<p>This part of the handbook is intended for people maintaining the troggle software. Day to day cave recording and surveying tasks are documented in the expo "survey handbook"
<p>The first thing to do is to read: "<ahref="../../../troggle/docsEtc/troggle_paper.odt"download>Troggle: a novel system for cave exploration information management</a>", by Aaron Curtis, CUCC.</em>
<li>that troggle is just one of several cave-survey management online software systems. CUCC EXPO is not the only caving expedition with a substantial nerd community.<br/><br/>
<p><em>Assumptions</em> (points to necessarily agree upon)
<ol>
<li>Let's NOT try to design a generic catalogue for storing all kind of data about caves of the whole world, intended for every kind of user (sports, exploration, science). Let's just settle for a generic framework. Let geeks in individual countries or individual communities write their tools operating within this framework.
<li>Let's try make it available for the layman, but still well-playable for the geeks.
<li>Let's rely on already existing, popular technologies. Let's keep it open source and multiplatform. Let's try not to reinvent the wheel.
<li>Let's not assume everyone has an Internet connection while working with their data.
<li>Let's version-control as much as possible.
<li>Let's support i18n - let's use UTF-8 everywhere and cater for data in many languages(entrance names, cave descriptions, location descriptions etc.)
<p>At one time Martin Green attempted to reimplement troggle as "stroggle" using <ahref="https://www.fullstackpython.com/flask.html">flask</a> instead of Django at
<ahref="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gitorious">git@gitorious.org:stroggle/stroggle.git</a> (but gitorious has been deleted).</p>
<p>A copy of this project is archived by Wookey on <ahref="http://wookware.org/software/cavearchive/stroggle/">wookware.org/software/cavearchive/stroggle/</a>.
Survey status page: "wall of shame" to keep track of who still needs to draw which surveys
</pre>
<h3><aid="arch">Archived updates</a></h3>
<p>Since 2008 we have been keeping detailed records of all data management system updates in the version control system.
Before then we manually maintained <ahref="../update.htm">a list of updates</a> which are now only of historical interest.
<p>A history of the expo website and software was published in Cambridge Underground 1996. A copy of this article <ahref="c21bs.html">Taking Expo Bullshit into the 21st Century</a> is archived here.
<h2>The data management system conventions bit</h2>
<p>This is likely to change with structural change to the site, with style changes which we expect to implement and with the method by which the info is actually stored and served up.</p>
<p>... and it's not written yet, either :-)</p>
<ul>
<li>Structure</li>
<li>Info for each cave – automatically generated by <tt>make-indxal4.pl</tt></li>
<li>Contents lists & relative links for multi-article publications like journals. Complicated by expo articles being in a separate hierarchy from journals.</li>
<li>Translations</li>
<li>Other people's work - the noinfo hierarchy.</li>
<li>Style guide for writing cave descriptions: correct use of boldface (<em>once</em> for each passage name, at the primary definition thereof; other uses of the name should be links to this, and certainly should not be bold.) </li>
<p>CUCC still has an archive list of things that at one time were live tasks:
from <ahref="https://camcaving.uk/Documents/Expo/Legacy/Misc/Troggle%20-%20Cambridge%20University%20Caving%20Club.htm">camcaving.uk/Documents/Expo/Legacy/Misc/...</a> and that page is reproduced in the table below (so don't worry if the URL link goes dark when CUCC reorganise their legacy pages).
<p>Troggle is a system under development for keeping track of all expo data in a logical and accessible way, and displaying it on the web. At the moment, it is [no longer] under development at <u>http://troggle.cavingexpedition.com/</u>
<tt>But note that this is Aaron's version of troggle, forked from the version of troggle we use. Aaron uses this for the <ahref="https://expeditionwriter.com/new-expedition-to-mount-erebus-antarctica/">Erebus expedition</a>.</tt>
<td><p>Start at the front page, <arel="nofollow"class="external autonumber"href="http://expo.survex.com/expedition/2007">troggle.cavingexpedition.com/ [1]</a> and click to logbook for year. The logbooks have been parsed back to 1997. </p></td>
<td><p>Done; see <arel="nofollow"class="external autonumber"href="http://expo.survex.com/survexfile/caves/264">troggle.cavingexpedition.com/survey/caves/264 [2]</a></p></td>
<td><p>Yes; minimal. surveys.csv produced an html table of whose surveys were not marked “finished”</p></td>
<td><p>Yes. Makes table of surveys per expo which shows exactly what needs doing. Displays scans. Integrated with survex, scanner software, and tunnel.</p></td>
<td><p>See it at <arel="nofollow"class="external free"href="http://expo.survex.com/survey_scans/">troggle.cavingexpedition.com/survey</a> . Be sure to try a recent year when we should have data. Survex, scanner, and tunnel integration still needs doing.</p></td>
<td><p>Done; see <arel="nofollow"class="external free"href="http://expo.survex.com/expedition/2007">troggle.cavingexpedition.com/calendar/2007</a> (replace 2007 with year in question)</p></td>
<td><p>Everything can be edited through admin, at <arel="nofollow"class="external free"href="http://expo.survex.com/admin/">troggle.cavingexpedition.com/admin</a> . Ask aaron, martin, or julian for the password if you want to have a look / play around with the admin site. Any changes you make will be overwritten. Eventually, data entry will probably be done using custom forms.
<ahref="http://www.uisic.uis-speleo.org/contacts.html">www.uisic.uis-speleo.org/contacts.html</a> change link. no-one looks for list of databases under 'contacts'
graziano ferrari northern italy list (access + google earth)
</pre>
<h3>Wookey's notes on things to do</h3>
from <ahref="http://wookware.org/software/cavearchive/goliczmail">wookware.org/software/cavearchive/goliczmail</a>
<pre>
Generally I'd like to find some people (geeks) that share these technical
ideas: (1) store things in a file system, (2) use XML, (3) do not aim too high
(do not try designing a general system for handling all caving-related data
for the whole world).
If I could find some people that agree with this, then we could try to reach a
compromise on:
(1) how do we store our data in a file system,
(2) how do we use this XML (let's do a common spec, but keep it simple)
(3) how do we aim not to high and not end up dead like CaveXML :)
After we do that, everyone goes away to do their own projects and write their
own code. Or maybe we have some degree of co-operation in actually writing the
code. Normal life. But the idea is that all geeks working on "cave inventory"
and systems making extensive use of cave inventories try to adhere to this
framework as much as possible. So that we can then exchange our tools.
I think things like "which revision system do we use" or "do we use web or
Python" are really secondary. Everyone has their own views, habits,
backgrounds.
My idea is to work on this in a small group (no more than a few persons) - to
get things going fast, even if they are not perfect from the beginning. If it
works, we try to convince others to use it and maybe push it through UIS.
