A new version of the basic edition has also been released. It contains several tweaks and minor bug fixes.

The installation programs for both editions include the web server and the read-only viewer software. The basic edition still makes use of a separate utility program for import/export functions.

The software is available at www.musarch.com.

The basic edition has now been downloaded more than 5,000 times!

The Museum Archive software project (www.musarch.com) will release version 2 of the premium edition in the next day or so. Registered users will be sent a notification.

Sorry for any inconvenience - just remember to press Alt-Esc if you are stuck.

In your installation folder, there is another folder called ‘webstd’. This holds the standard CSS file and a copy of index.htm. There’s another copy of index.htm in the ‘webexport’ folder.

During generation, I copy the CSS file from webstd to webexport (after renaming the existing file to save it). So, you can safely edit the CSS file in webexport to play around/experiment, but any changes you make are moved to the backup file when you generate. To make your CSS changes permanent, change the CSS file in the webstd folder – that is the one that gets copied during the generation of the web site.

The index.htm file isn’t copied, but I put it in two places because I know everyone is going to edit it. Index.htm is not generated. Because index.htm is never generated, any changes you make to the copy in webexport remain in the ‘real’ copy. The index.htm file in webstd is just a copy for reference.

Open up index.htm (in webexport) using Notepad. You can safely edit the plain text – the words that match the parts you can see when displaying the file in your browser. Leave the command tags alone. Save your changes and look at it in your browser. Another option is to replace index.htm altogether and just provide links to the ‘sort by’ pages on the new index.htm page.

Someone asked me to explain how styles and the CSS (cascading style sheet) can be used to change the look and feel of the generated web pages. This is too big a topic for me to handle in any detail, but here is a simple example that shows you the potential power of styles.

Each generated Object web page starts off with a field called Object ID. This is an internal number that doesn’t mean anything to the visitors to your web site, so let’s get rid of it. One way to get rid of it would be to edit every web page to physically remove it from the code, but this is labor intensive, and if you have thousands of Objects, it would be crazy. It really doesn’t matter if the Object ID is still in the html code as long as it doesn’t clutter up our web page, so why go to all of the trouble to change all of those web pages? There are easier ways to get it off of the page using styles. Here is a simple example:

Navigate over to your webexport folder. Load an Object’s web page in your browser.

Open up the file called musarch_export.css in a text editor (like Notepad). Add these lines to the top of the file:

span#objectid_prompt

{

visibility: hidden;

}

span#objectid

{

visibility: hidden;

}

Save the file and re-load your web page in your browser. The Object ID is gone. And it is gone from EVERY Object web page.

How does this work? By assigning a class and an id to every element on your page.

The web page for each Object places the Object ID title and value on the page by including them in an element called ‘span’. When the utility produces the web page, it gives the title (Object ID) a class called ‘prompt’ and an id called ‘objectid_prompt’. It gives the value (the actual Object ID from your database) a class called ‘data’ and an id called ‘objectid’. You can see this if you open up the web page in a text editor (or use your browser’s menu to view the page source).

What’s a class? A class is a group of similar elements (components of a web page) that can be styled as a group. For example, all of the titles for an Object’s details have a class equal to ‘prompt’, so this style:

span.prompt

{

color: gray;

}

in the style sheet file turns all of the titles gray. There can be many elements with the same class name.

What’s an ID? An ID is a unique label for a single element. No two elements should have the same id in the same web page file. In this example, the title for the Object ID is ‘objectid_prompt’, but other titles have different id names. This gives us the ability to style a single element. So this style:

span#objectid_prompt

{

visibility: hidden;

}

only has an impact on the single title with that exact id.

Even though the id for an element must be unique within a web page, you can (and do) have the exact same ids throughout the web site. Every Object page has an Object ID field within a span, and the class and id names are the same for every Object. This lets us set a style rule one time and have it be automatically be applied throughout the web site.

For those interested: the element name (span) is followed by a dot and then by the class name, or it is followed by a hash mark (pound sign) and then by the id name.

I hope this simple example gives you some idea about the power of style sheets. Every time you generate your web site with the utility, I save your old style sheet by giving it a new name so that you never lose any changes that you make. You can simply replace the standard style sheet with your version by renaming files. Play around with the style sheet and see what you can come up with. There are plenty of CSS tutorials available on the web.

When you have a ‘final’ version of your style sheet, save it to the ‘webstd’ folder – this is the official style sheet that is copied over to the webexport folder when the web site is generated.

Make a web site from your Musarch data with just a few mouse clicks. Change the look and feel of the pages by substituting images and changing the style sheet. A quick and easy way to get your collection of Objects online - the new version of the Museum Archive software project’s Import/Export utility (a free download).

Here’s the announcement:

Introducing a new version of the Import/Export utility from the Museum Archive software project - free software that provides a popular way for museums, historical societies, and other organizations to catalogue their collections. Included in the utility is the ability to create an entire web site of your archive, complete with indices, with a few mouse clicks – no coding required.

An example of this web site generation is available at http://www.musarch.com/webexport – this example web site was built by the utility using the sample data that comes with the basic edition of the Museum Archive software. With the Import/Export utility, you simply tell it to create the site and then you upload the resulting files to the web host of your choice.

The latest version of the Import/Export utility is available as a separate download from the software project’s web site.

More than 4,700 organizations and individuals from around the world have taken advantage of the Museum Archive software, a free package that rivals many commercial offerings in features and in reliability.

The basic edition (free) is available for download at the web site (http://www.musarch.com). A premium edition (also free) is available to anyone who purchases the project’s book.

• The name of the Object is now a part of the form window’s caption;
• The accession number field is now easily visible in the browse list box;
• The Location Reference field is now included on the Detailed report;
• A second version of the Detailed report is now included - the original version is sorted by Object Name, and this second version is sorted by Accession Number.

This upgrade requires a password and it requires that you have previously installed a prior version of the premium edition.

Registered users have been notified by email; if you would like to upgrade to the new version and did not receive any notification, write to support and I will provide you with the details. As always, backup your installation before applying the update.

This software is brand new. While it has been tested, it probably still has a few rough spots. Your comments and feedback are appreciated.

Being able to import data from a spreadsheet environment opens up a lot of possibilities for the project. For example, in a classroom setting, each student can use a spreadsheet to add Objects, and the teacher can then import each student’s work to the ‘master’ database. Museums with old lists of Objects can now start using the Museum Archive software package without having to re-key all of the data.

Get the utility here:

http://www.musarch.com/anonymous/musarch_ie_1_5_3.zip

Save the file to your hard drive, and then extract the EXE and PDF to your current Musarch installation folder (normally c:/musarch). The utility EXE replaces the previous version. Read the  PDF. Back-up your data before trying the utility.

[Update - I fixed a small bug, so get the new version 1.5.3 from the above link - 20Sept2011]

I am currently working on two additions to the software: a way to import Objects from a spreadsheet (actually, from a comma delimited file), and a true client/server version that you can run remotely. Pretty exciting stuff; I’ll have more details available soon.