The lfmainindex faq, $Revision: 1.4 $, $Date: 1999/03/24 19:45:51 $
--------------------------------
Author: Guido Socher
Get a current version from http://www.oche.de/~bearix/g/lfnew/lfmainindex.html
   
Q: 1.1 what is lfmainindex?
A: lfmainindex is a perl script to generate a LinuxFocus main index 
   page form a small text file. The purpose of the page is to list
   all articles and what the state is. E.g is it already translated
   or is somebody working on it.

   You get help on the usage of lfmainindex by running:
    lfmainindex -h

Q: 1.2 How do I use lfmainindex?
A: Never touch the generated web page. Always update the definition file
   and then just run the program like this:
    lfmainindex -l de lf_deutsch_def.txt > indexpage.html
   "-l de" sets the language to German and prints an introduction text
   in German and English.

   In the german section we use a little shell script to run it
   with the options that we need:

   #!/bin/sh
   echo "generating indexpage.html..."
   lfmainindex -rp -l de lf_deutsch_def.txt > indexpage.html
   echo "generating indexpage.txt..."
   lfmainindex -pt lf_deutsch_def.txt > indexpage.txt


Q: 1.3 What language sections are available?
H: run lfmainindex -h
   Currently there is: es=spanish, de=german, fr=french, pt=portugese
                       nl=dutch

Q: 1.4 Should I customize lfmainindex to my needs?
H: No, if you have any improvements or suggestions then just
   send them to guido.s@writeme.com That way all people at LinuxFocus
   can profit from it and it keeps LinuxFocus consistent. Which means
   LinuxFocus is  easier to maintain.

Q: 2.1 What does the index definition file look like?
A: In the simplest form the definition file looks like:
   month:October1998 ++ October 1998
   # note 0 must be the index page:
   0  ++   ++ Title Page ++ ++ ++ ++
   9  ++   ++ Linux as an Educational Tool ++ ++ ++ ++
   #

Q: 2.2 Why do I get an error about incorrect lines when it is actually a 
   comment line?
A: Comment lines must start with a # in the first column. A # later on
   in the line is not a comment

Q: 2.3 How does lfmainindex know the links to the web pages?
A: lfmainindex looks at the number in the first column and the month def.
   month:October1998 ++ October 1998
   9  ++ x  ++ Linux as an Educational Tool ++ ++ ++ ++
   would generate a web page with the following links:
   ../English/articles/article9.html
   and October1998/article9.html

   If the article is published before July 1998:
   month:May1998 ++ May 1998
   2  ++   ++ RenderMan ++  ++  ++ ++
   would generate a web page with the following links:
   ../English/May1998/article9.html
   and May1998/article9.html

   lfmainindex -r would use absolute links to the english page. This way
   you can have on your home-page only the translated artilces and the
   english ones would link to www.linuxfocus.org

Q: 2.4 How do I indicate in the definition file a translator person for
   an article?
A: To indicate that article 9 is about the be translated you add the
   e-mail address and name to the definition file:
   month:October1998 ++ October 1998
   # note 0 must be the index page:
   0  ++   ++ Title Page ++ ++ ++ ++
   9  ++   ++ Linux as an Educational Tool ++ joe@jojo.com ++ Joe Cool ++ ++
   #

Q: 2.5 How do I indicate in the definition file that an article is ready
   (the article is translated and available)
A: To indicate that article 9 is ready put a "x" into the second column
   of article 9 definition entry:
   month:October1998 ++ October 1998
   # note 0 must be the index page:
   0  ++   ++ Title Page ++ ++ ++ ++
   9  ++ x ++ Linux as an Educational Tool ++ joe@jojo.com ++ Joe Cool ++ ++
   #
   #
   This means now the translated article is stored in October1998/article9.html
   and the English version is in ../English/October1998/article9.html

Q: 2.6 What does the x in the second column stand for?
A: See 2.5. It means that the translated article has the same name as
   the English version and is in <month_name>/articleN.html where N is
   the number in the first column. (Note this can be changed to point to
   articles/articleN.html be using the commandline option -a. See 2.3)

Q: 2.7 Sorry, our language section is not so tidy. We have stored the
   articles in different directories and under various names.
A: Instead of putting an "x" into the second column you put the
   path to the article. E.g:
   9  ++ oct/articulum_9.html ++ Linux as an Educational Tool ++ joe@jojo.com ++ Joe Cool ++ ++

Q: 2.8 I have the problem that there is no English article yet. We have
   however a non English version. How can I enter that?
A: You need to put the path to the article into the second column and
   leave the first column empty:
     ++ October1998/article9.html ++ Linux as an Educational Tool ++ joe@jojo.com ++ Joe Cool ++ ++

Q: 2.9 Can't lfmainindex convert special characters (e.g in the names of the
   translators)? With special I mean things like the French "accent gave" or
   German "Umlaute".
A: There are still a number of people using Windows. If they download
   Unix style text files in a browser then  may get converted to the
   DOS character set dependent on the browser.
   Therefore you should use directly the html representation of the characters
   in the definition file.

Q: 3.0 what are nicknames?
A: Nicknames can by used to abbreviate e-mail address and real name.
   In the beginning of the file you must have a nickname definiton that 
   looks like this:
	nickname: jc ++ joe@jojo.com ++ Joe Cool ++ ++
   Later on you can then put the abbreviation jc into the e-mail field.
   Realname fields are ignored if a vaild nickname was found.

Q: 3.1 How can I generate a text version for my mailing list?
A: Run lfmainindex -pt index_def_file.txt > indexpage.txt

Q: 3.2 We review the articles after translation. Can we somehow
   indicate a proof reader?
A: The 6-th and  7-th colum are available in the definition file for 
   exactly this purpose.
   With nickname:
   nickname: mm ++ mike@jojo.com ++ Mike Miller ++ ++
   9  ++ x ++ Linux as an Educational Tool ++ joe@jojo.com ++ Joe Cool ++ mm ++

   With full name:
   9  ++ x ++ Linux as an Educational Tool ++ joe@jojo.com ++ Joe Cool ++ mike@jojo.com ++ Mike Miller

   Always remember to put first the e-mail and then the name. The e-mail
   address is without < > or " ". It goes as it is inot the mailto: tag
   on the html page.

Q: 3.3 What does the u in the second column stand for?
A: It works basically like the x (see 2.6) except that the background
   stays blue. This is meant for those cases where you want to publish
   an article while the translation is still ongoing.
