Re: [Refdb-users] Re: interface mockup

[Matt P. <mat...@ut...>]

On Fri, Jan 30, 2004 at 10:16:30PM -0500, Bruce D'Arcus wrote:
> On Jan 30, 2004, at 9:35 PM, Matt Price wrote:
> 
> >On Fri, Jan 30, 2004 at 12:20:34PM -0500, Bruce D'Arcus wrote:
> >>I don't think this made it to the list.  Any feedback?  I can mod the
> >>xslt once I have a better sense of what we want.
> >Though I can see that other folks might not want this, I'd like to
> >make a plea for a hot-linked title in a short-format list.
> 
> So what would happen if you click on the link?

you get a page with a full reference, including notes and abstract &
whatever else...

> 
> >This is mostly because once you have an <a href> tag, it's possible to 
> >write
> >fully-functional mycroft search engines for mozilla (see
> >http://mycroft.mozdev.org)...
> 
> Interesting; I'd not heard about that.  I wonder if the 
> browser-agnostic bookmarklet might be better though?  E.g.:
> 
> http://webvoy.uwindsor.ca:8080/cocoon/mount/chrysalis/welcome
> 
hmm.  I see the advantages of agnosticism here (and I'm on console
right now, so haven't checked the link) but mycroft has the advantage
of making it possible to combine searches from multiple engines; for
bibliographic information this is not yet especially useful, since
complex queries are rendered with different syntax on different sites;
but eventually I think a more flexible interface will be implemented.
This can be a substantial advantage when data is distributed over a
variety of sites.  

> >So, missing from here is still the code for _adding_ references and
> >notes, correct?  How do you think this should be done?
> 
> A series of template defined fields that map natural language names to 
> underlying metadata model/format.

...  ok, as marcus said recently, how does that translate into
language that a plain old PhD like myself can understand?  though I
actually don't intend any snide overtones that might be inadvertently
comunicated.  when you say 'map natural language', I take it you mean
"take data entered in fields whose names are readily comprehensible
to users, and pass the data on to the database in fields whose names
the db understands." but what's the importance of "template-defined"?

> 
> >Notes should be relatively simple -- the only hard part is getting the
> >information into the xml format that refdb uses.  If poss I'd like to
> >see this done in xslt again, so that the hard part is abstracted from
> >the scripting language and can be recycled in perl/python/whatever.
> >Bruce, you're the xslt person, how does that shound to you?
> 
> I don't do scripting, so maybe Rob has a better sense of the connection 
> between the XML and a form interface.
> 
Rob, tell me what you think -- I think we're interested in similar
goals here, maybe we can divide up the work a bit.  

> >1) this is important -- choosing a reference format.  Do you think risx
> >is hte way to go again, or would something simple like bibtex be more
> >appropriate?
> 
> I despise bibtex myself.  I think the input UI should be designed for 
> flexibility; it should work elegantly with risx, but be capable of 
> being moved to handling mods data later.  The trick is to define the 
> key user input fields in a generic way, and then allow configuration.  
> So, the generic fields might be:
> 

Though I like the way that sounds, it sounds pretty ambitious.  For
now it might be much less labour-intensive to write some php that
generates bibtex or other simple data structures; though again, my
pref would be to have the interesting part abstracted as much as
possible from the scripting language.  

> creator/editor
> title/subtitle
> year
> publisher
> origin place (could be for unpublished sources too)
> location
> keywords
> etc.
> 
> >2) I'm a bit worried about parsing author fields
> 
> There's no doubt this is the trickiest part of any form-based UI for 
> bib data.  I'm not sure how it ought to work.  Anyone have any ideas?  
> Rob?
> 
> Bruce
>