A description for MVD members of what the MVD is and how to use it.
( This page in progress... if you have a question that you need to have answered see the last item in the list below )
Then you must've found a broken link. This is the default page which is displayed if a file in a link you used cannot be found. Please report this broken link to the administrators of this site if you know the email address or else add a comment below.
goto top
The MVD is a program which allows one to create, manage and search through documents on a web site. It is actually a collection of three different cgi scripts. One script allows one to create and edit html documents through the use of one's browser. This means one does not need to have telnet or ftp access to the server where the MVD documents are stored. But one does need to be an MVD member with a username and password in order to do this ( see item #4 ). Another script parses and filters those documents and displays them to people browsing the web site which any particular instance of the MVD serves. Filtering means that extra items can be added, on the fly, to basic html documents as they are served to the browser. This keeps the size of each document to a minimum as well as allowing one to make certain changes only once in one central location and having it applied globally to each document in the MVD dadabase. The last script allows one to search for text strings and regular expressions in the collection of MVD documents.
goto top
The MVD originally started out as a learning exercise in writing interactive and
dynamic webpages and developed into a way of organizing the video-tape library
of the programmer's (Gerry Smith) very good friend Mariposa 'Posy' Perkins. Posy helped greatly with ideas and suggestions and even bits and pieces of code and algorithms. The name was early on called "Mariposa's Video Database." It soon developed into much more than a way of cataloging video-tapes and so a new name was needed... hopefully something that used the same initials so that the programmer didn't have to change too much in the scripts ( variables? what are variables? ). Posy is responsible for the 'Variorum Dadabase' name... she likes playing with wurds and is a very wyrd and silly one. I invite you to pick up a good dictionary at this point. More and more features were added to it and it later became blended into being a part of The Global Dialog project. The force behind the GD project, Valerie Gremillion, has also contributed greatly to the development of this software. I thank both of these wonderful ladies for their input while at the same time taking all the blame for these script's shortcomings. See the end of item #3 for more about the names of these scripts...
goto top
In order for the MVD to do what it does best one needs to link to pages
in a such a way that they are processed and parsed by the filter script.
This is basically done like this:
Don't input the asterisk before each left bracket... that is just done here in order to display the brackets instead of having them being treated as html tags. This is not part of the html language... just something built into the mvd.
"documentname.html" must be a file previously created in the MVD, otherwise
it will not be parsed correctly. When a file - document - is created in
the MVD file-creation script special tags are inserted for use by the
file-parser script.
If one wants to have navigation buttons, which will allow one to move through
the MVD documents, to appear on each page you can add "shonav=1" to the URL right after the question mark. For example:
Normally one doesn't want to allow those navigation buttons to appear on
pages served to the public as that would allow anyone to move through *all*
the public files in one's MVD, which may not be the way one would want
their files presented to visitors to the site. In other words this is
mainly as a convenience to MVD members.
One may also not want the "Add Comments" form to appear on certain MVD
documents. In this case one would add "noaddc=1" to the URL after the question mark:
Note the use of the ampersand ( where did I put that dictionary? ). And yes the
filter script part of the MVD 'is' called "mvl.cgi" and not "mvd.cgi"... Before
being called "Mariposa's Video Database" it was called "My Video Library".
goto top
You need to be a member to create and edit MVD documents... A lot of information
already appears on the various MVD administration web pages. To access the
main MVD Administration page you can use the administration link on the main
MVD page... you probably used a link on that page to get you here... or ask the
person who brought you here for that url... or you can input a certain
command-string into any MVD search engine form and submit it. The default
command-string is "C:admin" but could have possibly been changed... more detailed information will be added here as I get time to work on this...
goto top
Instead of using the default form which appears on each MVD document one can choose to customize a form, or forms, for themself. Adding or substracting various fields as they see fit. One can also point to a previously prepared file which can be emailed along with ones comments or displayed using the
preview button in order to be printed out.
Before one starts putting their own forms on a page it is probably best to suppress the addition of the default form which is added to the mvd documents as they are processed by the mvl.cgi script. This is done by adding the following tag to the top of the document. ( these instructions assume you are editing the
document in the MVD Add/Edit form window. )
*
( Make sure it is exactly like that... except leave out that asterisk... case is important... no spaces...
etc. )
Now here is the code one would use to add a form to a document.
(remember to leave out all those asterisks) One can add this block multiple times for each form one wanted to add. This block of text can appear in tables or anywhere on a page.
*
Certain parts of this code will need to be configured for each
page and each instance of the form on the page. Each line of
this code will be discussed below.