This repository helps distribute the task of managing public biographic profiles of members of the Institute of Mathematical Stastics (IMS). TeX files containing biographical data can be updated remotely by IMS members or their representatives, and changes will be pulled in here once they are approved by the IMS editor. The information can then be moved to the IMS website.
TeX files should be written following the standard outlined in the accompanying user docs.
http://ims.metameso.org/ is a webpage that can be used by IMS members to test their TeX files and see the generated HTML.
To use the BibProject code locally, check out the code from github:
git clone [email protected]:BioBib/BibProject.gitThe first thing to look at is:
index.txt.
(Note, this file can be edited over the web if you find that simpler. Some other interaction steps described below require the use of the web interface. However, for now, these instructions proceed under the assumption that you are using a command line version of Git for editing purposes. The actual underlying operations are essentially the same in either case.)
(This section can safely be ignored for the first read: it summarizes how the index is processed automatically.)
A script runs every day at 1AM UK time, via the following crontab entry in joe's directory on li311-58.members.linode.com:
0 1 * * * python /bibserver/ims_legacy/scan-and-update.py
Its facilitates distributed updating of this Github repository.
The first thing it does when it runs is it pulls in the latest version
of index.txt from the BibProject repository to the server where it
runs. It then starts reading the paths and URLs stored in this file,
and makes pull requests when these differ from the content in the
master branch. All of this will become more clear later on in
these instructions.
Let's have a look at the
index.txt
file now.
You'll see that there is a very long list of IMS member IDs, and most
of them are currently associated to files that are stored in the Git
repository, specifically in the ./tex_files directory). For
illustrative purposes, the last line is a fictitious person, who is
associated to a tex file stored separately on my webpage,
line 1080
of the file:
public__john_q http://metameso.org/~joe/jqp.tex
The IMS editor can update this file to associate any of the tex sources with remote URLs (or to point back to files in this repository). Remote files will typically be maintained by IMS members or their representatives.
Try that now, by
- Copying a tex file from the
./tex_filesdirectory to some publicly-accessible webpage that you control, and - Changing the corresponding entry in
index.txtto point to that URL.
You can also use a % sign at the beginning of the line to add
comments or to comment out entries (you will eventually want to remove
the illustrative entry for "John Q. Public").
I call the example file you've put on your own webpage the "remote file."
In order to make the updated index accessible to the server, you must add, commit, and push the file to Github.
git add ims_sources.py
git commit -m "A demonstration of remote editing."
git push
The next time the scan-and-update.py script runs, it will find the
.tex source for that member on the webpage where you put it. It will
check to see if it is different from the most current version stored
in the repository.
If you haven't changed the remote file, the script won't find any
difference, and nothing will happen. So, go ahead and make a change
to the file now, even if it's just adding in a new %'ed comment
line. You don't have to update the Github repository again, because
it already knows where to look for this file.
When scan-and-update.py notices that the file has changed, it will
create a new branch in the BibProject repository, along with a pull
request addressed to the maintainer of the BioBib/BibProject
repository. The IMS editor can then process this request using the
Github web interface. This is the editor's second point of control in
addition to the index.
Assuming the change is agreeable, the request can be merged in directly. If the change is not agreeable, then the editor should reject it, and contact the person maintaining the webpage in question, and sort out an agreed version with them.
As a temporary measure, if desired, the editor can modify the
corresponding entry in index.txt to point to the relevant file in
./tex_files, so that the system doesn't poll the unwanted remote
file until the discrepancy has been addressed.
The logic of the update script is such that if an IMS Member makes further changes to their remote file before the IMS Editor has time to update the repository, these changes will be accumulated into the same pull request.
Notifications of updates to this repository are currently sent to jimpitman00 and holtzermann17 via the email service. The recipients can be adjusted at:
Finally, note that HTML versions of the files are generated and
included in the ./new_html_files directory. The intention is that
the contents of this directory can be used directly in the IMS site.
The contents are accessible anywhere via a git clone and can be
updated with git pull -- or this could be automated via cron.
Feel free to run these commands to run the scan and update process without waiting 24 hours:
ssh [email protected] [enter password]
cd /bibserver/
python ./ims_legacy/scan-and-update.py
Or contact me for assistance.
-- Joe Corneli ([email protected]).