The Simon Woodward Blog

The Final Communiqué - Blog Contents and Emotional Memoirs

May 22, 2008 – 7:01 pm

To make my wonderful blog easier to mark, I’ll be providing links to certain area’s of my blog which directly cover the elements of the marking criteria from the Assignment Brief document (available from Mez’s blog).

Evidence of covering criteria (the links and description) will be in BLUE. Personally, I would still read all of my blog from start to finish because its SO, like, totally amazing. :-)

From the Assignment Brief -

Students will examine and apply the concepts of XML, the Semantic web and the structured visualisation of information (data trees and hierarchies), focussing on the separation of data from the delivery of data, with the object of making data reusable and interoperable for different purposes across platforms.

This is visible throughout the whole blog in all the aspects of the work I have produced, the plugins I have installed (and documented) and how I have structured the blog in a general form. It can also more specifically be shown in my Essay questions here and here.

Upon completion of this module students will be qualified to produce advanced multimedia artefact.

ASSIGNMENT – assessed content

1. Implement a MySQL relational database on webspace of your choice OR using provided Wordpress installations. Webspace must have: At least one MySQL database, PHP 4.0, 50mb space

Shown with my blog post documenting the acquring of my server space, and installation of WordPress HERE.

2. Download and install blogging software on the database – WORDPRESS

Again this is shown in the same post as above - HERE.

3. Modify and extend the software online using the browser-based Dashboard and/or using ftp to upload new functionality and rewrite core files.

This criteria is quite generic, and I’ve covered it in several posts - HERE, HERE, HERE, HERE and many others. Using the search function at the end of the sidebar, and also searching via Tag, would lead to related posts.

4. Re-design the look and feel of the interface using css and xhtml in core files and in the body of posts and pages.

Again, I have covered this in many different posts, some of which are - HERE, HERE, HERE, HERE, and again via the search and browsing by Tag.

5. Demonstrate and advanced understanding of cascading stylesheets and how they operate.

Understanding of CSS and be directly covered in my CSS changes page HERE and its relative blog post HERE.

6. Modify elements of the functionality of the software by editing the PHP.

Evidence of instances where I have modified and added PHP into or on the blog can most easily accessed via a Tag search HERE, and working, running PHP code using Excep PHP can be found on this page HERE.

7. Produce appropriate project design documentation by blogging every aspect of the process AND your progress on the installed blog.

Self explanatory, this one! My whole blog IS the design documentation. Every post coveres some aspect of progresss and process not only with the blog its self but also for the entire module. Lovely!

8. Install and create galleries, multi-media artefacts, audio and other data to be delivered via the blog.

The image Galleries can be viewed HERE (installation HERE), the Media artefacts can be found HERE and HERE (installation HERE and HERE).

9. Write two, interactive, 1000 word essays (responses) explaining theoretical responses to Web 2.0 (questions tbc)

Essay 1 is HERE, Essay 2 is HERE.

10. Present responses digitally on separate pages in Wordpress

As above!

11. Create static/interactive bibliography

I haven’t got a Bibliography page per se, but I do have a collection of articles and online pages that I’ve read on my del.icio.us account page HERE and also various blog posts HERE, HERE, HERE, HERE.

I think that at least covers everything in the marketing criteria. It is by no means exhaustive - the best way to look for a particular topic of content would be to browse via Tag, or use the Search box on the end of the sidebar, or even go directly to a Tab title on the Navigation bar at the top (i.e. Google Map, Media, PHP).

I believe that I have fully completed and covered all the outcomes and criteria of the module, especially in terms of maintaining an active blog, learning much more about the web and how it operates, and the future of the web (Web 2.0, Web 3.0, Semantic web etc) to name but a few topics. Its all in there, from the first post to the last - I know, I wrote it!

I have really enjoyed this module and its definately opened my eyes to the current and future technologies that are already and are planned to be deployed on the Web, and that it is definately an exciting future ahead of us, especially as everything gets more and more networked together. This has definately been one of the best modules of this year, not to mention my full Uni course! I work so much better when I am interested in the subject matter, and I’m definately interested in everything semantic and Web 2.0/3.0! It also helps that I like blogging and I hope to continue this blog after the submission date (when the posts will stop being read) for general information - maybe even for next years students?!

Hopefully my future career will involve the applied use of what I’ve learned and experienced, and I am very much looking forward to being actively involved in the web in the coming years! Maybe I can become an official Semantic Web and/or Web 2.0/3.0/ commentator :-)

(wow, all of that didn’t sound that drawn out and soppy when I was typing it!)

All the best,
Simon

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Bish Bash Bosh.

May 22, 2008 – 4:57 pm

Essay’s 1 and 2 are now available to view on their respective pages from the top nav bar tabs. They can also be downloaded in PDF.

I feel like doing a little jig.

Edit

As mentioned in my previous post, I had forgotten about my Click2Map - but only so far as not actually publishing it! I’ve got a few markers in there of different places, so all I had to do was Publish it the Web and off we go! As Mez mentioned way back when, you can’t embed it because its a free version - but I can link it it -

http://www.click2map.com/maps/simonwoodward/SimonMap

It’s nothing amazing at the moment but that’s due to time constraints really. I still looks like a mighty impressive application and hopefully I’ll use it again in the very near future. In the mean time,  have a look at it! I’ll update the link to it in my sidebar as well so it actually points to my map, rarther than just the website.

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Me and PHP, together in harmony. High-five.

May 22, 2008 – 3:26 pm

Thats right folks - I’ve managed to get some ‘real’ PHP working inside a page using Exec-PHP! I borrowed the idea of having a random quote generator from Craig’s blog and found THIS example via Google :-) Seemed fairly simple and did exactly what it said on the tin.

I re-activated the Role Manager plugin, deactivated the WYSIWYG editor, and went back into my PHP page, where I copied in the code from David Marotz’s example php. I then set about editing the quotes to give it a bit more a personal feel - after doing a quick search for some Semantic Web / Web 2.0 based quotes and coming up with nothing, I settled on this more generic Technology quotes page. I could quite easily spot where in the code the quotes were called from (in the array) so it was a simple case or changing the quotes and the matching author.

David’s code is extremely well-commented, especially helpfully pointing out that a certain segment of code can in fact be removed as it is just relating to search engines -

// You can delete this section
// it is only so Search engines can find it
if ($PHP_SELF == “/quotes.php”) {
echo “<Title>Random Quote Script for PHP</title>”;
echo “<meta name=\”Description\” content=\”Random Quote script written in PHP\”>”;
echo “<meta name=\”keywords\” content=\”Random Quote script written in PHP\”>”;
echo “This is my random quote script that is written in PHP”;
echo “<br>Feel free to use it for whatever you want<br/><br/>”;
}
/// End Delete

So I removed it :-) Easy peasy. Then I saved the page and previewed it, and lo and behold, I get a new quote every time I load the page! Have a look at it working in “PHP Fun“

JUST IN CASE it stops working, below, as is tradition on this blog, is a screenshot of two different quotes, generated after refreshing the page. Lovely.

(click to make big)

If I wanted to add more quotes I would simple add more values for the quote and the author to the arrary, and then adjust the any bits of the code accordingly to match. If only it been this easy in the first place.

I’ve actually just had a quick worrying thought - I never did get my Click2Map mashup working properly, so I might try and revisit that this afternoon. Apart from that, I think I’m pretty much done in terms of blog contents, ready for the “cut off” date tomorrow.

I’m so excitied, and I just can’t hide it…. :-)

P.S. I’ve *only just!* noticed that the timestamp for this post (when I published it) was an hour behind, so I’ve just been into Options and added the extra hour in the Time and Date section :-)

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I get knocked down, but I get up again…

May 22, 2008 – 11:09 am

Right, so after staying up till about 3am last night faffing about with Exec PHP and THEN trying to fiqure out why my 3rd media object wasn’t loading using AMP, this morning I tried a different approach.

Firstly, last nite I had forgotten about the “role manager” plugin that Exec-PHP begged me to install - it was stil activated. So I deactivated that and tried again to use the new AMP buttons on the Write toolbar to pull in the 3rd video…but it didn’t work. In IE or Firefox.

I then decided to deactivate AMP and completely removed it from the plugins folder on the server (along with its counterpart, the “anarchy-media-wpmu” directory). This was followed by a refresh of the Dashboard and of the site preview to see if what I expected to happen actually happened - and yes, it did. The Media page now just displayed the AMP code references. I re-upped AMP onto the server and reactivated the plugin AND….HEY PRESTO! IT WORKS!

I got the use of the Media insert button back! Pasted the URL of the WMV and AMP now loads it nicely into WMP. As per the norm though, I’ve taken a screenshot just incase it magically vanishes again. See below

It loads of sort of “holding screen” image, then when you click play to activate the control it boots up the embedded Windows Media Player. Huzzah!

I also last night had a peak at Craig’s blog and noticed that he’d got a rarther cool random quote generator working with Exec PHP - SO…I *might* have a go at trying to get that to work. Because my pathetic little bit of just text on the PHP page make me feel embarrased :-)

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I *ACTUALLY* don’t believe it.

May 21, 2008 – 11:44 pm

Before I logged off for the night to give my eyes some rest, I thought Id have a wee look at the videos on my media page that I’d added earlier. Except I noticed that the 3rd video wasn’t showing. I checked the code in the post and that was all fine and dandy, but I decided to remove it and re-insert it using the buttons just incase.

Except now, the bloody SWF or Media buttons don’t chuffing work. You click them but get nothing - not even a prompt. If I wasn’t so tired I would have started to tear the room apart.

All I can think of is that somehow, Exec-PHP has managed to get in the ****ing way of this plugin and cock it up. I even used Internet Explorer to see if it was just Firefox, but they both perform the same, and the video doesn’t show in either. One thing I did notice, although I can’t even bring myself to think of it as a positive right now, is that the two toolbar icons that were supposed to be displayed (in the Visual editor, instead of having to click Code and use the text buttons) appeared. (This is in IE).

But, of course, they didn’t work.

So I logged back in using Firefox and disabled Exec-PHP (which removed my silly php code render as I thought it would) but didn’t affect using the code buttons - they still didn’t work. What I did notice AGAIN was that magically, I have the two icon buttons in my Visual editor toolbar in Firefox now as well?! What the…?! How does this work? Is it literally just random? I don’t understand. Is this chaos theory? A butterfly flaps its wings in China and my 3rd media artefact goes MIA.

Here’s a chuffing screenshot (because they’ll probably have gone again in the morning)

Oh and just incase you were wondering - NO. They don’t work either. I click but I get nothing. So, I went into the code and manually typed the reference to the plugin to call the WMV file and load it in the player. But that didn’t work. So I copied the reference from the second media file and changed the location URL (as the rest of the parameteres were the same) but hey, guess what?! That didn’t work. The WMV URL location exists and is valid, because I checked it - and it work. But for some unbeknown reason, it just won’t display. It did before, and it was bloody great. But now it’s been taken away from me, without so much as a goodbye, or a reason.

So I’ve gained two little sh*tty icons and lost a whole video format display. I don’t know how I’m going to fix it, because I don’t know whats making it go wrong. Deactivating Exec-PHP not only isnt the answer but also isn’t an option because it needs to be activated. BUT thats the only thing I’ve changed since installing AMP.

Am I being punished? I half expect to wake up next morning to find my hair on my toes on fire. Just completely randomly on fire. Why not?

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You know when…

May 21, 2008 – 10:57 pm

…you get so angry that you start to shiver/tingle, grit and grate your teeth together and just start to shout and clench your fists, occasionally banging them on the desk?

That’s what I’ve been through this evening trying and ultimately failing to use *shudders* Exec-PHP. I officially hate it. I hate it so much. No, seriously, I do. I REALLY do. I told myself, after the last fiasco using it, that I would give it a second chance. This is the second chance. It really didn’t do its self any favours.

I don’t even want to write this post about it, but I need to.

My goal - I wanted to get the Tic Tac Toe game running inside a page. But after reading on Lee’s blog about his problems, I wasn’t too convinced. So I watched a DVD instead. But it only lasted an hour and a half, so after it finished, I bit the bullet and re-activated Exec-PHP. I went back to my original post and followed the 4 pointers of what needs to be done if you see the visual editor conversion warning message.

1. Disable tag balancing ‘WordPress should correct invalidly nested XHTML automatically’ through the Settings > Write’ menu in WordPress
2. Disable the WYSIWYG editor in the user’s settings through the ‘Users > Your Profile’ menu
3. Assign the ‘unfiltered_html’ capability to the user
4. Assign the ‘exec_php’ capability to the user

1 is already done by default. I did 2 with a heavy heart. For 3 and 4 I followed the link to the role/capability plugin and installed that etc etc.

I then used the basic test code from the documentation, to see if PHP would infact execute. And it did. Horrah. Now you may think this is a positive step, but it’s not. It just fills you with false hope.

Here is the sample code -

<?php echo “This is the Exec-PHP ‘Hello World’”; ?>

which renders -

This is the Exec-PHP ‘Hello World’

Lovely. I then studied the Tic Tac Toe code again and realised that it really is meant for use in HTML and web pages, not for execution on here. I removed the opening and closing tags for HTML and HEAD and tried to make it look like something that might run. But I couldn’t, mainly because I was running out of patience. So I did some searching (when I say some I mean about half an hour) for some “basic php code” which I could run. I couldn’t find anything decent. I eventually found something “simple” which gives password protection to a page using php. The code looked good and was well commented, so it was easy to modify. (well commented apart from the fact that I can’t find the original website where I got the code from, and the authors details in the comments aren’t helpfull - the URL takes forever to load, and eventually redirects to a foriegn language site, that I dont have the patience to try and look through to see if its even correct)

Below is the code -

<?php
/*
To make this script work, just ad this code to the very top of your page (before any output starts).

Programmed by Christian Haensel, christian@chftp.com, LINK1http://www.chftp.comLINK1
Exclusively published on weberdev.com. If you like my scripts, please let me know or
link to me.

You may copy, redistirubte, change and alter my scripts as long as this information remains
intact.
*/

// Setting the variables
$thepass = “mypassword”;
$notlogged = “You need to be logged in to access this page”; // The “Need to be logged in” message
$errormsg = “The password provided did not work out for you”; // The error message
$loc_action = “test.php”; // The action document for the form
$loc_succ = “test.php”; // Location to go to after successful login
$loc_error = $PHP_SELF; // The doc to go to on bad login. You can leave $PHP_SELF in most cases
$but_log = “Login”; // Text on the submit button

$pass = $_POST[’pass’];
$logged = $_COOKIE[’logged’];
$mod = $_POST[’mod’];
// If there is no cookie and the user is not logging in, output the login form
if($logged != “1″&& $mod != “login”) {
echo ‘
<b>’.$notlogged.’</b><p>
<form name=”login” action=”‘.$loc_action.’” method=”POST”>
<input type=”password” name=”pass”>
<input type=”hidden” name=”mod” value=”login”>
<input type=”submit” value=”‘.$but_log.’”>
</form>’;
// If there is a bad login, the error message will be displayed
if($_GET[’msg’] == “err”) {
echo ‘<p><font color=”red”>’.$errormsg.’</font>’;
}
die;
}
// if the user is logging in
elseif($logged != “1″&& $mod == “login”) {
// check the password
if($pass == $thepass) {
// if the pass is correct, set the cookie and go to the success page
setcookie(”logged”, “1″);
header(”Location: “.$loc_succ);
} else {
// On bad login, go back to where you came from and try it again
header(”Location:”.$loc_err.”?msg=err”);
}

}
?>

At first glance I didn’t understand the relation to the “test.php”file, but I just assumed that because it wasn’t documented, it wasn’t relevant, or that it would become clear that I might need to change it at somepoint. I assumed that everything that the code needs to do, i.e. execute, would be in INSIDE the page anyway (hence the point of having Exec-PHP) so the external php file reference was ignored by me :D

I pasted the code into a brande new, non-WYSIWYG-edited article and saved. I ran a live preview - and this is what I saw:

(click to make big)

It rendered what it was supposed to - a input box and a Log In button. But for no reason other than, I assume, to annoy me, it DISABLED the rest of my bloody page. The sidebar, everything. I was not impressed. But it gets worse. I thought that, because it appeared to be working, I’d at least give it a go. So I typed in the password and clicked log in. Right…ok. I then went back and typed in WRONG password and clicked log in. Riiiigh….ok. Both times, I got this screen -

(click to make big)

A lovely “page cannot be found” error page. Great. Ok - not then end of the world, I thought. I wonder if it has something to do with the references to that external page, test.php, in the code.

$loc_action = “test.php”; // The action document for the form
$loc_succ = “test.php”; // Location to go to after successful login
$loc_error = $PHP_SELF; // The doc to go to on bad login. You can leave $PHP_SELF in most cases

So I went back, and looked at the code. Then I looked at it again. What was this test.php reference? I know I don’t have that on my server. But I don’t want it to go anywhere after a successful login, I want to display the outcome inside the post. And as for the “action” document - that should be the article page I’m writing, right? But that doesnt have an ultimate “.php” extension, its a ID reference. So…erm…what do I do now?

I tried creating a blank php page called “test.php” and uploading it to location on the server it was trying to look at when it showed the “cannot be displayed” error. But that didn’t work either, it just showed up the same error.

I searched around on Google again for some other examples to try, trying to look for something that looked like it would render its results within the code itself, not to an external file. But I found nothing. Partly due to probably not using the right search terms, partly due to loosing the will to live. I admit it - I gave up. I’m a quitter. I’ve been staring at the screen all bloody day and its drained me.

What annoyed me the most is that I went through all the rigermarole of installing this and setting up that and changing the other and removing stuff that I like, just to get this sodding app to work, and it doesnt do what I want it to do. I consider myself fairly computer literate, and have had NO trouble (at least not anywhere near the same scale as this) with any other aspect of the blog - yet this one singular plugin stumps me. I hate it. Did I mention that?

As a last gasp effort, I wanted to be able to say that I’ve met the criteria for running PHP code within a WordPress page. So I went back to the editor, removed the stupid smelly password-code and put the simple “hello world” code back in there (with a few adjustments).

<?php echo “This is the Exec-PHP. I really don’t think its very good. The documentation isn’t up to scratch and nothing I do in it seems to work ‘Hello chuffing World’”; ?>

Which rendered this (yep, you guessed it)

This is the Exec-PHP. I really don’t think its very good. The documentation isn’t up to scratch and nothing I do in it seems to work ‘Hello chuffing World’

Working, executed, php. Inside a WordPress article. Rubbish php, but it works. Mez never said it had to be amazingly good code or anything :-)

Now for confession time - I’ve written this post in the WYSIWYG editor. I had to. I needed to. I *LIKE* the WYSIWYG editor - and the thing I needed to do the most after all the trouble I’ve had with Exec PHP is to work with something that likes to work with me. The problem with this is that I fully expect the php code that I just mentioned was worked, to stop working. So I took a screenshot of when it was working -

(click to make big)

The screenshot doesnt prove that the text you see under the line was written in PHP - because its a screenshot. But I know it was. And if I here anyone such as mutter anything about it not being REAL php coding, I will cry. Cry big ol’ tears of pain. And then throw my tears of pain at those people and make them feel my pain. Understood?

I’ve also disabled the stupid conversion warning message that display at the top of the Writing pages because frankly, I don’t ever want to see or here Exec-PHP again. If I simply deactivate it then Im SURE the little bit of code that does actually run on the PHP page will stop working, and I’ll probably never get it going again. So the warning message has been fired.

And so endeth the post about Exec-PHP. Its been a long, emotional day, and I’m glad its over.

Next job tomorrow is to do a “final” tidy up and look around to double check that I’ve got everything, and to make the “contents page” post pointing to what is where etc. I’m hoping that doesn’t go wrong.

Good night. Sweet dreams. (but not you ExecPHP. I hope you have e-nightmares)

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