Topic awaiting preservation: Whoah, am I new! or Menus and Officers!

I just recently designed a nice little web site for a secret side intranet. I passed it up the chain of command and they loved it, so I posted it. Two days later, they think it's too much work because it has to be updated every day due to intelligence information with regard to the Operation "Enduring Freedom" business. The object of contention? I placed popup menus on the page using JavaScript. Now they want to keep the menus because they are easier, but want me to find A) a way for the files to automatically get posted when there is a new one placed in the directory, and B) an interface that is easy for the users to update the headings on the menus. You know, this wouldn't have been a problem for me if they had just coughed up the money to send me to school like they promised in the first place. Word of advice... don't join the Navy for an education. You're just expected to know or learn on your own.
Could somebody point me in the right direction? I get out in December and can't possibly learn enough to do this before then without help.

Sounds like you need a script that reads a directory and print the menus based on the files. Now, what do you have access to on the server?

PHP? Database, anything else?
If you can get access to php & mysql on the server I can point you to several tutorials that will get you started on a webbased interface for updating the site, I'm sure there is others here that can help out a lot more on the file-parts as well.
A little more info on what you can use on the server helps a lot though.

-{Dan}-

All right... whew! This has taken me a while to get. Currently, no one knows EXACTLY what is on our server, there are so many things. NEXT week, we are going to start an entirely new server, which will be based strictly on the Lotus Domino technology, instead of the cocktail we have now. I don't know if that answers the question. Like the subject said, I'm new. I know enough, but not enough for this; it is outside of my realm of expertise. Though with help, I will learn.

Wow, what is Lotus Domino technology? What you want to do sounds like it would be fairly easy to implement in PHP and MySQL, or even ASP, but what kind of programming languages do you run on Domino?

-jiblet

Domino isn't an OS so much as an Office Messaging system for handling Mail and IT type tasks.

Might serve web pages but I'm not sure.
Should run on virtually any OS (Usually used on NT) but shouldn't be too relevant to this issue. Still need to know the languages avail ible and the web server used.



:[ Computers let you make more mistakes faster than any other invention in human history, with the possible exceptions of handguns and tequila. ]:

Ok Red Ninja :-) Lotus Notes... hrm... not a favourite.

Well, in short, lotus notes is built on their own flavour of databases that have version control, ownership plus a s*itload of other stuff connected to all files stored in the databases. In parts a lot like a document management system.

The thing is that you can access these databases and their content through http by default, notes will then create the html for you (beware...) to show the "view" of the databse structure in an expandable way.
What you will do here is create an interface that points to these databases that are set up for the different departments content. (advise, set up one lotus database for each department, that way you can control access for updating 'n stuff) Don't confuse these databases with stuff like SQL-server, MySQL, Oracle and such, look at it more as a filing system to store content directly in or content plus attached files 'n stuff.

Then, your "content-owners" will create their content in lotus notes, attaching wordfiles, pics and all that crap through lotus windows interface. The visitors will see the databases through the browser, dynamically updated content. And you will provide them with a nice interface to find the databases , more or less straight html with normal links.

I havn't been into the creating of html inside notes, but i know you can control it to some extent by creating some kind of "lotus-html-templates".

I've set up a mysql/php site as an intranet at work that gets part of the content from an old lotus-setup that ppl use for different stuff, other more short-lived stuff is administrated through the php/mysql-site. So i know that it's perfectly possible to make a separate interface to point the way into notes.

Well, this might get you a clearer pic of what you are getting into don't worry, if you're not into serverside scripting, this will probably give you a pretty easy way to get dynamic content.
Have fun
Dan



-{ a vibration is a movement that doesn't know which way to go }-

Well, we pretty much do that very thing now, with our flight schedules and other information. See, the thing is, I had this Lieutenant who knew alot, but didn't care to share. He just wanted to give us the scraps from his knowledge table to give the illusion that he's doing as much as he can to train us, and saved the really good stuff for himself. Only problem was he had no vision, and now that I'm interested, he's gone. So, essentially, I know how to set up permissions and create a new database. I DON'T, however, know ANYTHING else about our webserver, and neither does anyone else in our command, thanks to knowledge hoarding. You may not be able to see it, but I am supposed to be THE resident web expert, and I've only been doing this for a year, so I feel like a child in grownups shoes.

Now, you wouldn't mind directing me to a tut or something in order to learn to create those templates. Also, how exactly do I find out what server side scripting I have on my web server? Short of asking people who don't know.
For my part, tomorrow at work I will sanitize the page of sensitive information and try to post it. Then you can get an idea of what it is I'm trying to do.

Thanks to all for your help.



[This message has been edited by Red Ninja (edited 10-18-2001).]

You can find out a lot of info by doing this...

Create a new text document.
Type the following exactly...
<?php
phpinfo();
?>
Save the file as phpinfo.php
Upload it to your server and view it with a web browser...

You will get something like this

While your there, look for a section called mysql and let us know if it's there and what Client version you have.

The thing is, if you "wait" for the lotus installation, you don't need to know more than how to set up databases, create views, and add content in notes.

Notes then has it's own webserver, make sure that is up and running, make a test page, save as index.html, put it in the lotus servers wwwroot. Add a couple of links pointing to "//your_lotus_servers_name/path/to/database.nsf/" to see the whole database.
To see a subset of that database, use the url-syntax: "//your_lotus_servers_name/path/to/database.nsf/unique_notes_id_for_the_section?openView"

once you get the hang of the notes-urls you can probably make your own fancy html-interface to extract notes-content into.
I guess that notes-help or http://www.lotus.com/ would have a developers-section.

-{Dan}-


-{ a vibration is a movement that doesn't know which way to go }-

Alrighty. This is turning out to be a longer subject than originally estimated. But, I am willing to learn if you guys don't get sick of helping me.

Our web server is an IBM Netfinity 400R.

Drakkor, that php file didn't work. I may be doing something wrong, but I followed your directions to a t as I understood them. All that it does is display the text in the browser window. Do I save that to the Web Root or to the actual Lotus folder?

Anyway, as promised, I have sanitized the page. http://www.angelfire.com/film/theredninja/J2_Intel/intel.htm
Hopefully that will help you to understand better what I am up to. I was originally hoping to find a way for the users to make changes to the JavaScript menus and to the HTML code on the main page.


[This message has been edited by Red Ninja (edited 10-19-2001).]

Ok, the test drakkor gave you was a test to see IF you had php installed on the server,
with the response you got, you don't have it installed.

What it seems like you want to do, judging from your page (looks pretty good btw) is to extract content from a source, and place it in a specific place on the page. Then repeat this with other data placed on another place.

This means that you will have to replace the content that should be updated by a non-code-literate-person in your menu-items with a script that execute by notes, gets the data, places it in the right place, all before the page is served to the browser.

The non-code-literate-persons will in this case only update the texts in lotus notes, just like in windows.

How to do this serverside coding in lotus notes I don't know.
however, here http://www.lotus.com/home.nsf/welcome/developernetwork I'm sure you can find info around this.

<edit>Just found this on google http://www.notesdesign.com/ might be of help.</edit>

Dive in there and see what you can find and let us know how it goes.
/Dan


-{ a vibration is a movement that doesn't know which way to go }-

[This message has been edited by DmS (edited 10-19-2001).]

RN, I doubt you did anything wrong, that just means we can cut out php on your server, you don't have it. But it sounds like you are getting things figured out anyway.