c080801 Orcmid's Lair Construction Note Site Repaving

orcmid>construction> 2008>08> c080801> 0.00 2008-08-29 09:52 -0700

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The Orcmid's Lair is being repaved to correct for defects that resulted from moving to a different web server.  At the same time, obsolete styles and organizations of material are being replaced.  This is a typical repaving performed to an existing nfoCentrale site.  An example of the complete approach for a newly-created site is illustrated by the bootstrapping project on the nfoWorks site.

An additional problem to be dealt with, somewhat concurrently, is upgrading of the site pages to conform to web standards well enough to be properly viewed using Microsoft Internet Explorer 8.  Following that, there will also be accessibility provisions to consider.  For all of this, making changes more amenable to simple crank-turning is also a concern.

{author note: The following material is boilerplate and remains to be customized for specific usage in repaving of Orcmid's Lair}

1. Repaving
2. Work Items and Repaving Progress
3. Reporting Defects
4. Making Insertions
5. Related Material

1. Repaving

Repaving of NuovoDoc involves introduction of a construction structure that is now being used for all nfoCentrale sites.  The construction structure provides scaffolding on which the unique content for NuovoDoc is developed and maintained in a systematic way.  The repaving of the construction structure provides the framework for promulgating the repaving work throughout the site.  It also provides identification of where and how much repaving remains to be done and where repaving has been completed.

Repaving starts by updates to basic construction structure and construction materials needed for further development.  The basic infrastructure of the site is repaved first:

NuovoDoc.com / ---   root construction structure and root construction zone
                |
                -- _private/
                |
                -- cgi-bin/ (not viewable)
                |
                -- construction/
                |
                -- images/
 

Repaving is extended to the remaining sections of the site in a progressive way, concentrating on the most-used materials first.  For NuovoDoc, the progression is through the following sections:

                |
                -- info/
                |
                -- products/
                |
                -- analysis/
                |
                -- activities/
                |
                -- architettura/

Repaving is a manual process.  In order to keep track of the repaving status and progress, notices are placed throughout the construction structure and in lists of work items (e.g., on any Job Jar & Diary page) that reflect the local repaving (and later-maintenance) status.  This serves three important purposes:

• Visitors to the site will be able to tell whether the materials are placeholders or have other customization to be provided.

• The site developer/webmaster has a positive indication whether material anywhere in the site is pending customization or has been customized to the current standards for the site.

• By viewing the dependencies on the different notice inserts (i.e., using a tool such as FrontPage), it is possible to determine those places where work is still required.  By also noting where work has been completed as part of a particular project, it is easy to locate those places where a subsequent project has not yet introduced updates.

The customization process begins at the front porch of the site.  It is propagated from there down into the infrastructure and content sections as they are introduced.  The complete bootstrapping progress of all components of the site can be reviewed by navigation from the root construction structure page.

2. Work Items and Bootstrap Progress

There is a progression of work items being followed to extend the construction structure information through all of the initial folders.  This can be found in the top-level construction zone Diary & Job Jar table. 

Essentially, the initial material is adjusted starting from the root of the site and working to the leaves of the initial folders.  As the material is customized, notices are inserted in the pages of infrastructure to reflect their bootstrapping status.  

The initial notice is in red text.  It indicates that the transformation to the correct form and content is incomplete.

As construction structure and construction materials are customized for this site, the notices in the material are changed to ones with green text.  These notices indicate which aspect of the material at that point and below is now in correct form: construction structure and content material.

For new material that is introduced following the initial bootstrap, a different green-text notice is used to indicate that this material is created in the proper form from the beginning. 

The different notices and their usage are illustrated here on the 2008-06-04 Announcement page.

The overall rolling-wave through the site structure is illustrated in the progressive modifications of the following table:

Table 1.  Repaving Status
backgrounds: white - pending, red - in progress, blue - completed

Level					Constituent	Status Date
Front Porch					Construction Structure	2008-07-19
?					Construction Zone	2008-07-19
?	_private				Construction Structure	2008-07-20
?	activities				Construction Structure
?	analysis				Construction Structure
?	architettura				Construction Structure
?	cgi-bin				Construction Structure	2008-07-20
?	construction				Construction Structure	2008-06-24
?	?				Construction Zone	2008-07-20
?	?	2008			Construction Structure	2008-06-24
?	?	?		06	Construction Structure	2008-06-24
?	?				c080601	2008-06-24
?	?	templates			Construction Structure	2008-06-24
?		?		00	Construction Structure	2008-06-24
?					c000002	2008-06-24
?					c000003	2008-06-24
?					c000004	2008-06-24
?					c000005	2008-06-24
?					c000006	2008-06-24
?	images				Construction Structure	2008-07-20
?	info				Construction Structure	2008-07-20
?	?				Construction Zone	2008-07-20
?	?		1999		Construction Structure
?	?		?	05	Construction Structure
?	?		2005		Construction Structure
?	?		?	12	Construction Structure
?	?		2007		Construction Structure
?			?	03	Construction Structure
?	products				Construction Structure
					Construction Zone

3. Reporting Defects 

Any defect encountered in content, construction structure, and links (internal and external) can be reported to the technical coordinator. 

If you are curious what defects are already identified, you can inspect the lists of known work items that are maintained throughout the site:

• During and after the main bootstrapping, the areas touched in the bootstrapping are listed in the Bootstrapping Diary & Job Jar.  Also, Table 1, here, shows the status of the in-progress waves until the repaving is completed.

• Construction Zone sections around the site will also have Diary & Job Jar lists of known items to be worked on.  The various Construction Zones can be found through the top-level Construction Structure page.

• In addition, individual folios of material (such as this one), have their own Diary & Job Jar pages.  It is possible to determine the status and known defects (plus open work items) of an individual folio by consulting that page.

4. Making Insertions

Using Microsoft Office FrontPage 2003, the current announcement may be inserted into any number of site pages.  Insertion is by using the FrontPage extensions "Include Page" web component.  The FrontPage operation is performed using the current Include Page.  That Include Page provides a single-cell table element that accomplishes three purposes:

1. The announcement provides a link to a document-engineering page (such as this one) where more detail of the repaving-project status may be found. 

2. The FrontPage 2003 Hyperlinks View provides a way to know where the announcement is currently placed as it is appropriate to remove it from some pages and add it to others.

3. Maintenance of the insertion is performed in a single place and automatically reflected in all of the places the announcement has been inserted.

The link in the caption beneath the cell provides access to the corresponding document-engineering page and its explanation.

For further information on how this approach to Include Content is performed, see the template article page c000006c: ClustrMap Insertion FrontPage Document Engineering.

5. Related Material

• c080801b: Site Bootstrapping [current status]

• c080801c: 2008-08-29 Announcement

• c080801a: Diary & Job Jar

Attribution:

Hamilton, Dennis E.

Site Repaving.   Orcmid's Lair Construction Materials Note  c080801 0.00, August 29, 2008.  Available at <http://orcmid.com/construction/2008/08/c080801.htm>.

Revision History:

0.00 2008-08-29-09:47 Create Folio Cover-Page Placeholder

Customize just enough for provisional Orcmid's Lair repaving use.  Clean it up later.  The NuovoDoc repaving folio c080601 is used as the boilerplate to be adapted.

You are navigating Orcmid's Lair construction material.

created 2008-08-28-18:38 -0700 (pdt) by orcmid $$Author: Orcmid $ $$Date: 08-08-29 9:52 $ $$Revision: 98 $