Re: Converting a Magazine to a Web Site with WebCat

This WebDNA talk-list message is from

1999

It keeps the original formatting. numero = 23664
interpreted = N
texte = At 2:13 Uhr -0800 13.02.99, Mike_Davis wrote:>I'm just about to start designing a site for a magazine that is released>every two weeks. I know there must be a few of you out there that have done>this already...I have finished such a site two weeks ago. The site contains two magazines,one is weekly and one comes every three month. It is not a clone from theprinted magazine but 10-15 selected articles are online, all with the samelayout. For each article I have headline, picture, legend, intro, anunlimited number of subheadline/textblock-pairs and the possibility tochange the textflow around the picture.There is no automatic conversion from print data to web, because ourcustomer still uses Ventura Publisher and cannot export structured data forfurther processing (at least he told me so).The site is completely WebCat-driven, everything like adding new issues,archiving, adding articles and so on is done via web interface. Searchablearchive is provided.>so I thought I'd ask the list for any advice from the trenches>before I start.Well, I won't tell everything in detail, but I can share some experience...>I'm unsure of whether I should keep all the content in the>database or if I should use [included] text files. This raises the issue of>whether the site could be indexed by the search robots vs whether I can>perform WebCat searches on the content. The client also wants to keep a>searchable archive of back issues as well.If you write files to disk you'll have to connect your own search engine tothe site and the search results might not look like you or your clientexpect. And you have to deliver with[convertchars][include....][/convertchars] anyway, because once you havewritten the file the text is not easy to change for a person not familiarwith HTML because you get all tags in your editing interface. I decided tohave everything in the database (one database per magazine). Your decisiondepends on the amount of text and the server.Searching: our site has many frames, so we have a problem with searchengines anyway. We plan to write each page into a directory, where spiderscan find them (leaded by robots.txt). If the user calls such a page, thereis a link to switch to the framed original site, maybe we switchautomatically. This is not implemented yet.>At some point, with two per>month, the database size would become too large.Sure? Than you can write outdated issues into different databases and keepthe search features of webcat. This depends on the type of search youprovide for your archive - if you search all issues at any search request,splitting databases does not make much sense, if you search in singleissues it does.>...Also, what method(s) of version>control have been successful with your clients. What I mean by that is>administrating the switching of new issues to the live site while retiring>the last issue.Since I have all issues of one magazine in one magazine, this is noproblem. I have a status field with three possible states: old, online andnew. The client can add one ore more new issues whenever he want and editthem online. If he wants to go online with a new issue, he simmply clicks abutton, the online records are set to old and the new one is set toonline.>Any other issues regarding this kind of site that could be>helpful would also be appreciated.The strucure of the database might be more complex than you expect at thebeginning. You have to track issue numbers, article numbers to show thearticles in the right order, maybe textblock numbers if you want editablesubheads for paragraphs. If you have more magazines in one site (like we),think quite often about the hierarchy:Unlimited number of magazines Unlimited number of articles for each magazine Unlimited number of textblocks in each articleThis requires a solid numbering scheme, you should be able to renumberrecords if someone deletes an article. And you have to upload, display anddelete related pictures automatically.The site I am talking about is already online, you can see it athttp://www.aerztewoche.atIt is german only, but you'll find your way. The two magazines are underMedien and called Aerztewoche and Praxis & Wirtschaft.Peter++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++Peter Ostry - Vienna/Austria - www.ostry.comFon ++43-1-877 74 54 Fax ++43-1-877 74 54-21++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Associated Messages, from the most recent to the oldest:

Re: Converting a Magazine to a Web Site with WebCat (Peter Ostry 1999) Re: Converting a Magazine to a Web Site with WebCat (webcat 1999) Converting a Magazine to a Web Site with WebCat (Mike_Davis 1999)

At 2:13 Uhr -0800 13.02.99, Mike_Davis wrote:>I'm just about to start designing a site for a magazine that is released>every two weeks. I know there must be a few of you out there that have done>this already...I have finished such a site two weeks ago. The site contains two magazines,one is weekly and one comes every three month. It is not a clone from theprinted magazine but 10-15 selected articles are online, all with the samelayout. For each article I have headline, picture, legend, intro, anunlimited number of subheadline/textblock-pairs and the possibility tochange the textflow around the picture.There is no automatic conversion from print data to web, because ourcustomer still uses Ventura Publisher and cannot export structured data forfurther processing (at least he told me so).The site is completely WebCat-driven, everything like adding new issues,archiving, adding articles and so on is done via web interface. Searchablearchive is provided.>so I thought I'd ask the list for any advice from the trenches>before I start.Well, I won't tell everything in detail, but I can share some experience...>I'm unsure of whether I should keep all the content in the>database or if I should use [included] text files. This raises the issue of>whether the site could be indexed by the search robots vs whether I can>perform WebCat searches on the content. The client also wants to keep a>searchable archive of back issues as well.If you write files to disk you'll have to connect your own search engine tothe site and the search results might not look like you or your clientexpect. And you have to deliver with[convertchars][include....][/convertchars] anyway, because once you havewritten the file the text is not easy to change for a person not familiarwith HTML because you get all tags in your editing interface. I decided tohave everything in the database (one database per magazine). Your decisiondepends on the amount of text and the server.Searching: our site has many frames, so we have a problem with searchengines anyway. We plan to write each page into a directory, where spiderscan find them (leaded by robots.txt). If the user calls such a page, thereis a link to switch to the framed original site, maybe we switchautomatically. This is not implemented yet.>At some point, with two per>month, the database size would become too large.Sure? Than you can write outdated issues into different databases and keepthe search features of webcat. This depends on the type of search youprovide for your archive - if you search all issues at any search request,splitting databases does not make much sense, if you search in singleissues it does.>...Also, what method(s) of version>control have been successful with your clients. What I mean by that is>administrating the switching of new issues to the live site while retiring>the last issue.Since I have all issues of one magazine in one magazine, this is noproblem. I have a status field with three possible states: old, online andnew. The client can add one ore more new issues whenever he want and editthem online. If he wants to go online with a new issue, he simmply clicks abutton, the online records are set to old and the new one is set toonline.>Any other issues regarding this kind of site that could be>helpful would also be appreciated.The strucure of the database might be more complex than you expect at thebeginning. You have to track issue numbers, article numbers to show thearticles in the right order, maybe textblock numbers if you want editablesubheads for paragraphs. If you have more magazines in one site (like we),think quite often about the hierarchy:Unlimited number of magazines Unlimited number of articles for each magazine Unlimited number of textblocks in each articleThis requires a solid numbering scheme, you should be able to renumberrecords if someone deletes an article. And you have to upload, display anddelete related pictures automatically.The site I am talking about is already online, you can see it athttp://www.aerztewoche.atIt is german only, but you'll find your way. The two magazines are underMedien and called Aerztewoche and Praxis & Wirtschaft.Peter++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++Peter Ostry - Vienna/Austria - www.ostry.comFon ++43-1-877 74 54 Fax ++43-1-877 74 54-21++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Peter Ostry

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