Yahoo Tuning Groups Ultimate Backup tuning Re:Automatically generated on-site FAQ tree

Hi everyone

Here's the automatically generated on-site tree, with just about everything
planned in it.

http://members.nbci.com/tune_smithy/tree/on_site_tree/tree.html

Sorry about the banner ad. Tried uploading it to the ntlworld site,
and ran out of space for it. May be because it is a lot of small
files, - that can use more space than the actual byte contents of
the files.

You'll lose the banner add if you click show tree, or no frames
navigation, but I am required to link to it like this to use the site.

For links to other entries, you can use the relative urls, which
may be more familiar than an invented new notation:

E.g.

../margoschulter/why_12_notes

- note it can be truncated, and you can read the relative urls from
the on-site tree.

More details in the help for the trees.

If you use them, remember to place $.$.$ at the head of your document
as a signal to the program that it is okay to search for relative urls in
your ascii document.

This is the no frames or java version:
http://members.nbci.com/tune_smithy/tree/on_site_tree/links.html

There's now a complete no frames navigation method for all the trees.

The ascii faq now shows the relative url at the head of each
entry.
http://members.nbci.com/tune_smithy/tree/ascii_tree/tuning_faq_draft.txt

This is the consecutively numbered version, and there's now an on-site
tree which shows the ascii vesions:
http://members.nbci.com/tune_smithy/tree/ascii_tree/tree.html

I think the relative urls could be useful in the ascii faq for the time being-
so that you can copy them whenever you want to link to one of the other
entries - they can be removed from the final versions of the faqs.

There's also a large single document html faq, though I'm not sure
exactly how useful it will be if it gets much larger

Also made the methods for adding a new entry a bit easier, as a result
of reflecting on what happened with the first few who used it. Please
give it a go so I can have some more feedback about how easy it is to
use and where it still needs to be improved.

If you need help, I can do some of the entries, only takes a minute or two.
But it really is easy. Comments also welcome, if you can think of a better
way of doing it.

Notice that when you re-upload a draft, everyone immediately can
see the new version in the Work in Progress tree.

However, it may be a little while before it is updated in the on-site
tree, and the single document faq - happens whenever they are next
refreshed.

If you have a Windows machine, you could run my program yourself and
make an up to date copy of the on-site tree on your hard disk whenever
you want to - it's fairly fast - multi-threaded, and runs at about
a thousand small files ftpd per half hour.

I tested it by doing an ftp of the last few thousand messages from
the Tuning group web site. So, if anyone is still worried about what
might happen to the Tuning archive in the future, maybe nice to know
it can be rescued if needed in this way.

Both the on-site tree and the single document faq have some test entries
in them to show the new options.

I've also included my cents to ratios etc. pages, to show the effect of
the auto-conversion from html to ascii.

It is fairly rudimentary, but could be useful - you could add an html
entry, then once the ascii on-site tree has been refreshed, visit it
and copy the ascii to use it to make your final ascii version.

For instance, it automatically changes superscripts to a^b, and
changes subscripts to double spaced lines with the subscripts on the
second line.

However, doesn't do anything about the different sizes of headings etc
at present, just treats them as new lines, and ignores tables altogether
- for anything complex, would be better to find a dedicated html to ascii
conversion program, which I imagine must exist.

I think the only thing not included from the original list of suggestions is
automatic re-numbering of sub-sections of an entry - doesn't seem to be an urgent
need for this, but if anyone needs it, let me know and I'll see what I
can do - prob. pretty easy to do actually.

Program even has a tree view which the keeper can use to edit the tree
at a later stage, and at present, can be used to move the entries around,
change the names of the folders, and place the entries in any order
one likes on the tree. (That was the most fiddly part to program -
never did a Windows tree view before, and there is quite a lot to it...).

Sorry, I've rather dropped other things to do this, and haven't replied
to some posts to the TL that I'd have liked to respond to - will do so
soon,...

My hope is that with the programming done, it should run pretty much on
auto-pilot from now on, and make things a lot easier for the Keeper of
the FAQ, and for everyone else too. Hope so anyway.

It was a fun project to do - really enjoyed it,.. Not quite finished
completely, but not much left to do now. Will of course update
if new things are needed later on.

Robert

Hi Joseph,

I've been focussing on getting the technical side working, and
making a system that can work.

I have some more to do, but hopefully the basic framework is worked
out, or nearly so.

Should work mainly on auto-pilot for most of the time.

However I think we are still in the process of learning how best
to use it.

> Anyway, it's a great place to put such elementary and explanatory
> materials and thanks again, Robert, for working on it... Thanks for
> also finding a larger site for it. I'm assuming the FAQ can now STAY
> on the present site??

Yes, it can, if no-one minds about the advertisements for the time
being. This site has no bandwidth restrictions, no restrictions on
the amount of storage space used, has good ftp access, and generally
is fine.

There are other "free" sites that score higher in some of the rankings
but I know that this one is okay.

So, since no-one else has suggested any alternative, it can stay
here for the time being.

> In any case, I'm not certain there is anything for John deLaubenfels,
> the FAQ "editor" to do... (sorry, John :) ) until there are some new
> entires.

I'm hoping he can have an easy time of it as far as possible, and
that it can work mostly on auto-pilot for the basic process of
just adding draft entries for everyone to comment on. I'm sure
there will be a fair amount for him to do at some point.

Unless that is, we want a very disorganised faq with
hardly any system to it! I suppose that has its charms
in a way.

I've made some suggestions about how the tree could be used.
However, it can be adapted depending on how it can be best
used.

One thing about the present program is that drafts that
have been added to the working draft tree will instanatly update
when you change them, as it is just a list of urls. But, when
you first add a draft to the tree, it will take a little while
before you see it there for the first time. That's because
it gets into the tree when it is next refreshed.

John's idea that one posts the drafts to the TL first, or
possibly simultaneously with the tree would help here, as
one could first post it to the TL, and then it won't matter
that it might be a day or two, or amaybe longer on occasion,
before it gets into the tree.

One could perhaps help with this by having perhaps two or three
people all having the ftp password for a single ftp site, so
that any of them can refresh the tree at any time, and it
doesn't just depend on one person, who might be on holiday,
or be involved in something and forget about it (as I might
if in the middle of some involved programming project), or whatever.

I'd be happy to share the ncbi ftp password with a couple of others
for this purpose.

Or maybe it's better if we start a new site especially - could do
one at ncbi if that's thought a good idea. I suppose we should also
check if it is okay to share the password like this (as some sites
have a rule about not sharing passwords as one of the conditions
of using the site).

There are many free web sites, but most have banners, and if not
have other restrictions such as bandwidth or space, or are
so overloaded that it is hard to ftp to them. Makes sense
actually, as if they have unlimited bandwidth / space, probably
costs them some, and they have to get that back somehow.

Here are the top listed ones without banners. Some have other
restrictions. For instance, doteasy.com is free and has
no ads, and you even get a free .com web name, but you
have to agree to receive a spam newsletter from them every day.

Sounds a strange system, as it would be easy for someone to set
up an e-mail address just to receive their spam, and then
block it all, or just not look at it, but that would be dishonest
I feel. It's new, so it's early days for it yet.

http://100best-free-web-space.com/Top10_banner.htm

Perhaps it's okay to have a site with banners? The ncbi one
is relatively unobtrusive as these things go. Though, just an
idea, perhaps would be nice to have one with the banners
related to music in some way if there is a specifically musical
web site provider we could use instead.

Re-making the trees just involves connecting to the internet, and
clicking a button.

Then once made, one uploads the newly
made files to the web site, which again, in a modern sophisticated
ftp program like WS_FTPLE, is just a matter of highlighting the
folder that includes all the new tree files, and uploading it to
a folder of the same name on the web site, and leaving it to
get on with it.

Another thing one can do is to make the tree oneself off-site,
and anyone with my program will be able to do that, but that
is an incomplete solution as it only runs on Windows machines
at present.

It's also going to be open source.

It relies a fair amount on windows subroutines.

Much of that is for sorting, so could be re-written easily, so possibly much
of the central part of the program could be ported by re-writing a few of the
c-subroutines it calls.

However as it is written as a Windows program, ti would prob.
require a fair amount of work to have the same amount of
interactivity and features, especially as it is also
written at a fairly low level in c. There was no choice -
I've rather specialised in this way of programming, and
couldn't run off a program in anything like the same
period of time in any other language.

It might be reasonably easy to do a batch version at some
stage that runs from the MSDOS prompt in windows, and just
re-makes the trees from the database, with no interactivity
involved. That then could easily be ported to
any other OS as it could be written in standard ANSI c.
It more or less works like that anyway, as it launches the
tree making subroutine in a separate thread.

One other thing to bear in mind, at present it depends on that
tree applet.

It's an attractive applet. However, it is limited to about 50
entries.

You need to pay $70 for each instance of the applet for more than
that.

Especially with my idea of releasing it as a general program for
making FAQs for Yahoo groups, I'd like to find a free alternative.

Either one already available, or to write it myself (which would
be easy in Windows C, but I'm not that familiar with Java yet,
and would also need to learn its gui and graphics first).

Could be more basic, but functional. I don't suppose anyone knows
of a free one? Or is anyone on the list sufficiently fluent in java to
run one off in a short while, and contribute it to the project?

Of course, it does have an alternative navigation system already
in the non-forms based navigation, however I think it does
really make quite a difference to be able to use some kind of
graphical tree.

> At this point, I believe the usefulness of the FAQ will depend upon
> new CONTENT that can be included, so if anybody wants to write
> something up, it will be greatly appreciated.

Somehow, I don't think we are going to be short of interesting and
useful content!!

> I'm sorry that the interesting FAQ on meantone by Daniel Wolf was not
> included. In fact, I didn't see anything presently on meantone at
> all... am I missing something??

I can add any FAQs anyone wants me to do. However if I add
them, say to the files area, then they can't be edited any more
by the original authors. Means that if they need to update the draft,
they need to resend a copy to whoever uploaded the original.

So, probably best if anyone who has posted drafts to the TL
uploadS their draft to the file area.

I can add the entry to the FAQ tree, or you could, or they could
themselves.

It's quite fast to do, just a few minutes, so wouldn't be much trouble
to keep up with the current rate at which drafts are being added to the
TL. I might easily miss a few for a few days, but I suppose you'd
probably notice any that I miss, as you are very active on the list.

It would be possible to just put an entry up as an idea for comment,
and remove it later, perhaps to have some of its material re-cycled
into other entries.

One way to do that would be to have another
option in the y/n field - one could place a c
there which will mean the entry is shown only in the working draft tree,
and won't be ftp'd to the on-site tree.

I think that is probably the easiest way to do such a thing.
(N.b. - I haven't done it yet, but after we've thought it over,
will prob. do it).

Once ftp'd to the on-site tree, it is also easy to remove it again,
just by removing an entry from the database, which will remove
it from the links in the on-site tree.

However the file itself would still be there on the web site, unless
the entire on-site tree was deleted and re-made.

My program doesn't work directly with the ftp upload. Instead,
it saves to disk, and one then uploads from disk using your
ftp program - there was so much involved in the passwords etc.
and other programs do that side of things so well already.

It could if necessary maintain a list of all files in the tree,
and then compare lists to make a list of all the ones to be
deleted, and that would be easy. However at present it can't
actually do the deleting. So prob. best not to add an faq
to the on-site tree if it is just for comment.

John hasn't said that much yet about his plans, and I'd like
to see what he thinks.

I've nearly finished the FAQ tree program, with an editable tree
in it.

I'm expecting the editable tree to be used to make the introductory FAQ
one would send newbies to the list to, and probably other faq selections
from the complete on-site tree.

Also, anyone with a windows machine will be able to use it themselves to
make an off-site copy of the trees - for instance they could
use it to make an edited ascii faq with only the entries they want
to print out. Also to make the trees off-site if I haven't got
round to doing it. Those who have another OS, would need to ask
someone with a Windows machine to do it for them, but that shouldn't
be too hard I hope.

> Looking forward to some more submissions in the course of our various
> discussions here on the list...

Yes, indeed,

Robert

Re:Automatically generated on-site FAQ tree

🔗Robert Walker <robert_walker@rcwalker.freeserve.co.uk>

🔗jpehrson@rcn.com

🔗Robert Walker <robert_walker@rcwalker.freeserve.co.uk>