14:06 GMT
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Viewed:
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1100 times
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In lugnet.cad.dev.org.ldraw, Tim Courtney writes:
> [...]
> - If the newsgroup URL's change like they have in the past, there will be
> a whole lot of broken links.
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 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."
To be more specific, no, if the newsgroup URL's change again, there won't
be any broken links. Firstly, the new newsgroup URL's were designed to be
extremely long-lasting, and secondly, have a quick peek at one of the old
URL's... Here's an old one, for example:
http://www.lugnet.com/news/display.cgi?lugnet.cad.dev.org.ldraw:212
If you click on that, the server promptly redirects your browser to:
http://www.lugnet.com/cad/dev/org/ldraw/?n=212
and this is a tightly-bound HTTP redirection, meaning that if you click the
Back button, your browser will go back properly to the page that you clicked
on it from. (It won't incorrectly go back to the intermediate page and then
forward again to the final page, like what happens if it was done using
JavaScript.) So in fact, while the newsgroup URL's have changed, all of the
old newsgroup URL's still work perfectly fine. Neat, huh? :)
Not only that, but anything posted after the URL switchover even works with
the old URL nomenclature, because it's simply a forwarding mechanism.
Now if you pop up one of the other article-display types, like a thread
display or an article range, those get converted magically too:
A compact-thread display,
http://www.lugnet.com/news/thread.cgi?lugnet.cad.dev.org.ldraw:212
becomes
http://www.lugnet.com/cad/dev/org/ldraw/?n=212&t=i&v=c
(t=i means "threaded indented" and v=c means "view compact")
and a full-thread display,
http://www.lugnet.com/news/fullthread.cgi?lugnet.cad.dev.org.ldraw:212
becomes
http://www.lugnet.com/cad/dev/org/ldraw/?n=212&t=i
(t=i again means "threaded indented" and the default display mode is "view
brief")
and a range display,
http://www.lugnet.com/news/display.cgi?lugnet.cad.dev.org.ldraw:200-209
becomes
http://www.lugnet.com/cad/dev/org/ldraw/?n=200,10&v=c
(v=c again means "view compact" and 200,10 means "give me 10, starting at
200")
> 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.*
Hmm, that sounds intriguing...so there could be this whole sub-hierarchy
of .cad.dat for representing OMR stuff, and people could crosspost there
and to the .cad.dat.models.sets group? Or do you think it would be best
to nix .cad.dat.models.sets and replace it altogether with .cad.dat.omr.* ?
> Can your script package it as a zip, tarball, and mpd at the same time
> while giving the user a choice of the format?
There's no script that does that currently, but in the ZIP/tarball case,
I don't think it would be too difficult to write. Once there is any list
of links to specific articles, it's pretty straightforward to iterate over
that list and do whatever with the content.
I don't know how feasable it would be to automatically package a collection
of DATs up as an MPD.
> > > 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?
Why both? Well, because it gives people the best of both worlds, right?
Newbies and non-geeks could grab nice, clean, carefully selected ZIP
collections of models from ldraw.org, and serious, deeper users and geeks
could go for the more 'raw' stuff from the newsgroups. The versions on
ldraw.org could be actual raw DAT files, ZIPped up or given directly as
application/x-ldraw, or could be links to the newsgroup messages, or whatever
makes the most sense for people accessing from there.
> Or would it be cleaner and more efficient to store
> them on ldraw.org as well?
If it's automated, then efficiency isn't much of an issue. I think that
whatever 'cleaner' means is in the eye of the beholder; different people
probably want to access things differently. I don't know; I haven't done
a survey on it.
I think it's possible that 75% (or more) of users would rather download ZIP
files from ldraw.org than from a newsgroup, but the flip-side of that is
that a newsgroup venue makes it so incredibly easy to download fresh new
stuff the instant it appears, and more importantly, to integrate the
discussion if there are problems. So having both would really rock, IMO.
> 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
Good idea. Nice to see the OPL is coming along now, too.
Although news articles in the LUGNET system are not in general under OPL,
we could certainly make any of the OMR models automatically fall under OPL,
since the LUGNET Terms of Use (section #7 in the first half) covers
sublicensing to third parties and it's broad enough that OPL is a subset
of that. So, all that would need to be done to the part that spits out
DAT content is add the following to the top of each:
0 Copyright (c) <year> by <author's name or designee>. This material
0 may be distributed only subject to the terms and conditions set forth
0 in the Open Publication License, vX.Y or later (the latest version is
0 presently available at http://www.opencontent.org/openpub/).
That message could be added automatically by the server, or, alternatively,
it could be made a requirement that each author add this manually (the
latter is probably wiser, even though the LUGNET Terms of Use technically
permit re-releasing anything in the system under OPL without the author's
permission).
> > > 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?
Oh, definitely...I think that would be very helpful to people.
--Todd
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Message is in Reply To:
 | | Re: Storage and Display of OMR Files
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| (...) 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 (...) (25 years ago, 1-Jul-99, to lugnet.cad.dev.org.ldraw)
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