Theo Todman's Web Page - Notes Pages
Status Reports
Status: Web-Tools (2016 - March)
(Text as at 05/04/2016 23:19:41)
(For other versions of this Note, see the tables at the end)
Rationale for this Project- This Project was alluded to briefly in a footnote on research methodology in my original Research Proposal1 under the head Research - Internet Technology2. When last at Birkbeck, I wrote a more extensive paper3 defending the Project and describing its rationale. Now that my PhD is in suspense, I have decided to take this Project further. There’s a lot to do: still quite a few items on the “wish list”. It is fairly critical as an enabler for my research, so I need to get a move on as I want it all out of the way before I re-start4 formal research.
- For documentation on my website (currently password protected) follow the links below:-
- Functional5 Documentation6.
- Technical7 Documentation.
- Other Websites8
- I established the Hutton Bridge Club Website (Web Link) in 4Q11 using the standard Bridgewebs service, but with a couple of competitions using my own routines. I’ve retained supporting these despite handing the Website on.
- I took over the support and development of the Essex Contract Bridge Association (ECBA) website (Web Link), which also uses Bridgewebs, but is very much larger, in 1Q15. I have written a lot of code to make this job less tedious.
- Over the last few years, I’ve been collecting data on bridge activity in the area (needed for a project to set up a new consolidated club) – by “scraping” data off web pages, consolidating it into a database and modelling it in various ways – and have booked this time to this project as it enhances (or at least maintains) my IT skills in this area. I’m now using this data to generate websites for small clubs (Web Link).
- I’ve created and maintain a new website for the First Class Bridge Academy (Web Link).
- About 10 years ago, I created a website for Dr. Sophie Botros (Web Link), one of my supervisors at Birkbeck. I’ve recently taken it back on and spruced it up a bit, though it requires more work.
- I’ve created and maintain a small website for a music group Julie and I attend – the Enigma Ensemble (Web Link).
- Most recently, I’ve created a test website (Web Link) for displaying the textual and grammatical analyses and appendices of Pete’s website on the Acts of the Apostles.
- I did consider returning to work part-time as an MS Access/Excel developer, with a spin-off into website generation, but have done nothing about it so far.
Summary of Progress during January – March 2016- This project retained its prominence, absorbing over 1/3 of my project time, though the vast majority of this was not for my own website. A major addition was a development for Pete’s PhD, which will occupy me for the next quarter as well.
- A repeat disappointment was that I didn’t pursue my web-training with Sitepoint, despite having – in anticipation – extended my membership for another couple of years. I did, however, grab all the eBooks in their library, though haven’t catalogued them all yet.
- During 1Q16 I expended 233 hours on this project (476 hours YTD, where for “YTD” – Year to Date – I mean the academic year that commenced in October 2015). That’s 119% of planned effort, 110% YTD. Overall, 36% of my project effort in the Quarter was directed towards this Project (making 37% YTD) – as against 29% planned (32% YTD).
- While around three-quarters of the time booked to this project was expended on the behalf of third parties, I did make some progress on my own site. Most of the detail is available in the task lists below, but a few highlights were:-
- Reconciled my X-IMP calculations with a new feature provided by Bridgewebs. I “round”, which causes minor discrepancies. I’ve not fixed this yet (and the Bridgewebs feature is so good, it may not be worth the bother).
- Created Ladies’ and Gentlemen’s ladders for my mini-websites & accommodated Alaric’s new scoring system for St. Edith’s.
- Allowed Note- & Footnote-links from multiple words9. This is such a useful feature!
- Similarly, enabled direct links to Notes from within Footnotes.
- Created direct links from Subject, Topic & Sub-topic (in Book and Paper Summaries) to their link pages.
- Completed converting “static” pages to Notes.
- Created an automatic documenter – with links to the code – for Forms.
- Stopped (I hope!) “private” Notes showing in Paper Abstracts.
- Created a new database and website for "Mansell (Peter) - Bottom Up Reading of Acts".
- Some tidying up of the 3,000-odd external links from my website.
- Lots of routine website maintenance for the ECBA, Bernie & the “small clubs”.
- Updated the Enigma Ensemble website calendar for the new term and tried – but failed – to get its priority in Google Search increased.
- Further details are given below:-
Website (Total Hours = 63.75)- Website - Bridge Development (Total Hours = 7.25)
- Website - Development (Total Hours = 37)
- Website - Generator - "Private Notes" (in Paper Abstracts, etc.) (1.75 hours)
- Website - Generator - Allow direct Note-links in Footnotes (1.25 hours)
- Website - Generator - Allow Note-links from Multiple Words (2.5 hours)
- Website - Generator - Bug creating new Sub-Topics from new Topics (0.75 hours)
- Website - Generator - Bug in Precis-page generator (1 hour)
- Website - Generator - Convert "Static" pages to Notes (5 hours)
- Website - Generator - Documentation of Forms + Link to Code (7.75 hours)
- Website - Generator - Improve / test out start number for bulleted lists (0.5 hours)
- Website - Generator - Improving Note Referencing (4.75 hours)
- Website - Generator - Links for Subject, Topic & Sub-Topic (4.75 hours)
- Website - Generator - set "as at" for Temp Notes to "Now" (0.5 hours)
- Website - Generator - Spacing around bulleted lists (0.75 hours)
- Website - Generator - Spider External Links (3.75 hours)
- Website - Generator - Thesis Dashboard improvements (1 hour)
- Website - Generator - Timestamping of Write-ups in Paper Abstracts (0.75 hours)
- Website - Generator - Xref re-engineering - Change-triggering (0.25 hours)
→ See "Software Development - Website - Development"
- Website - Education (Total Hours = 3.5)
- Website - Infrastructure (Total Hours = 9.25)
- BT Broadband Renewal (1 hour)
- Fix Julie's PC - Internet Access (0.25 hours)
- Laptop Network Card Problems (2.5 hours)
- Microsoft Windows 10 - Releases & Bugs (0.75 hours)
- Naomi's External Hard Drive (0.75 hours)
- Naomi's new laptop (1.5 hours)
- PC Backups / OneDrive (1.25 hours)
- Toshiba 2Tb Portable Hard Drive - Purchase & Installation (1.25 hours)
→ See "Software Development - Website - Development"
- Website - Maintenance (Total Hours = 6.75)
Website Others (Total Hours = 169)- Website Others - Bernie's Website Development
- Website Others - ECBA Maintenance (Total Hours = 66.5)
- Admin - ECBA Website - Eve Goblets (2.5 hours)
- Bridge - Butler IMPs - Data Output (1.25 hours)
- Bridge - ECBA Website - Friendly League (4 hours)
- Bridge - ECBA Website - Friendly League - Scoring Methodology (8.75 hours)
- Bridge - ECBA Website - Routine Maintenance (49 hours)
- Bridge - Marc Chawner re IE8 & Thorpe "Play It Again" (1 hour)
→ See "Admin - ECBA Website - Admin & Maintenance"
- Website Others - ECBA Membership - Development
- Website Others - ECBA Tournaments - Maintenance (Total Hours = 1.75)
- Website Others - Enigma Ensemble
- Website Others - Joint Project Data Analysis (Total Hours = 10)
- Bridge - Joint Project - Data Modelling - Apple Duplicate Names (0.75 hours)
- Bridge - Joint Project - Data Modelling - Apple ladder parameters adjustment (0.5 hours)
- Bridge - Joint Project - Data Modelling - Exceptions for Monday Club (0.5 hours)
- Bridge - Joint Project - Data Modelling - Improve portal home page (0.5 hours)
- Bridge - Joint Project - Data Modelling - Male/Female Ladders (6.25 hours)
- Bridge - Joint Project - Data Modelling - Produce Ladders for Pilgrim (1.5 hours)
- Website Others - Joint Project Data Collection (Total Hours = 30.25)
- Bridge - Joint Project - Data Collection & "Mini Website" output (25.5 hours)
- Bridge - Joint Project - Data Collection & "Mini Website" output - Dealt Hands (0.5 hours)
- Bridge - Joint Project - Data Collection & "Mini Website" output - User Support (0.25 hours)
- Bridge - Joint Project - Hutton & Hutton Union (1 hour)
- Bridge - Joint Project - St Edith's new Scoring (3 hours)
→ See "Admin - Bridge - Joint Project"
- Website Others - Pete's PhD
Plans for the Near Future
I’ve retained the planned weekly effort on this project at 15 hours, to accommodate Pete’s PhD project. Given that activity on this project for my own site is high at the moment, and to avoid too long a straggle of items on this report, I’ve created a document10 listing outstanding items, together with those completed since the document was created. As a result, only the more important11 items likely to be addressed shortly appear here. - General Developments:
- Undertake a trawl through the code for all functions within the generator – making improvements for efficiency and function.
- Investigate the error reports from the Documenter, especially unused variables & queries.
- Supply rudimentary functional documentation as a spin-off from the above.
- Undertake a trawl through all (categories of) web-page, making aesthetic improvements, and correcting content.
- Look into Optimizr12.
- Specific Developments:
- Ensure FN referencing within Notes and referencing between Abstracts and Notes works for archived Notes.
- Read the Google documentation (Web Link) to investigate where I’m going wrong in the (failure to) use META tags to ensure my stuff sorts correctly in the search engines.
- Technical Documenter:-
- Separate from the main code, then add a parameter so it doesn’t necessarily document itself.
- Investigate & fix “Query Fragments” issue.
- Enhance to document Macros.
- Look at ways of documenting other (MS Access) databases & trial on Northwind.
- Investigate possibilities of retailing the documenter.
- Complete XRef-re-engineering project:-
- Ensure all links and link-pages use the new XRef table, and pension off the old tables.
- Check all link-types still work and fix any errors.
- Complete the auto-triggering of regeneration of “associated” link pages.
- Fix update bug in Convert_Webrefs.
- Bug: PaperSummary pages seem to have “Works-” and “Books/Papers-“ Citings that refer to the same link-pages.
- Add more content to the photos pages.
- Enable reproduction of archived “Printed Notes”.
- Fix problem with bespoke links to Printed Notes from Archived Notes (revealed by the Spider).
- Solve the problem of the size limitation for Notes (eg. by allowing their concatenation).
- Subsequently, remove all large “Comments” that have been utilised to expand Paper abstracts (by moving them to Notes).
- Utilise my Web Spider – in particular use the external links pages to (manually or automatically) correct broken links from within the body of the site.
- Fix bugs in multi-level footnoting in Printable Notes – the referencing is going wrong.
- Bridge Websites:
- ECBA website (Web Link):-
- Routine maintenance (no small task).
- Include “decimal” IMPs in X-IMP calculations, and reconcile to Bridgewebs.
- Joint Project / Small clubs Websites (Web Link, "Admin - Bridge - Joint Project"):
- Continue data collection & modelling.
- Continue to maintain & “market” websites for small clubs (Web Link).
- Bernie’s Website (Web Link):
- Set up competitions for 2016.
- Routine maintenance.
- Pete’s PhD Website: Web Link. Complete the software to analyse clauses and expand to the full Greek text of Acts.
- Other Initiatives:
- Plan an update of Sophie Botros’s Website ("Admin - Sophie Botros Website - Creation, Admin & Maintenance", Web Link).
- Maintain the Enigma Ensemble website (Web Link) as necessary.
- Upgrade my Facebook page ("Facebook - Understand Facebook & Build Personal Facebook Page") using "Abram (Carolyn) - Facebook for Dummies: Fifth Edition" for inspiration / guidance.
- Education:
- Continue with "Sitepoint (Learnable) - Sitepoint Learnable Web Development Courses":-
- Complete, "Allsopp (John) - Learn HTML5",
- Restart, and complete, "Weakley (Russ) - Getting Started with CSS"
- Catalogue downloaded eBooks, so I know what I’ve got!.
- Read "PC Pro - Computing in the Real World".
Summary of Progress to Date
This is hived off to a separate13 document14. A summary of time expended across the years developing my website15 is at "Software Development - Website - Development".
In-Page Footnotes
Footnote 4: - Well, I’ve missed the boat, so will need to continue with both projects in parallel.
- This was always likely to be necessary, as new features will always arise in use. It’s a prototype methodology, after all.
Footnote 5: This is very tedious to produce and consequently is both incomplete and out of date.
Footnote 7: - This is much more fun, as it’s a purely technical task.
- I’ve written a vastly-improved general-purpose technical documenter for MS Access.
Footnote 9: As indicated here!
Footnote 11: This list has, however, got too long!
Footnote 12: - For Optimizr, see Web Link. A quick look doesn’t show it to be an obvious scam, but I need to double-check.
- An unsolicited analysis of my site turned up, listing a large number of “problems” that I think I know about, but which are in the queue to address.
- I suspect that this software will try to get me to buy something – maybe to fix the problems – but because I use a generator it’ll be no use.
- But I do need to address the problems validly itemised.
Footnote 13: - This document requires significant updating as it hasn’t been touched since December 2010.
- It may also be largely superseded by other documents – eg. the Outstanding Developments and Functional Documentation.
- But it may provide a different “take” on what I’ve done. Maybe higher level.
Footnote 15: As distinct from developing other peoples’ websites – time which is also recorded against this project, but not against this task.
Live Version of this Archived Note
Table of 12 Earlier Versions of this Note (of 60)
Table of the 4 Later Versions of this Note
| This version updated |
Reference for this Topic |
Parent Topic |
| 05/04/2016 23:19:41 |
520 (Status: Web-Tools (2016 - March)) |
Status: Summary (2017 - June) |
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- Blue: Text by me; © Theo Todman, 2017