Subject: Re: How to update AstroWeb

From: [email-masked] (anton koekemoer)
Date: Sun, 3 Jul 94 16:27:51 EST

Dear friends,

	just for the record, my version of AstroWeb is also now based on the
STScI master list (has been for a while). Once a day the list is automatically
fetched and the files are re-made. I use the "newmaster.html" file instead of
the tcl file, but this is simply because all the machinery for making the MSSSO
presentation is based on html files. I also still fetch mirror copies from the
other AstroWeb sites.

	Editing the database locally and re-loading it at STScI works well and
is not too slow; I've simply been following the 4 steps suggested on Bob's form
although step 3 does not appear necessary (perhaps just because MSO is running
Mosaic 2.x?). In any case, this seems to be a practical way for any of us to
add new links and make changes to the database; certainly this is how I'll be
adding new links from now on.

	As for additions by the rest of the world, currently I just merge both
"inp_incoming.html" and "newmaster.html". This also works well; one possible
improvement in this area would be to set up inp_incoming.html so that we can
edit the entire thing. The entry form is nice because it does impose a certain
amount of order on what people enter, but quite often some minor changes are
still necessary after records have been entered.

						cheers,
						 - anton.

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From: [email-masked] (anton koekemoer)
Date: Mon, 4 Jul 94 18:04:16 EST

Hans-Martin,
> may be you have stated it somewhere, but what 'machinery' are you actually
> using? Tcl? shell scripts?

There are effectively two levels to it. The first level is a set of tcl scripts
taken primarily from those used by Bob and Daniel; these are the scripts which
fetch Astroweb files from other sites and compare differences between new and
older versions. See the directory
	http://meteor.anu.edu.au/anton/astroweb/fetch
for more details; the README file there explains the sequence in which these
tcl scripts are run and what their relationship to each other is. All the
scripts which do this work are contained in this directory.

The controlling script for the whole process is the file:
	http://meteor.anu.edu.au/anton/astroweb/fetch/update-astroweb

The second 'level' is invoked towards the end of 'update-astroweb'; this
consists of running 'make mssso' to update my own AstroWeb presentation. The
makefile and associated awk scripts are all modified from those initially used
by Don. They are all kept in the directory above "fetch", ie in:
	http://meteor.anu.edu.au/anton/astroweb
The main files of importance here are Makefile and *.awk. The only changes I
have made to these scripts are those which create an "MSSSO" format astroweb
instead of an NRAO one; otherwise they function much as Don described them
sometime back.

I use a little shell script ("update.sh") to regularly call "update-astroweb"
using the unix command "at", currently set to do it at 7:30pm each night.

	I apologize for the somewhat haphazard nature of this whole set of
directories; I don't really have enough time to make it tidy and user-friendly;
as long as it all works I am happy. But feel free to take any or all of these
scripts and improve them in any way you see fit. I'm only passing on what I got
from the others in any case.

						cheers,
						 - anton.