SPS Newsletter: July 2003

SPS NEWSLETTER JULY 2003

Welcome to issue #2 of the SPS Newsletter, containing news and updates of interest to the ever-growing community of SPS developers. As always, if you have questions, comments, gripes, or feature requests, or especially if you know of somebody who should be receiving this newsletter, let me know at sps-newsletter@clevernamehere.com

This month sees the release of Version 4.1.95, with three changes from .94, last month. Each is discussed below.

IMPROVED DB_MULTI_SELECT

Many users are familiar with the DB_MULTI_SELECT field, which allows forms to represent many-to-many relationships. For example, a "publication" database record might be associated with arbitrarily many authors (or keywords, or categories). Through the use of the DB_MULTI_SELECT field, administrators can enter these multiple associations on the main publication form.

Previously, this field was rendered as an HTML mutli-select box, and users would control-click to select multiple entries. While functional, this was cumbersome for long lists, especially if many selections needed to be entered.

With 4.1.95, a second option is available. When the TWOCOL option is set, the field is instead rendered as two lists, with javascript buttons allowing entries to be added or removed. This is a much more user-friendly interface, and should greatly simplify these forms.

Full documentation of the DB_MULTI_SELECT field (with pictures of the two types) is available in the manual, at http://www.clevernamehere.com/sps/manual/conf/cfg_TABLE_FIELD_DB_MULTI_S
ELECT.html

This feature was developed and released into the public domain by the Education Development Center Inc.,
http://main.edc.org/
as part of their development effort for a redesign of their Higher Education Center for Alcohol and Other Drug Prevention,
http://www.edc.org/hec/

SITEMAP PLUGIN

Keeping the site map current is one of the most challenging problems in Web site maintenance. Especially during development, site maps, the hierarchy of sections and subsections, change with distressing frequency. Unfortunately, each change can have broad implications: often a moved or renamed section requires changing left navigation, "cookie crumbs", titles, and banners for dozens of templates, not to mention the public "site map" page (which always seems to get left behind).

The new sitemap plugin attempts to address many of these concerns. The sitemap is a framework, including:

- a database table for representing a site hierarchy;
- an TABLE configuration section allowing for easy administration of the hierarchy;
- the ability to specify which pages should appear in which sections (based on filename patterns);
- and an output filter to allow generation of hierarchical left navigation, banners, titles, cookie crumbs, and site map pages.

When using the output filter, all pages on a site can share a single include file for the hierarchical left navbar; a second include file for cookie crumbs; and a third for banners or section titles. The site map page can be automatically generated from the database, so that manual changes are never necessary.

The sitemap toolkit is included with the SPS distribution as of 4.1.95, and is currently being used to develop sites for New York Lawyers for the Public Interest and Connecticut Voices for Children; look for their launch soon.

Full documentation of the sitemap plugin is available in the manual, at http://www.clevernamehere.com/sps/manual/plugin/sitemap.html

OUTPUT FILTERS IN BUNDLES

While some output filters are used only for a particular module, sometimes output filters (such as the sitemap plugin) are appropriate for every generated page on a site. In this case, specifying the output filter for each module can become cumbersome.

SPS v4.1.95 allows output filters to be specified in generator bundles, as well as in individual modules. An output filter specified in a bundle is applied to every module in that bundle.

FEATURED SITE

Last month we featured Creative Capital's channel, a nonprofit site with over 1,600 pages of content and daily changes. This month we're featuring a very different site. Launched this month, Julius Cohen Jeweler's site is located at
http://www.juliuscohen.com

Julius Cohen uses SPS to maintain a catalog of jewelry selections, divided into six categories (under "current selections" on the site). SPS is also used to maintain the home page image, and to upload various sized images of all of their products.

This site contains only about fifty pages under SPS management, and it is updated only every month or so. While it uses dynamic features in a limited way, Julius Cohen's site is particularly beautiful, and demonstrates the flexibility of design possible with SPS. It is also a nice example of how SPS can be used within a mostly-static site, providing update tools just for the pages which change regularly. Julius Cohen is also the first for-profit corporation to use SPS.

Julius Cohen Jeweler, inc., established in 1956 is among America's most celebrated award-winning jewelry design firms of the 20th century. Our jewelry resides in the private collections of a select group of discerning and culturally sophisticated customers in the United States. The company has been traditionally focused on selling directly to individual customers, serving them privately in their own homes and offices or in our Madison Avenue studio in New York. The company is totally dedicated to the designing, manufacturing and selling of its own jewelry, creating a very special and close relationship with each customer, on a personal basis. Our jewelry is characterized by excellence in design, individual attention to craftsmanship and the use of most magnificent metals and gemstones.

The Julius Cohen Jeweler site was developed by ARTiculate. ARTiculate is an innovative, full-service web development team that specializes in the unique needs of art institutions and related clients. We believe in simple, smart solutions that enhance the experience of your online visitors and your in-house staff. The web presences we conceive, design and build are beautiful, informative, easy to use and cost-effective to build. Equally as important, everything we create is designed to help you better articulate your identity and purpose. Our name itself expresses this core mission. Learn more at
http://www.teamarticulate.com

DOWNLOAD SPS

The latest version of SPS (currently 4.1.95) is always available for download at
http://www.clevernamehere.com/sps/dist/

The SPS manual is distributed with the software, or can be viewed at
http://www.clevernamehere.com/sps/manual/

An online demo of SPS is available at
http://www.clevernamehere.com/sps/ (user name "preview" password
"preview")

SPS is free and open-source software distributed under the GNU General Public License
http://www.clevernamehere.com/sps/manual/license.html

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