Code Style: Site log, April 2002

In this section

The Code Style site has evolved by gradual refinement and accumulation of features and content. This review is part of a fully backdated site log and archive that sheds light on when, why and how particular features were implemented.

This log is sometimes updated several times per week, sometimes with a long overdue backlog of items. Many log entries refer to the Code Style Java package, which delivers the servlet services and utilities used to manage this site.

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Reverse chronology

27^th April 2002

Continued data entry for codestyle_fonts database and completed all submissions to date, tested with some simple queries and corrected a few submission dates. Reconfigured the font survey form handlers and email template to generate SQL format submissions and maintain an SQL based log file on the server for direct update. Enclosed each submission in a transaction.

The new configuration files also make a preliminary platform check and indicate the survey status in the subject line of the output email. A counter on the server automatically assigns the submission_id series, a new hidden form field passes the survey_id value. Temporarily set debug logging on the Soupermail form handler script to test the new output format and applied the changes to the three live survey pages. Reconfigured the Windows font survey to use the new SQL templates.

25^th April 2002

Reduced the respondents' name records in the codestyle_fonts database to a single realname field to match survey submission forms, and adjusted the database creation and population scripts accordingly.

23^rd April 2002

Wrote a simple select statement to count Code Style font survey submissions per month and year for checking basic integrity of the data.

SELECT date_part('month',s.date) AS month, date_part('year',s.date) AS year, COUNT(s.submission_id) FROM submission s WHERE s.isvalid = true GROUP BY year, month;

21^st April 2002

Further accessibility enhancements to the article feedback form to enclose the notification radio button group in a single table cell and enclose them in a labelled fieldset element. Added a declaration to the standard livery stylesheet, CSStdLiveryCommon.css, to minimise margins on fieldset in td elements and override the standard blue border:

TD FIELDSET{
  margin:           0;
  border:           none;
}

Also added lang and dir attributes to the html element for the general ServletUtilities and FontSampler classes.

20^th April 2002

Made a range of modifications to achieve Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI) Priority 3 conformance, as follows. Added a lang="en-GB" attribute to the html element of all XHTML. Also included a dir="ltr" attribute and corrected the secondary country code in the generic metadata include file according to RFC 1766 and ISO 3166:

<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" lang="en-GB" dir="ltr">
  ...
  <meta name="DC.Language" scheme="RFC1766" content="en-GB" />
  ...

Changed the h3 heading for the site search form to a label element for the search input field and added an equivalent style rule to CSStdLiveryCommon.css to make it appear the same:

.A, .Q, #SiteSearch LABEL{
  font-size:        larger;
}

Added table summary attributes and caption elements to all published tables that didn't previously have them.

Added further terms to the site subject index based on site search query reports and added middot characters ·, between the alphabetical navigation points for improved accessibility. Inserted a Index class to the definition lists for the subject index to make the definition paragraphs compact:

.Index DD P{
  margin-top:       0;
  margin-bottom:    0;
}

Corrected some un-closed li elements in the Anchor Points: Java & servlets menu.

16^th April 2002

Completed the codestyle_fonts database sample data entry script, fonts_populate_submission.sql, with 112 records. Drafted further SELECT statements to check data integrity and test functionality.

14^th April 2002

Started drafting some basic SQL SELECT statements to check necessary codestyle_font database relations and data integrity, e.g.:

SELECT * FROM fontfamily WHERE generic = 'serif';

SELECT fontname FROM surveyline WHERE current = true;

SELECT fontname FROM surveyline WHERE current = true AND survey_id = 1;

13^th April 2002

Further sample data entry to populate the codestyle_fonts database with fontline, image, font, foundry and submission data. Also wrote a short hand fonts_drop_submission.sql script for dropping the submission table and debugging data entry errors.

11^th April 2002

Further refinements to the codestyle_fonts database schema including de-normalising some tables, writing and debugging the table creation scripts. Started entering a set of sample data to populate and test the schema, specifically for the survey and surveyline tables.

1^st April 2002

Abandoned the former "What's New" page in favour of the more frequently updated current site log page and added a permanent redirection to the root level .htaccess configuration. Replaced hyperlinks to What's New with del elements to mark changes throughout the site log archive:

<del class="Anchor">What's New</del>

Completed first draft database schema for managing Code Style font sampler data, codestyle_fonts, and prepared a set of SQL scripts to create tables, populate tables and drop tables.

fonts_create_tables.sql: Creates all tables.
fonts_drop_tables.sql: Drops all tables and primary key sequences.
fonts_populate.sql: Populates all tables.

Previously on Code Style

These backdated pages record detailed changes to the Code Style Web site since July 2000, when development first got underway. Some pages may refer to documents or features that have since changed or are no longer part of the site, but the archive is checked to ensure there are no dead links.

Site log, origins to present

Month: Year:

For a summary overview, see the annotated site log contents.

April 2002 on Code Style