The mailing list for listmasters using Sympa

[David Verdin <address@concealed>]

Hi,

That's a problem that happens because we didn't clarify the distinction 
between the info file and the homepage.
Basically, when you create a list through the web interface, the list 
description is inserted into a file named "info".
This file is used to generate welcome messages as well as to present the 
list on the list home page.

In this last context, the file is embedded in <pre/> HTML tags to keep 
the formatting of the plain text (carriage return, lists, indentations 
and such). The drawback is that lines aren't cut when the text reaches 
the window's edge.
However, there is yet another file, "homepage", which can't be generated 
at list's creation. This file (editable through the "customizing" link 
in the list's admin menu) allows the introduction of HTML tags, thus 
giving list owners the possibility to create a pretty home page for 
their beloved list. ;)
When no homepage file is found, the info file is used instead. this is 
the most common case, as most people are satisfied with one or two 
sentences describing briefly their mailing list's purpose.

The next question that must come is probably : "Why in the hell didn't 
you propose to fill the two files at creation time?"
Because, as most people won't do a lot more than writing a short 
description text of the list, the same text - and the the same file - 
can perfectly be used for welcome mails and for the home page. So we 
didn't think it was useful to introduce more complexity by proposing two 
very similar fields in the list's creation form.

But apparently, it is not the best solution. It introduces two problems:
1- we have to find to layout a plain text file to generate the home page;
2- most list owners have difficulties to clearly understand the purpose 
of the two files "info" and "homepage" (actually, most of them probably 
never heard of the "homepage" file).

So we're thinking about a way to improve this. we see several solution 
for now, we aren't decided yet.
1- extend the list's creation form. We would add an optional field for 
the "homepage" file, clearly specifying the differences between it and 
the info file;
2- change the treatment of the info file when used in a web context. the 
reason why we use <pre/> tags is to keep carriage returns. We could 
replace these carriage returns by "<br/>" tags. This could be done on 
the fly, or we could also save the info to homepage when we don't find it.

Do you have an opinion?

Regards,

Mark K a écrit :
> On Thu, 17 Jan 2008 13:41:33 -0800
> "Allen, Pat" <address@concealed> wrote:
>
>   
> > Hello -
> >
> > I've just upgraded to 5.3.4 in anticipation of migrating from Lyris
> > to Sympa. I've created my first two lists on the server and they both
> > have reasonable descriptions.
> >
> > When I display this using the browser, it appears as if the contents
> > of the info file is simply written out on one line which runs off the
> > right end of the browser window. If I edit the info file and manually
> > introduce line breaks to get around this, the lines are centered
> > which makes things look bad. I don't want to have to manually edit
> > each and every one of my info files since this runs into problems
> > when users resize the fonts in their browsers.
> >
> > Is there a fix for this? Or is the fix to use definitions that fit on
> > one line?
> >
> > Thanks!
> > Pat
> >
> > --------------
> > Pat Allen (address@concealed & http://www.mbari.org/staff/pat)
> > Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute (MBARI)
> > 7700 Sandholdt Rd, Moss Landing, CA 95039
> > (voice) 831-775-1724; (fax) 831-775-1620
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >     
> In my migration script to migrate lists from mailman to sympa, I use the
> wrap() function from the Text::Wrap perl module to make sure the
> description is line wrapped.  I don't know anything about Lyris, so I
> don't know how you are performing your migration, but just make sure
> you manually apply some line wrapping to list descriptions as you
> migrate them.
>
>   

--
David Verdin
Comité réseau des universités