Journal indexes

adrian

adrian

Flying Squad
Osgood said:
The other variable is the range of interests of the person modifying the titles for indexing.
I'm well aware that my effort was biased towards those subjects which interested me - on reflection it would have taken little extra effort to have made it more universal (by including a broader range of keywords in titles) thus making it easier for those seeking, for example, topics relating to specific mainline railway companies.
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Fortunately the Journal indices are database based so the search works across the description as well. So the titles don't need any modification for indexing as long as suitable key words are added in the description or appropriated tagged.
 
Osgood

Osgood

Western Thunderer
Agreed - I was referring only to the new titles I had to invent to replace the cryptic ones.
Unfortunately my Bylines index became non-searchable by keyword when its format changed upon transfer to a new computer, but I might be able to do something about that now.
I’ll take a look at @daifly ’s helpful list he posted above when I get an opportunity, but first I’ll contact the publishers and enquire what their plans for an index are.

Come to think of it - I not once found any reference to those wonderful Bylines images of Bleddfa Road that @Geoff keeps posting……..:confused:
 
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Osgood

Osgood

Western Thunderer
Two examples from Bylines - just found when perusing @daifly 's list and in fact these had escaped my efforts to re-title such articles:

- Bad Year Dec 2014 (which was Vol 20.1 but I store them by year and month, so omitted ref. to vol. nos from my index)
- A Better Year Mar 2015

Now what they all about? Oh bother, I'm going to have to go and look now :rolleyes:

But I do love the quirky character of Bylines, and always find both something new on a topic I thought I knew a lot about, and something new that I never realised I had any interest in - surely that is the sign of a good publication!
 
Osgood

Osgood

Western Thunderer
As an illustration of how valuable a well-produced index could be:

Bad Year contains 6 superb photos from 1962 of mainly stored (hence title) Caledonian Rly 0-4-4Ts - a great resource for anyone modelling same.

A Better Year is a nice set of 3 images of working Caley 0-6-0Ts in 1953.

Problem is I've just re-discovered in that March edition an excellent article Derwenthaugh and the Long Boilers (self-explanatory title), so I'm now going to enjoy that over yet another coffee instead of cleaning loco and rolling stock wheels which is was priority on today's chores list!
 
K

KrustySimplex

Member
Just tried looking at Model Railway Journal Index, but it seems to be back to just the page header appearing. Is this a general problem or just me being me? Tried in Chrome 135.0.7049.115 on a MacBook Pro, running macOS 14.7.5, and in Safari on an iPhone 13 mini running iOS 18.4.1.
 
John Duffy

John Duffy

Western Thunderer
Likewise with Safari running on 15.4.1 and on Firefox. I have also though been unable to access Western Thunder consistently for several days now. Sometimes it is working and other times not. Is this a wider WT issue?
 
K

KrustySimplex

Member
Sorry to hear that – well, actually, I'm glad it isn't just me....
I haven't had any problem accessing WT itself over the last couple of weeks, but have struck problems once or twice in the past (well after the world-famous meltdown).
 
daifly

daifly

Western Thunderer
Adrian was attempting to solve a problem in the code which meant that the British Railway Journal index Home page said Model Railway Journal in the banner at the top of the page. I am a low-level admin for the indexes and have just completed the index for the GWR Journal and I can't get in either! This one is for Adrian to resolve!
I'm sure that he will post here when it's sorted.
Dave
 
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adrian

adrian

Flying Squad
Hi,

Unfortunately the web hosting company have locked down the php version on which the Indexes work. I can no longer revert back to the older php version for security reasons. So I will have to dive into the code and make it compatible with the newer versions.

It's not a hugely large application so I don't think it'll be too difficult to sort out, but like any bug fixing - timescales are going to be "how long is a piece of string?". Hopefully a temporary loss in service.

I'll update later on tonight once I've had a chance to look at the problem. Fortunately I did make a backup of everything on Sunday!

Regards

Adrian
 
adrian

adrian

Flying Squad
Richard Hodgson said:
If the supporting database is MySQL then there were changes in the connection form php7.4.

See this Stackoverflow pst.
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Thanks for the link it is appreciated I'll use that as a starting point - yes it a MySQL database, I was aware there were some changes to the interface but not sure what exactly. I'll be having a look tonight, having spent most of the day wrestling with Matlab coding and sqlite now I have to switch to php and MySQL - not sure which is worse!
 
adrian

adrian

Flying Squad
A quick update - yes it does appear that it's mainly the database connector that needs updating. So the changes are simple and I have copy of the code where I have the admin pages working. So it's not going to be difficult to fix it, however it's just going to take a few days to go through all the php modules to update the database connector as it's not quite a 1 for 1 replacement.

It's been a long day but I know the route through so just ask for a little patience. I'm fairly sure we can be back online in a few days time but the latest "Binky" episode has dropped (those who know will know!!) so I'm going to wind down with that and a beer for now. I'll update here when a little more progress has been made.

Regards

Adrian
 
Chris Veitch

Chris Veitch

Western Thunderer
adrian said:
It's been a long day but I know the route through so just ask for a little patience. I'm fairly sure we can be back online in a few days time but the latest "Binky" episode has dropped (those who know will know!!) so I'm going to wind down with that and a beer for now. I'll update here when a little more progress has been made.
Click to expand...
Many thanks for your efforts, Adrian. I have to admit that I’ve been curious even though php isn’t my specific poison (although I’ve spent plenty of time with mySQL) - I’ve briefly come across the php DB connection issues elsewhere with a society website that I’m involved with. However Binky is a major temptation when a new episode arrives - after all, where else can you get Arduino programming, CNC milling, 3D printing and the engine from a Celica Turbo in one dose? The 3D printed solder tracks were a brilliant eccentricity.
 
adrian

adrian

Flying Squad
Hi,

Yes the Binky episode was highly entertaining - mine (1.3i Cooper SPI) is in dire need of fixing when I have time - one thing that I was considering was an update to the dash and instruments. At some point in its chequered past one previous owner changed the final drive ratio but didn't bother with the tacho drive. Hence on the clocks an indicated 25mph is in reality 30mph and an indicated 40mph is in reality 55mph which makes for entertaining driving. Rather than fiddle with the manual drive I was considering a digital dash upgrade. Not sure I'd go as far as BOM have!

Anyway MRJ Index update I've got my head around the code updates required for the latest version of php and it was mainly the database interface needed updating - unfortunately most of the code is database queries so it just meant working through the various elements methodically.

Current status : The MRJ index public pages should be back online now. I'm still working on the admin pages so it's going to be later in the week before we can update it with the latest issues. My intention is now to get the GWRJ and BRJ indexes public front end back online first and then go back and sort out the admin areas.

If anyone spots anything I have missed then please let me know, but I think I have tested and updated most of the site.

Thanks for your patience

Adrian
 
Gadgie

Gadgie

Western Thunderer
Thank you Adrian! — it’s great to have the index back, and your hard work in keeping this whole site going is very much appreciated.

Richard
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