website & identifiers

website & identifiers

[Thomas Dickey]

When perusing the website for news, it would be useful if the pages were
marked (in their source) as generated or manually updated.  For the former
(unless they're generated on demand), a modification date would also be
useful.  For the latter, an RCS/CVS/etc identifier to distinguish
successive versions is normally expected.

Are the pages all generated from another format, or are some in CVS
(somewhere)?

-- 
Thomas E. Dickey
http://invisible-island.net
ftp://invisible-island.net

Re: website & identifiers

[Harold L Hunt II]

Thomas Dickey wrote:
> When perusing the website for news, it would be useful if the pages were
> marked (in their source) as generated or manually updated.  For the former
> (unless they're generated on demand), a modification date would also be
> useful.  For the latter, an RCS/CVS/etc identifier to distinguish
> successive versions is normally expected.
> 
> Are the pages all generated from another format, or are some in CVS
> (somewhere)?

The Documentation (User's Guide, Contributor's Guide, and FAQ) are 
generated from DocBook source; see the following page for information on 
where to get the source in CVS:

http://xfree86.cygwin.com/devel/documentation/


I believe that all other pages on the site are manually generated, and 
they are stored in CVS.  My various attempts to find a public CVS 
interface to the tree and to find a CVSWeb interface to the tree have 
not been successful; I have not checked with Chris whether this is 
intentional or not, in either case, it is beyond my control.

We could add an identifier to each file.  I have to look into some 
options for doing so.

In the meantime, enjoy the following hack:

http://cygwin.com/xfree/CVS/Entries


Harold

Re: website & identifiers

[Harold L Hunt II]

Thomas Dickey wrote:

> When perusing the website for news, it would be useful if the pages were
> marked (in their source) as generated or manually updated.  For the former
> (unless they're generated on demand), a modification date would also be
> useful.  For the latter, an RCS/CVS/etc identifier to distinguish
> successive versions is normally expected.
> 
> Are the pages all generated from another format, or are some in CVS
> (somewhere)?

By the way... what are you looking for?  CVS identifiers wouldn't 
necessarily help to determine that new information has been posted since 
commits for spelling fixes, grammar changes, dead link correction, etc. 
would cause irrelevant noise in the modified date tags.  That's really 
why I chose to put a hand-coded date at the top of the pages; that way 
people are notified when content has been modified in a meaningful way, 
but there aren't false-positives when minor changes have been made.

Would CVS identifiers still be useful for whatever you are trying to do? 
    Maybe I'll start adding them as comments for starters but still keep 
the hand-modified date for each page.

Harold

Re: website & identifiers

[Thomas Dickey]

On Sat, 27 Dec 2003, Harold L Hunt II wrote:

> Thomas Dickey wrote:
>
> > When perusing the website for news, it would be useful if the pages were
> > marked (in their source) as generated or manually updated.  For the former
> > (unless they're generated on demand), a modification date would also be
> > useful.  For the latter, an RCS/CVS/etc identifier to distinguish
> > successive versions is normally expected.
> >
> > Are the pages all generated from another format, or are some in CVS
> > (somewhere)?
>
> By the way... what are you looking for?  CVS identifiers wouldn't

If it's maintained (i.e., if the file isn't edited w/o checking it in),
it's a quick way to check if the file's been changed recently.  The
identifier also provides a point of reference to check if there are
changes that aren't committed.  Hand-coded dates are more readable (and
of course I use those where readability is a factor), but the automatic
ones are preferable for identifying distinct versions.

> necessarily help to determine that new information has been posted since
> commits for spelling fixes, grammar changes, dead link correction, etc.
> would cause irrelevant noise in the modified date tags.  That's really
> why I chose to put a hand-coded date at the top of the pages; that way
> people are notified when content has been modified in a meaningful way,
> but there aren't false-positives when minor changes have been made.
>
> Would CVS identifiers still be useful for whatever you are trying to do?
>     Maybe I'll start adding them as comments for starters but still keep
> the hand-modified date for each page.
>
> Harold
>
>

-- 
Thomas E. Dickey
http://invisible-island.net
ftp://invisible-island.net

Re: website & identifiers

[Thomas Dickey]

On Sat, 27 Dec 2003, Harold L Hunt II wrote:

> Would CVS identifiers still be useful for whatever you are trying to do?
>     Maybe I'll start adding them as comments for starters but still keep
> the hand-modified date for each page.

That's what I do, e.g.,

	http://invisible-island.net/xterm/xterm.log.html

-- 
Thomas E. Dickey
http://invisible-island.net
ftp://invisible-island.net

Re: website & identifiers

[Harold L Hunt II]

Thomas Dickey wrote:

> On Sat, 27 Dec 2003, Harold L Hunt II wrote:
> 
> 
>>Would CVS identifiers still be useful for whatever you are trying to do?
>>    Maybe I'll start adding them as comments for starters but still keep
>>the hand-modified date for each page.
> 
> 
> That's what I do, e.g.,
> 
> 	http://invisible-island.net/xterm/xterm.log.html

Okay.

Each page should now have:

HEADER MODIFIED: $Date$ $Author$
LEFT SIDEBAR MODIFIED: $Date$ $Author$
BODY MODIFIED: $Date$ $Author$
FOOTER MODIFIED: $Date$ $Author$


Additionally, the home page has:

NEWS MODIFIED: $Date$ $Author$


Harold

Re: website & identifiers

[Thomas Dickey]

On Sat, 27 Dec 2003, Harold L Hunt II wrote:

> Okay.
>
> Each page should now have:
>
> HEADER MODIFIED: $Date$ $Author$
> LEFT SIDEBAR MODIFIED: $Date$ $Author$
> BODY MODIFIED: $Date$ $Author$
> FOOTER MODIFIED: $Date$ $Author$

that's better.

-- 
Thomas E. Dickey
http://invisible-island.net
ftp://invisible-island.net