Cleaning up website vs jmri

[jerryg2003]

@bobjacobsen @dsand47 @silverailscolo I am in the process of making the Help system sidebars and navigation more consistent. Also trying to eliminate redundant files, use includes, etc.

Q: can the entire hierarchy tree of repository JMRI/website/tools be deleted? The pages I checked are simply redirects from some time ago when things were moved to JMRI/JMRI/help/en/html/tools/

Same questions for several other branches under website repository...real question is “what is the current reason for having this repository vs JMRI/JMRI?” What should really be here, e.g. website/community, to keep it separate from main JMRI repo?

Trying to avoid confusion as Help and other Documentation added to and improved by members of the community.

Jerry

[dsand47]

Anything moved from JMRI/website to JMRI/JMRI/help increases the size of the distribution files.

The two big branches are community at 133MB and manuals at 168MB.

1	COPYING
1	Copyright.html
1	Footer
1	Footer.shtml
1	Header
1	Header.shtml
1	Help.html
1	README.md
1	Sidebar
1	Sidebar.shtml
1	SiteCredit.shtml
1	Style
1	Style.shtml
1	build.xml
133	community
1	contact
1	css
1	donations.shtml
1	download
1	exclude-list
1	favicon.ico
1	hardware
23	images
1	include-list
1	index.shtml
1	info.txt
8	install
188	manual
1	nbproject
13	pdf
1	problem-report.php
1	releaselist
5	releasenotes
1	robots.txt
1	setSymLinks.sh
1	sitemap
1	templates
2	tools
1	update.pl

[jerryg2003]

So let’s leave community and manuals where they are...that’s fine.

But my first question remains: can the entire hierarchy tree of repository JMRI/website/tools be deleted? it doesn’t seem to me to have any use, but I’m learning that the purpose of things isn’t always immediately obvious. Can anyone shed some light on what purpose this currently serves since JMRI/JMRI/help/en/html/tools seems to have all the content.

Thanks.

[dsand47]

So let’s leave community and manuals where they are...that’s fine.

But my first question remains: can the entire hierarchy tree of repository JMRI/website/tools be deleted? it doesn’t seem to me to have any use, but I’m learning that the purpose of things isn’t always immediately obvious. Can anyone shed some light on what purpose this currently serves since JMRI/JMRI/help/en/html/tools seems to have all the content.

Thanks.

Based on the history for a selected help file, It appears that the move took place in Feb, 2008. The redirects prevent not found errors due to browser history and saved bookmarks.

If someone has access to the server logs, it might be possible to determine if the redirects are still being used.

[jerryg2003]

@dsand47 i haven’t heard from anyone who has current access to the server logs, although @bobjacobsen told me he had looked some time ago and there was very littlesctivity. I do note some PR activity within the tools hierarchy (e.g. by @silverailscolo to try to keep sidebar file synchronized with the JMRI repos, but I continue to make changes to that). Also some technical updates to the redirect files themselves (some of which will start to point to redirect files as I improve the help hierarchy in the JMRI repo). Seems like some people may be expending energy on keeping what are mostly redirects working and up to date.

I have looked at every file under tools and found only a single file that is not a redirect: ThrottlesDocs.pdf last edited 15 years ago. So, my proposal is to save that pdf somewhere else and delete the tools tree. While I am sympathetic to the idea that old links in user group posts are important (I occasionally look at older posts myself), any link not working could be pretty easily Googled (do links to sourceforge give correct info? There are some of those). 12 years does seem long enough for carrying redirects around on something as dynamic as JMRI.

To simplify and avoid future confusion, my broader suggestion would be to define the purpose of the website repo explicitly (for example, to hold the JMRI main page, community tree, manuals (is anyone trying to update these? I’d like to talk with them), and related PDFs and images, and maybe a few other things). We could then systematically delete sections of the website repo starting with those that have only redirects). But all of this is for another day. Today I’m just focused on tools. We can tackle this housekeeping one section at a time.

Thanks, Jerry

[jerryg2003]

@bobjacobsen @icklesteve Could you please do your magic to change all files that use Header and Footer and Sidebar in this repository to use X.shtml, which files also need to be created? Then I’ll start on figuring out which really need to exist and changing them to use the same parts as exist in the JMRI repository.

Thanks, Jerry

[bobjacobsen]

@jerryg2003 Just to double check a couple details:

Do you want includes of /download/Sidebar also changed?

Do you want includes of /Header (as opposed to just Header) also changed?

Thanks

[jerryg2003]

I think we should change all Header, Footer, Sidebar to x.shtml for consistency and future flexibility, don’t you?

I also note some .html vs .shtml files hanging around. Is it time to eliminate those as well?

[bobjacobsen]

See #356

[bobjacobsen]

#356 should have removed all referent to Header, Footer and *Sidebar without the .shtml suffix.

[jerryg2003]

Did you also create the Sidebar.shtml files whoever a Sidebar file occurred? E.g. /download/

Thanks, Jerry

[bobjacobsen]

I didn't do that. But I didn't remove any of the existing files, so they can be copied over as needed. Here's the list of "Sidebar without Sidebar.shmtl" cases:

./download/Sidebar
./install/Sidebar
./manual/3-0_DecoderPro/Sidebar
./manual/3-0_DecoderPro3/Sidebar
./manual/3-0_JMRI_OPS_UsersGuide/Sidebar
./manual/3-2_DecoderPro/Sidebar
./manual/3-2_DecoderPro3/Sidebar
./manual/3-2_JMRI_OPS_UsersGuide/Sidebar
./manual/3-4_DecoderPro/Sidebar
./manual/3-4_DecoderPro3/Sidebar
./manual/3-4_JMRI_OPS_UsersGuide/Sidebar
./manual/3-6_DecoderPro/Sidebar
./manual/3-6_DecoderPro3/Sidebar
./manual/DP3_2-14_manual/Sidebar
./manual/JMRI_2-12_Manual/Sidebar
./manual/JMRI_2-14_manual/Sidebar
./tools/Sidebar

Should I go ahead and create those?

[bobjacobsen]

#357 will add these files. should i merge that?

[jerryg2003]

Please create /download, /install, and /tools. I looked at and don’t know anything about /manual at all. Thanks, Jerry

_________________________________ jerryg2003@aol.com

On Feb 21, 2020, at 2:26 PM, Bob Jacobsen ***@***.***> wrote:

 I didn't do that. But I didn't remove any of the existing files, so they can be copied over as needed. Here's the list of "Sidebar without Sidebar.shmtl" cases: ./download/Sidebar ./install/Sidebar ./manual/3-0_DecoderPro/Sidebar ./manual/3-0_DecoderPro3/Sidebar ./manual/3-0_JMRI_OPS_UsersGuide/Sidebar ./manual/3-2_DecoderPro/Sidebar ./manual/3-2_DecoderPro3/Sidebar ./manual/3-2_JMRI_OPS_UsersGuide/Sidebar ./manual/3-4_DecoderPro/Sidebar ./manual/3-4_DecoderPro3/Sidebar ./manual/3-4_JMRI_OPS_UsersGuide/Sidebar ./manual/3-6_DecoderPro/Sidebar ./manual/3-6_DecoderPro3/Sidebar ./manual/DP3_2-14_manual/Sidebar ./manual/JMRI_2-12_Manual/Sidebar ./manual/JMRI_2-14_manual/Sidebar ./tools/Sidebar Should I go ahead and create those? — You are receiving this because you were mentioned. Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub, or unsubscribe.

[jerryg2003]

So, yes, please merge. I’ll then go back when I have a chance and update as necessary.

_________________________________ jerryg2003@aol.com

On Feb 21, 2020, at 4:47 PM, Bob Jacobsen ***@***.***> wrote:

 #357 will add these files. should i merge that? — You are receiving this because you were mentioned. Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub, or unsubscribe.

[bobjacobsen]

Merged and online.

[jerryg2003]

Was looking at this issue again...is there a way for someone to delete ALL of the files in the “tools” hierarchy EXCEPT for pdf files so we can see what’s left? As stated above, it looks like all the redirects were created in 2008 but some effort has gone on to maintain those over the years. IMHO, 13 years is long enough for keeping these redirect files around.

One this is done, I can move the PDF files someone else and finally get rid of “tools” in this repository (and close this issue!).

Thanks.

[bobjacobsen]

I clearly don't understand the question. If you delete all the files except the PDF files, isn't what's left just the PDF files?

[jerryg2003]

Yes, but I was trying to save myself looking thru each subdirectory to find out where they were...

Goal: get rid of some of the cruft in the web repository.
Start: by deleting the “tools” hierarchy
Issue: don’t want to delete any PDF files within “tools” are they are possibly useful.
Process: someone with appropriate skills and access to do “delete all except for PDFs” in “tools”.
Followup: jerryg to move remaining PDFs somewhere else in the web repository (TBD, but likely a new subdirectories off “manual”) and then do final delete of “tools”

Thanks.

[dsand47]

@jerryg2003

There is one pdf in website/tools at throttle/ThrottleDocs.pdf.

[dsand47]

@jerryg2003

I also don't find any references/links to the file.

[jerryg2003]

@dsand47 tools/throttle/ThrottleDocs.pdf was last updated in 2004 and says it is based on JMRI 1.5.3. I think it can safely be moved to some other directory that we would preserve for historical purposes. Then I think the whole tools tree from JMRI/website can be deleted, no?

[dsand47]

@dsand47 tools/throttle/ThrottleDocs.pdf was last updated in 2004 and says it is based on JMRI 1.5.3. I think it can safely be moved to some other directory that we would preserve for historical purposes. Then I think the whole tools tree from JMRI/website can be deleted, no?

There are some differences in the images for throttle. The attached file is a listing of the differences in file names. The left arrow show images in the website but not help/en and the right arrow the reverse.

My guess is that the named files in help/en replaced the jmriNNN.jpg files.

throttlediff.txt