[ANN] surprise - new website to host codes

[Marielle Lange]

Dear all,

Thanks for the kind words on the new cms. My log suggests that many  
of you paid it a visit... and came back. 500 pages now and still  
growing!

Some more information.

1.

We had discussed the fact that this was viable only if (a) everything  
was automated as much as possible, (b) a person comited to this and  
toke responsibility for maintenance, welcoming the contribution of  
volunteers but  not depending on it for the continuation of the service.

I thought about ways to automatize as much as possible... I arrived  
at the same conclusion as Amazon (see slashdot post <http:// 
slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/11/04/1336240>). For quality  
classification, we need human intervention.

I see this as my personal scripter's scrapbook that I am happy to  
share with the community and let the community contribute to and  
augment with their own snippets and functions. Quality of the service  
will increase the more community members contribute but even if  
nobody does, users will still have something useful that will get  
maintained simply because I depend on it.

2.

Many of you already registered. Thanks for that. You have probably  
been disappointed to see that "registering" didn't allow you to  
change the content.

Be patient.  I would be very much interested in having you give a  
hand and contribute your own code.

The issue here is that the CMS I use has a permission system that is  
not that obvious ... For now, when I give editing authorization, it  
is possible to create a page with php code to be executed. Well, I  
will take a bit more time to understand what I should be doing to  
give you maximum power while minimizing risks of incidents. I  hope  
to have this solved by start of next week. We will then be able to  
discuss suggestions etc.

Till I solve these permission mysteries, editing is only possible  
with a "moderator" status which is allocated on request, to trusted  
members of the community (regular contributors to the use-list).

3.

Code colorization routines have already been much improved. They now  
exist for 4 languages, xtalk, awk, rebol, php. To add new ones is a  
piece of cake. It suffices to add a "language.syntax" file with a  
format like this one (this is for awk, written in php) :

     // Functions - synFunction
     $html = preg_replace('/(close|getline|...|systime)\b/', '<span  
class="synFunction">\\1</span>', $html);

     // Control structure - synPreProc
     $html = preg_replace('/\b(BEGIN|END|if|while|...|exit|next)\b/',  
'<span class="synPreProc">\\1</span>', $html);

     // Variables - synConstant
     $html = preg_replace('/\b(ARGC|ARGIND|ARGV|ENVIRON|...|SUBSEP) 
\b/', '<span class="synConstant">\\1</span>', $html);

so if you would like me to add colorization for another language,  
very simple, you provide me with the syntax file for this language or  
you find somebody who can write it for you. You will find  
instructions of this kind for a large range of languages in the  
textmate bundles, syntax folder of a given bundle: <http:// 
macromates.com/wiki/Main/Bundles>

4.

The news aggregator for now requires manual update <http:// 
revolution.lexicall.org/codes/?q=aggregator>. I have added a few more  
elearning links. If you would like other feeds to be added (to the  
condition they would be of interest to a decent number of community  
members), feel free to send me an email with the link to the feed and  
a description of it. I need to find that cron.php file they mention  
and automatize this. I tend to do it once a day. About email, I check  
out the revolution digests only once a day... so for rapid replies,  
best is to copy or send to me directly.

5.

I would like to add a bookmark library too. There is a default  
"bookmark" module but it doesn't include a description field which  
makes it unpractical. If somebody wants to have a go and modify one  
of the existing modules to change it into a "bookmarks" browsing one,  
you are very welcome to do so. Otherwise, you will probably have to  
wait at least a month to see it added to the cms.

6.

It would be quite easy to incorporate the revdocs, in viewing mode,  
with the ability to comment them. I  have already written the program  
that parse the doc, transform it into sql tables. But this will need  
to be discussed with runrev ( it would probably be more adequate to  
have this on a website that they maintain).

7.

To answer a question. The technology behind this is not mine. The cms  
I use is called Drupal (<http://drupal.org/>). All taxonomy modules  
have been contributed by members of the Drupal community. I had   
nothing else to do than install Drupal, change the theme slightly,  
add the taxonomy modules, have Drupal use them and that was done! For  
code colorization, I had to hack a bit to get the xtalk colorization  
but the Drupal cms is so well written, so beautifully modular in  
structure that it didn't take me much time to understand how to do it  
and do it. I strongly recommend it. It wouldn't be too difficult to  
do the same in runrev... In a sense, this has already been done.  
Check out Flexible Learning Scripter's scrapbook <http:// 
www.flexiblelearning.com/ssbk.htm> for this.

Enjoy,
Marielle


> Hi Marielle,
>
> I thought you were a woman.
> I know now you are a large team ;-)
>

I will put online a picture of the team at work later ;-).

------------------------------------------------------------------------ 
--------
Marielle Lange (PhD),  Psycholinguist

Alternative emails: mlange at blueyonder.co.uk, M.Lange at ed.ac.uk
Homepage                                                            
http://homepages.lexicall.org/mlange/
Easy access to lexical databases                    http://lexicall.org
Supporting Education Technologists              http:// 
revolution.lexicall.org/wiki