Customizing your own SENSORS (site) Ethan Danahy Tufts University June 7 th, 2001

Overview What the site is How the site works Easy changes –Admin settings (schedule, users) –Colors and look Content changes Advanced changes –Content setup/organization –Add/Change images –Major page changes –Modify table of contents

What The Site Is Portal connecting users with remote moonscape Manager of accounts, files, data, etc. Allows users to: –Maintain accounts –View moon –Submit files/View results

How The Site Works Visitor to site clicks on a link, requesting page Request travels over internet Server at NASA site dynamically compiles page from variety of sources (files, code, database) Completed page sent back Visitor’s web-browser displays the page

The Folder Structure

… Or If You Do Care … Used for debugging and development. Not used in final site… This folder contains all the “included” files. These files hold various functions and variables for working the DB and displaying pages. Here are all user files (submitted & returned), separated into unique subfolders (for security). Also, folders for interacting with LabView are kept here. These files actually start the process for constructing the pages. These are the ones the user ultimately views. The variables file contains admin preferences. It can be changed by hand, or with the admin tool.

Easy Changes Several changes to the site are simple Done through Admin tools provided –Search & edit users profiles –Edit the schedule of mission times –Edit basic preferences (ie. color and wording)

Search & Edit Users Under admin tools, choose “Search Users” Enter info into options & click search With results, you can: –View –Edit –Delete To promote (or demote) someone to admin status, choose “Edit”

Edit Schedule To add new times to the mission schedule, choose “Edit Schedule” Two parts to the page –Add new schedule time –Delete old NOTE: deleting will delete everything associated with it, including submitted programs, etc.

Edit Basic Preferences Possible to change color scheme and some text on the site Choose “Edit Site” from Admin menu Each parameter has comment and function name associated with it Changing values will effect entire site These preferences mirror the options found in the /pages/variables.asp file

Content Changes More difficult Tools needed: –FTP program –Text editor –Internet connection Find matching file (on the server) to one you are changing (in /pages, ends w/.htm) Edit the contents to what you want

Content Changes Format of file is very important: –Must start with “ ” –Must end with “ ” Text between these two is what is put into the main content portion of the page After making any changes upload the file to the server and check to make sure it is what you want Making backups is advisable

Content Setup/Organization Within each page are generic function calls These will insert needed text into your page –“Error” messages –Forms, tables, results, etc. All take the form: Place these functions in page Function call will be replaced by text

Add/Change Images All images stored in /images folder All images starting with “menu_…” are images for the left-hand menu The site title is: sitetitle.gif The top left icon is: toplefticon.gif Edit these images to change look Add new images to this folder and reference them with: “images/name.gif”

Major Site Changes All files are accessible top.htm, bottom.htm, menu.htm, etc: These edit the overall look/setup of the page This is an “advanced topic” – not recommended unless HTML/ASP expert “Guess & Test” is possible, but make sure to have a backup of original ready Example: “Changing The Menu”

Changing The Menu 3 types of menus: –Login (allows user to log in & create new user) –User (for the general user) –Admin (for a user with admin privileges) /pages/menu.htm sets up general menu, then calls the different menu functions: –/pages/menu_login.htm –/pages/menu_user.htm –/pages/menu_admin.htm

Changing The Menu For example: /pages/menu_user.htm This file has 6 similar lines, each representing a menu option Switching the order of each of these lines changes the order of the menu However, be careful when switching, as a small change to contents can change menu dramatically

Helpful Links Tufts SENSORS site: SENSORS/Moon Site support: Tufts Moon Site:

Problems/More Info Director of Project: Chris Rogers – Tufts SENSORS: Phillip Lau – Tufts SENSORS Programmer: Ethan Danahy – Tufts SENSORS Admin: Merredith Portsmore -

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