New Resource : Gauge3.info

[John Candy]

Ralph,

Attached is what you should be seeing..... your browser must be displaying a cached version.

Until the permissions, etc. to protect against spamming and the "moderation" system (for approval of submissions is in place) the directory containing the Joomla installation is password protected.

I need to spend time reviewing all the optional settings before opening to the public.

Regards,
John

[John Candy]

A statement on the progress with setting up the new site can be seen at gauge3.info

[cabbage]

I have been asked why the screen grab above does not look like the URL page...

This is because the URL page is not connected to Joomla. Joomla is a Content Management System. This means that the articles submitted are indexed by a database (in this case SQL). Typing "prunes" into the search box will give you all the articles dealing with prunes. Joomla exists in two parts. The "front end" is the one that you see in the screen grab. The "back end" is where the articles are written, edited and then posted to the front end for searching and reading.

The authors will have their own log on to the Back End for producing articles. The editor is very easy to use (it is a clone of Brief) and any image that you insert has to be of JPG or PNG format for ease of viewing across multiple browsers and operating systems. The initial option was a Wikipedia generator that was frankly far to hard to grasp and complex. The Joomla system is far more logical and familiar to anyone who has used Netscape, a word processor or a  DTP kit. I have been testing it with Debian 8 using both FireFox and Chrome. The test results look identical apart from Chrome showing JPGs a little "darker" than FireFox.

In fact there are no minimum number of authors or moderators required for production. The two authors we have at the moment could (slowly) produce everything that we need. But as in all things "many hands make light work".... We are not asking for Shakespeare or Tolstoy length manuscripts, but a new Lillian or Henry paragraph! If you don't think you can be creative and write then be a moderator -who's job is to make sure that it is correct and suitable for posting.

regards

ralph

[John Candy]

UPDATE : My server is throwing up systems-related error messages when configuring Joomla options and has (so far) defeated attempts to correct it.

(For those who are familiar with such matters) it appears to be PHP related, since different versions produce a variety of different faults. Upgrades and reinstallation of Joomla have made matters worse!

I am pondering (in consultation with Ralph) the options, which include another attempt with a "clean installation" (following a manual "uninstall") of Joomla and alternative CMS applications (such as Wordpress).

This hot weather (for me at least) is not conducive to clear thinking and I feel exhausted from dawn to dusk!
Bring on the Monsoon!

John.

[cabbage]

Just to let you know that the battle is still being faught! We have abandoned Joomla, we rejected Doku as it was very limited in what it could do. John is currently wrestling with his server and trying to install Drupal. No, I haven't any idea how they decide on these names either...

Regards

Ralph

[cabbage]

We may have something that works.... It is similar to WIKI but it doesn't use the rather extreme formatting options that WIKI does! the editor is alas NOT WYSIWYG but is a formatting mark up language instead. This is similar to Wordstar or TEXX . It is not too hard to use and maybe as John put it "a bit clunky". But I have used far worse. Each page name has to be unique as the editor squeezes out the spaces between the words. Thus to improve readability I would have to insist on each word of the name beginning with a capital letter.

viz:

The History Of The Great Central Railway.
Becomes
TheHistoryOfTheGreatCentralRailway
rather than
thehistoryofthegreatcentalrailway

Which improves readability for the poor editor trying to find the page!

regards

ralph

[Geoff Nicholls]

sorry, are we supposed to see anything yet? I can find gauge3.info, but get no further

[John Candy]

Geoff,

At present I am still working on the configuration options and security options for the application and, until the user permissions and passwords have been defined, the directory in which the "wiki" is situated will remain protected (by password) and not be linked into the domain base directory.

Some of the "issues" referred to by Ralph have since been resolved by tweaking the config files and it is becoming more "user friendly".

It is all happening "behind the scenes" at present.

John.

[cabbage]

This is what the page look like to the viewer (screenshot1).
This is what the page looks like through the editor (screenshot2).

With a little practice it is possible to make the two look very similar and soon the eye ignores the formatting codes.

regards

ralph

[John Candy]

Ralph,

BT mail has "gone down" ..... cannot connect either POP3 or webmail.
If you need to make contact during next few hours, use this forum messaging system.

Meanwhile, we need to concentrate on loading "basics" to the "wiki" (i.e. the information a "newcomer" needs to get started on planning and building his G3 layout) and I am transferring the G3MadeSimple content across (some of the trackwork and kit construction guides are already in place)

The more "esoteric" material (specialist boilers and gas turbines, etc. .... we don't want to frighten off potential converts with over-complication) can be added later, assuming I don't run out of allocated disk storage.

Regards,
John.

[cabbage]

John,

Don't worry I am being a good boy and just loading tables at the moment. I am on duty this weekend so it will be doing nothing but twiddling until Monday. One of the things I have noticed that is a slight problem is that my German layout keyboard lacks some of the formatting commands so some of the editing has had to be "inspired" -but I think it looks OK!

regards

ralph

[John Candy]

Ralph,
I have taken a quick squint at the tables and they look fine to me....keep up the good work!
There are still a few general page/format/site layout issues that i wish to tweak but there are so many options offered, that it needs a clear head before editing the config files.
Regards,
John.

[cabbage]

John,

I am beginning to need a simple TAB setting to load tables! Although the PIPE symbol is not on my kbd I can obtain it by entering the ASCII code or using the special characters plugin....

regards

ralph

[John Candy]

Ralph,

Not sure if this helps but you can set table attributes (i.e. preformat a table) without using the "pipe" key.
I have set  up a dummy example in the "sandbox" and the link to the full "table directives" instructions is at http://gauge3.info/wiki/index.php?n=PmWiki.TableDirectives

By typing out the basic attributes you require for a particular table, then using copy and paste to complete the lines of code, it is quite quick to pre-format an entire table.
You then can type in the data against each line of code.

As I said, not sure if this helps with your keyboard difficulty but it is the best I can offer.

Regards,
John.

[cabbage]

Slowly by surely we are getting the data down. At the moment there is only me able to key in, but I hope for company as it is getting rather lonely... I also feel that the content could be getting very one sided and needs other viewpoints on subjects to balance it out.

Regards

Ralph