Re: Idea for the future

[J C Lawrence <claw@kanga.nu>]

On Thu, 30 Nov 2000 19:41:04 +0000 
Gerry Hickman <gerry1@dircon.co.uk> wrote:

> I currently use a single CSS file to format all six of my MHonArc
> archives. This means I can change the layout of thousands of pages
> by changing a few lines in a text file. None of the HTML needs to
> be changed or uploaded to the server. The page just renders with
> the new settings next time the user visits the archive or hits
> "refresh".

I achieve a not entirely dissimilar end through a rather different
route.  I have MHonArc generate PHP4 files which consist only on
variable assigments to the various bits of messges and the like that 
MHonArc has extracted.  Said PHP4 file, when executed under PHP,
renders into HTML via PHPLib tempates.  Change the templates and all 
the messages change.  Change the surrounding PHP code, and the
functionality shown on the archive pages changes.

I did this originally yo support the ability to reply to archived
messages via the web:

  http://www.kanga.nu/archives/IRead-L/2000Q4/msg00000.php

Configs:

  ftp://ftp.kanga.nu/pub/Kanga.Nu/WebArchives/

A longer term idea is to use the variable assignments as sources
foir SQL insertions rather than PHP.  Then a slight variation on the
current PHP code would instead extract the message data from the DB
rather than the flatfile variable assignments.  From there moving to
tru dynamic indicies etc becomes almost reasonable.

-- 
J C Lawrence                                       claw@kanga.nu
---------(*)                        : http://www.kanga.nu/~claw/
--=| A man is as sane as he is dangerous to his environment |=--