CUCC Expedition Handbook - Website menu design options

Logbooks - multiple formats

• Why
• Proposal #1

HTML formats - Why we need changes

Maintenance workload

We have 4 different markdown and HTML formats for logbooks of different vintages. This means 4x as much maintenance as we need.

LOGBOOK_PARSER_SETTINGS = {
                "2010": ("logbook.html", "Parseloghtmltxt"), 
                "2009": ("2009logbook.txt", "Parselogwikitxt"), 
                "2008": ("2008logbook.txt", "Parselogwikitxt"), 
                "2007": ("logbook.html", "Parseloghtmltxt"), 
                "2006": ("logbook.html", "Parseloghtmltxt"), 
#               "2006": ("logbook/logbook_06.txt", "Parselogwikitxt"), 
                "2006": ("logbook.html", "Parseloghtmltxt"), 
                "2005": ("logbook.html", "Parseloghtmltxt"), 
                "2004": ("logbook.html", "Parseloghtmltxt"), 
                "2003": ("logbook.html", "Parseloghtml03"), 
                "2002": ("logbook.html", "Parseloghtmltxt"), 
                "2001": ("log.htm", "Parseloghtml01"), 
                "2000": ("log.htm", "Parseloghtml01"), 
                "1999": ("log.htm", "Parseloghtml01"), 
                "1998": ("log.htm", "Parseloghtml01"), 
                "1997": ("log.htm", "Parseloghtml01"), 
                "1996": ("log.htm", "Parseloghtml01"),
                "1995": ("log.htm", "Parseloghtml01"), 
                "1994": ("log.htm", "Parseloghtml01"), 
                "1993": ("log.htm", "Parseloghtml01"), 
                "1992": ("log.htm", "Parseloghtml01"), 
                "1991": ("log.htm", "Parseloghtml01"), 
                "1990": ("log.htm", "Parseloghtml01"), 
                "1989": ("log.htm", "Parseloghtml01"), #crashes MySQL
                "1988": ("log.htm", "Parseloghtml01"), #crashes MySQL
                "1987": ("log.htm", "Parseloghtml01"), #crashes MySQL
                "1985": ("log.htm", "Parseloghtml01"), 
                "1984": ("log.htm", "Parseloghtml01"), 
                "1983": ("log.htm", "Parseloghtml01"), 
                "1982": ("log.htm", "Parseloghtml01"), 
            }

Complexity - missing entries

Secondly, it is highly likely that most of the different parsers have errors and so some logbook entries do not get imported. One parser, which we could devote more effort to, would mean data does not get mislaid.

Thirdly, the current format is error-prone and nonsensical, so it an unecessary learning curve for all expoers.

Logbooks: Proposal #1 - One Single Format

Architecture

• Use new HTML5 tags e.g. <article> --stuff-- </article> or another tag that does not allow nesting. Ideally.
• Use closing tag at end of entry - no implicit merging of entries
• Explicitly handle content not in a logbook entry, e.g. title, frontispiece.

There are several HTML structural tags we could choose, see HTML5 structural elements.
DIV, SECTION, ARTICLE, ASIDE

Implementation

• Start by exporting using this format from the import parsers
• extensive manual checking for each logbook
• Start with 2003 which has a unique parser
• trial new import parser, check it gives same results as old parser on old format
• repeat for each format type
• retire old format parsers, archive old formats of logbook

Advantages

• Reduced maintenance load in future
• More expoers will write up their logbook entries ! Win!
• Clearly distinct programming task: would suit newcomer

Disadvantages

• non urgent work