The online data system and webinterface is now large and complicated with a lot of aspects. This handbook section contains info at various levels: simple 'How to add stuff' information for the typical expoer, more detailed info for cloning it onto your own machine for more significant edits, and structural info on how it's all put together for people who want/need to change things.
We have an Overview Presentation (many parts out of date) on how the cave data, handbook and public website are constructed and managed. It contains material which will be merged into this online systems manual.
Short command-line instructions for updating the data on the server (using the expo laptop). This is a memory jog for experts, not beginners.
Some key sections of the online webpages are autogenerated by troggle, and are not static files, so you have to edit the base data, not the generated file (e.g cave pages, QM (question mark) lists, expo members list, prospecting pages). All autogenerated files say 'This file is autogenerated - do not edit' at the top - so check for that before wasting time on changes that will just be overwritten
You can update the site via the troggle pages, by editing pages online via a browser ("Edit this page" on the menu on the left), by editing them on the server remotely, or by checking out the relevant part to your computer and editing it there. Which is best depends on your knowledge and what you want to do. For simple addition of cave or survey data troggle ("edit this page") is recommended. (For other edits it's best if you can edit the files directly but that means you either need to be on expo with the expo computer, or be able to check out a local copy using the version control system - see the Expo software and server maintenance manual. If neither of these apply then using the 'edit this page' button is fine.
It's important to understand that the pages you can edit by this method are stored in a distributed version control system (see below). This stops us losing data and makes it very hard for you to screw anything up permanently, so don't worry about making changes - they can always be reverted if there is a problem. It also means that several people can work on the site on different computers at once and normally merge their changes easily.
After doing this, you need to ask a nerd to finish the process fairly soon as the "Edit this page" mechanism does not tidy-up after itself properly. See these instructions for this tidy-up
This is managed in this years' folder in e.g.
expofiles/surveyscans/2018/and is documented in the New Cave survey data entry manual pages.
We use a distributed revision control system (DVCS) for all the important data. On expo this means that many people can edit and merge their changes with the expo server in the Tatty Hut even if there is no internet access. Also anyone who is up to date with the Tatty Hut can take their laptop somewhere where there is internet access and update expo.survex.com - which will then get all the updates done by everyone on expo.
In principle, survey notes can be typed into a laptop up on the plateau which is then synchronised with the Tatty Hut on returning to base.
A DVCS is inefficient for scanned survey notes, which are large files that do not get modified, so they are kept as a plain directory of files 'expofiles'. The same goes for holiday photographs and GPS logs.
Troggle is the software collection (not really a "package") based on Django originally intended to manage all expo data in a logical and accessible way and displaying it on the web.
Only a small part of troggle's original plan was fully implemented and deployed: that bit which re-formats HTML web pages (such as the Expo Handbook). Troggle creates the contents index on every page and provides the "Edit this page" capability and provides some help in creating online guidebook descriptions for the caves. (You can see "Edit this page" in the left hand menu of this page that you are reading if you are a logged-on user.)
Once you have edited the page you need to update the server's local repo copies, by ssh into the server and running hg update in the expoweb folder. Otherwise nobody else can use your changes via the repo mechanism even though they are pubished by the webserver
See the outdated Troggle page for a snapshot of development some years ago.