Winter Shutdown and Aspirations for the Future

[Penri]

Thanks, will take a look when I get back.

[TerryJC]

I just returned from testing the system on site. I only had my OnePlus Phone with me and it's received an update since my earlier tests, which changed its behaviour slightly. However, I worked out how to use Google Lens or the dedicated QR Code Reader to decode the URL and then copy it to the clipboard. I then had to open Google Chrome (the browser not the search bar on the Home Screen) and pastc the link into the URL bar. All four QR Code posters worked perfectly.

For info, if I tried to paste the URL into the Home Screen search bar, the phone tried to search for it using the web instead of treating it as a URL. This much is obvious when you realise that the big text entry field on the home screen labelled 'G' is a short-cut to Google Search and not a short-cut to the browser. Unfortunately, most people won't realise this because entering a URL into that field works fine when the phone is connected to the Internet.

I've left the printouts of the QR Code posters with Nick. He has filed them away in a plastic sleeve.

[Penri]

Terry

Thank for these, I tried them out yesterday at WMT and they work well.
They are perfect as proof of concept demonstrators, I will try them out on a few more people over the coming days and present at the next Board Meeting.

Penri

[TerryJC]

Penri,

The only real problem that I see is making the link between the scanned URL and then pasting into the browser instead of it happening automatically as it does when the search engine works.

I expect most people will work it out.

[Penri]

I’ll let you know how the limited trial works.
I can see the next challenge being the creation and preparation of content for publication, ideally by non-technically savvy WMT volunteers.

[TerryJC]

I can see the next challenge being the creation and preparation of content for publication, ideally by non-technically savvy WMT volunteers.

Basically that means that we need an application (probably for Windows and iOS) to allow such content to be produced; it isn't easy to create content on a phone. There are such Apps out there, but of course they are focused on creating content for the Internet. I'll see if there are any that can be used to create for our server by the provision of a framework or suite of css and / or Javascript files. Apart from the fact that I used a text editor instead of a dedicated HTML editor, that's basically how I created the existing content.

[TerryJC]

Basically that means that we need an application (probably for Windows and iOS) to allow such content to be produced; it isn't easy to create content on a phone.

OK. I've taken a preliminary look at this. There are a number of cross-platform html editors; I've used one myself - bluefish which can be seen at https://bluefish.openoffice.nl/index.html. This is available on OSX, Windows and Linux. It's very easy to use, providing the user has a basic knowledge of html, JS, etc and what he or she is trying to achieve. The problem is that it is still a code editor and as such needs the user to understand what is going on - in other words to be reasonably techy. The advantage of this is that the user has full control of the content.

What is really needed of course is a WYSIWYG web content development tool. I've also used these before (for example Microsoft Front Page (euch!!! ) and Dreamweaver. The problem with these is that they completely take control of the process and use their own suite of supporting CSS, JS, Perl or whatever files to create such things as buttons and text entry fields. This means that rather than the stuff on the website being tightly controlled with supporting files limited to a few CSS and JS items, it will be splattered with the stuff from the content tool. I have no idea whether any of these allow the supporting files to be limited to our subset. The other problem is that many of them aren't cross-platform and many are not free.

Back in the dim distant days or yore, the WMT Requirements Spec included a content editor as a stretch target (the Requirement is still there). In the event this was never completed, mainly because no-one really asked for it. It was also limited to updating the Kiddies Quiz and the Audio Guide; a task which I have carried out when required, Doing the same thing for a complete web page would be significantly more difficult; adding or replacing a Quiz Question or Audio Guide entry wouldn't involve any reformatting of the page.

I can see how it could be done using a basic web template and suite of files, but if anyone wanted something different, then it would need a bit more technical input.

Alternatively, the content provider could produce a file written in LibreOffice Writer or Microsoft Word which included the words and images laid out as they wanted them, with stock images for buttons, etc. Someone with technical skills could then paste the content into html, using the standard CSS and JS files for layout and functionality.

[TerryJC]

Alternatively, the content provider could produce a file written in LibreOffice Writer or Microsoft Word which included the words and images laid out as they wanted them, with stock images for buttons, etc. Someone with technical skills could then paste the content into html, using the standard CSS and JS files for layout and functionality.

If LibreOffice Writer is used, the file can be saved as html, which will give the basic code. It won't do buttons properly or other JS functions, but the layout will be preserved and the CSS and JS elements merged afterwards.

[Penri]

Terry

Content development would be done on the Office PC or at least bought together there. I don’t see a problem in setting strict requirements for the content in terms of format and size, we could even dictate a standard look and feel eg each QR code must have associated with it: a title: a photographs; and between 1 and x words of text.
If on the development side the content creator could input that information into a table, or similar, which could then be processed into whatever the web server needs, that would be nice.
I use a tool called Airtable to create and maintain a database of WMT Buildings, Model Buildings, etc. and selectively publish information from it via Google Sites (that’s all on the public internet of course). You can view the published stuff on: https://sites.google.com/view/wmt-model-building/home
I’m sure what I’ve created is doable in any number of ways but I wanted quick results so choose those tools.

[TerryJC]

Penri,

The formatting doesn't need strict requirements other than that any images are reasonably small. The formatting issue arises when the layout required by the original author has to be converted into html, either by the original author or by some techy developer such as myself. That is why I quite like the idea of the original author using LibreOffice to generate the content and layout. The techy developer then simply has to save the file as html, add the CSS and JS elements and publish to the WMT Webserver.

Your use of Airtable illustrates the point about using WSYIWYG type tools. Apart from being dependent on the tool's own CSS and JS files (view the source on your site and you will see that every page uses something called 'jscontroller' to create layout and formatting on the page), these tools are often reliant on Internet access to even work.

Using something like LibreOffice (or similar) to generate the layout and basic formatting ensures that there are no third-party files cluttering the data.

Even if we did have a tool that allowed the pages to be generated in full, we would then either have to provide access to the Webserver from the Office PC for the original author, or have someone else upload the files. All doable I'm sure, but fraught with pitfalls if we aren't careful. (To be fair, if we could find a WSYIWYG tool that doesn't scatter cruft everywhere, it is likely that we could setup the destination, so publishing the files to the Webserver could be transparent to the original author.)