Theo Todman's Web Page - Notes Pages

Website Documentation

Website Generator Documentation - Thesis Technology

(Work In Progress: output at 29/05/2024)

Note ReferencesNote Citations

Introduction

  1. The software and databases that underly the production of my Thesis are highly complex. While many of the functions are documented elsewhere, I have thought it useful to draw it all together.
  2. This Note will cover both the process flow and the technical details, where this is not covered elsewhere.
  3. Contents

Thesis Dashboard
  1. The dashboard is supposed to show the progress – by Chapter – of work on my Thesis.
  2. The Web-page itself is Status: Thesis Dashboard (YYYY – Month)5.
  3. The processing is (going to be) fully documented in another Note: Website Generator Documentation - Thesis Dashboard6.
  4. I’m not sure whether the Dashboard really gives a good idea of progress as – while it’s at a great level of detail – 16 tasks for each of the 12 Chapters, some with sub-tasks, maybe to be performed iteratively – it has ‘got stuck’ since the tasks are – in some cases – very onerous.
  5. There’s an identical block of text in the Dashboard7 to that in the Note Thesis - Method & Form8 that describes the Thesis It ought to be a snippet for embedding:
    → I’ve raised a development log item9 for this.

Thesis Text
  1. As can be seen from the Dashboard10, there are two ‘introductions’ to the Thesis:-
    → Thesis – Preface11, and
    → Thesis – Chapter 01 (Introduction)12.
  2. There is also my Thesis – Current Stance13. It is somewhat disconnected from the Thesis as such and currently only seems to be referenced from Chapter 0114 as an afterthought.
  3. There are 12 main Chapters and – as top and tail – the Preface15 and the References16. All 14 are Notes, but are differentiated as follows;-
    1. Preface17
      • Introduction: Plain text; motivational18, and describes the structure of the Thesis.
      • General Remarks: Plain text.
    2. Chapters 0119 - 1120
      • Contents: Links to the sections in the Chapter.
      • Chapter Abstract: Text specific to the Chapter.
      • Research Methodology:
        1. There’s a lot of commonality between Chapters in this regard, though most of this narrative is segregated to a couple of further documents, for which links are provided:-
          → Thesis - Method & Form21
          → Dashboard22
        2. Chapters 0323-1124 have just this identical text.
        3. Chapter 0225 has an extra comment.
        4. Chapter 0126 has extra text and a links to:-
          → PID Note, Book & Paper Usage27, itemising …
          → PID Notes referenced in the Chapter Note-Lists of my Thesis, by Chapter28, and …
          → PID Notes referenced in the Text of my Thesis, by Chapter29
      • Chapter Introduction: Text, with links to the Notes that will be summarised in the next section (woven manually into the text to motivate the use of these Notes).
      • Note Hierarchy:
        1. Uses Functor_23, parameter 16. The hierarchy provides links to the Notes, for convenience
        2. Can be topped and / or tailed with other comments.
        3. The purpose of this section is to get an overview of the Chapter and show how the Notes on which it is based interrelate.
        4. The underlying table has to be constructed very carefully and there are some constraints on how things can be presented.
        5. The section header should include a link to a footnote saying ‘My background research has been broken down into over 200 other Notes . Those most relevant to the Chapter in hand are listed in this Section’.
      • Chapter Main Text:
        1. This is the main business of the Chapter. It follows the same structure as the Note Hierarchy immediately above.
        2. This could – presumably – be automated to some degree, but for now – to allow flexibility – I’ve hand-crafted the Note Hierarchy for this Section and then inserted the ‘Thesis text’ from the relevant Note via Functor_24, parameters: Snippet_ID, ‘4’ (as for the corresponding Note itself).
        3. Further text can be added within the hierarchy that is not contained in these Snippets.
      • Concluding Remarks: Text. Including a motivating link to the next Chapter, where relevant.
      • Links to Books / Papers to be Addressed: This is a motivating statement for the reading lists that follow. Differs from Chapter to Chapter. Includes links to the two list that follow: ‘items read’ and ‘further reading’. These lists – especially the latter, at this stage – are very long. The second link is therefore essential for navigation purposes.
      • Works on this topic that I’ve actually read: Automatically generated using:-
        → Functor_23, parameters ‘17’, ‘Read’
      • Further reading list: Automatically generated using:-
        → Functor_23, parameters ‘17’, ‘Unread’
    3. Chapter 1230 (Conclusion)
      • Contents: Links to the sections in the Chapter.
        → To be supplied!
      • Abstract: Plain text.
      • Chapter Introduction: Plain text. Currently missing!
      • Main Text: Plain text. Currently missing!
      • Concluding Remarks: Plain text. Currently missing!
    4. References31
      • Contents: Links to the sections in the page.
      • Introduction: Free text, but includes stats on the numbers of items in the reference lists, provided by the following:-
        → Functor_23, parameters ’21, ‘18’ (count of ‘Works Cited’)
        → Functor_23, parameters ’21, ‘17’ (count of works in ‘Full Reference List’)
      • Works Cited: List supplied automatically by:-
        → Functor_22, parameters ‘14’, ‘1’
      • Full Reference List: List supplied automatically by:-
        → Functor_22, parameter ‘13’
      • The ‘References & Reading List’ should duplicate the lists above, but for some reason it only currently contains 7 items!
        → I’ve raised a development log item32.
  4. I had thought there would be a bumper Note that would contain the whole Thesis in a single page, including a full hierarchical structure of the Notes, but it seems not, maybe for technical reasons. I suppose a Printable Note would do (see Website Generator Documentation - Printable Notes33), but this functionality is currently switched off.
    → I’ve raised a development log item34 for the reinstatement of Printable Notes.
  5. For ease of understanding, the following tables and procedures are required for these Functors to return some data:-
    • To be supplied.

Adding a New PID Note
  1. Simple enough to start off with. Simply add a row to the Notes table. Best to copy another PID Note. PID Notes, however, have a standard format, to be documented below.
  2. Hereon in I’ll use my most recent PID Note – on Thought35 – as an example. It was difficulty getting this to work – I don’t create new PID Notes often now – that led me to document the procedure in this Note.
  3. To record time spent developing the note, a pseudo-Paper needs to be set up (eg. "Todman (Theo) - Thesis - Thought"). This should have the Write_Up_Note_ID column set to the Note’s ID.
  4. To provide a Categorised Reading List for the Note (which will appear as ‘References and Reading List’) it is necessary to add a new Sub-Topic36 to the Sub-Topics table and then add this as a Sub-Topic to the relevant rows in the Books and Papers. This is only relevant if the Note title is brief. A rule of thumb is to do a search on Papers (and then Books) using the key-word (and any alternates, in turn) and then filter on the key-word in the Title. Eye-ball them to see if they are relevant and update Sub-Topic1, 2 or 3 if so.
  5. Create a Page of Links – initially as a non-updating run. This process is described in Website Generator Documentation - Auto-Reference Notes37. In particular, set up any Alternates in the Note_Alternates table. For example, ‘Thinking’ as an alternate for Thought38. Example: for Thought.
  6. Standard Format:
    • Plug Note39 header: only if still relevant.
    • Thesis Text: Functor_24; parameters: Snippet_ID, ‘4’. Note that it’s the ID from the Snippets table, not the Note ID that appears as parameter 1. It is very important not to reference ‘out of Chapter’ Notes in the Thesis Text without using the ‘NP’ marker40 in the link.
    • Further Remarks: free text that elaborates on the Thesis Text, or adds supplementary detail that may find its way into the Thesis Test in due course.
    • References
      • Relevant Works cited above: derived using Functor_22; parameters ‘14’, ‘2’41. These are the books and Papers cited in the Thesis Text and Further Remarks. Currently, these are supplied manually42, so there’s the option to ignore items.
      • Page of Links: Link to the page created above, using ‘+ L Note_ID L+’ format. Eg. For Thought.
      • Works Actually Read43: derived using Functor_22; parameters ‘8’, ‘ ‘, ‘1’. The hyperlink is to a disclaimer, which I need to review occasionally.
      • Further Reading List: derived using:-
        → Functor_22; parameters ‘9’, ‘ ‘, ‘1’. And,
        → Functor_23; parameter ‘22’
      • Missed the Cut: derived using:-
        → Read: Functor_22; parameters ‘8’, ‘ ‘, ‘2’.
        → Further Reading: Functor_22; parameters ‘9’, ‘ ‘, ‘2’.
    • Disclaimer: ‘This is mostly a place-holder44’, if relevant.
  7. The above Functors are documented in Website Generator Documentation – Functors45. They usually return an appropriate message if the primary query returns zero rows.
  8. For ease of reference, to summarise what has been said above and in the footnotes, the following tables and procedures are required for these Functors to return some data:-
    • To be supplied.

Update / Regenerate PID Thesis Notes

The first option offered by cmdNotes_Click (see Website Generator Documentation - Create Notes Web Pages46) is “Update / Regenerate Thesis / PID Notes”, which – if accepted – provides the following options. However, firstly PID_Note_Reading_Lists_Date_XChk is run to check for inconsistent publication dates in the PID_Note_Reading_Lists table. Corrections should be made before proceeding:-
  1. Open the PID_Note_Reading_Lists table: uses query PID_Note_Reading_Lists_List to open the table in reading-list order.
  2. Update PID_Note_Reading_Lists table for a particular Note: opens qry_PID_Note_Reading_Lists_Note, which requests a Note ID and returns rows in in reading-list order.
  3. Update PID_Note_Reading_Lists table for a particular Paper: opens qry_PID_Note_Reading_Lists_Paper, which requests a Paper ID. To check for and ensure consistency of publication date and footnote where the same paper is referenced by multiple PID Notes.
  4. Update PID_Note_Reading_Lists table for a particular Book: as above, but for Books. Opens qry_PID_Note_Reading_Lists_Book.
  5. Open the Thesis_Note_XRef table: Opens Thesis_Note_XRef_List.
  6. Open Thesis PID Note Usage Queries: Opens the following:-
    → PID_Notes_By_Thesis_Chapter
    → PID_Notes_Unused_By_Thesis
    → PID_Notes_Used_By_Thesis_Chapter
  7. Open Thesis Missing Book/Papers Queries: Opens the following:-
    → Books_Missing_By_Thesis_Chapter
    → Papers_Missing_By_Thesis_Chapter
    → IdentityPapersRead_Unreferenced
  8. Regenerate Functors in Live Note(s): Runs Update_Live_Notes_Functor. This has two options – select all non-Temp PID Notes or just one. You are given the option of actually regenerating the selected Note(s), or simply updating the Note database record with its associated Archived_Note. Basically, the Function invokes all the Functors embedded in the Note(s) and performs the updates. This is also useful if you want to make a trivial

This Note is awaiting attention47.


In-Page Footnotes:

Footnote 18: Footnote 36: Footnote 40: Footnote 41: Footnote 42:


Note last updated Reference for this Topic Parent Topic
03/05/2025 13:07:21 1357 (Website Generator Documentation - Thesis Technology) Website Generator Documentation - Control Page

Summary of Notes Referenced by This Note

Awaiting Attention (Documentation) Awaiting Attention (Personal Identity) PID Note, Book & Paper Usage Plug Note Apologia Status: Thesis Dashboard (2025: May)
Thesis - Chapter 01 (Introduction) Thesis - Chapter 02 (What are We?) Thesis - Chapter 03 (What is a Person?) Thesis - Chapter 11 (Resurrection) Thesis - Chapter 12 (Conclusion)
Thesis - Current Stance Thesis - Method & Form Thesis - Preface Thesis - References Thought
Website - Outstanding Developments (2025 - May) Website Generator Documentation - Auto-Reference Notes Website Generator Documentation - Create Notes Web Pages Website Generator Documentation - Functors Website Generator Documentation - Printable Notes
Website Generator Documentation - Thesis Dashboard Website Generator Documentation - Thesis Technology Works Read - Explanation    

To access information, click on one of the links in the table above.



Summary of Notes Citing This Note

Status: Priority Task List (2025 - May), 2 Status: Summary (2025 - March), 2 Status: Web-Tools (2025 - March) Website - Outstanding Developments (2025 - May), 2 Website Generator Documentation - Backups
Website Generator Documentation - Create Notes Web Pages        

To access information, click on one of the links in the table above.



Text Colour Conventions

  1. Blue: Text by me; © Theo Todman, 2025



© Theo Todman, June 2007 - May 2025.Please address any comments on this page to theo@theotodman.com.File output:
Website Maintenance Dashboard
Return to Top of this PageReturn to Theo Todman's Philosophy PageReturn to Theo Todman's Home Page