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Publishing a database as website
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Posted by Tester
Aug 11, 2015 at 10:37 PM
As most of you will know, various outliners offer the possibility to publish the created data as a website. (As far as I have seen, it works always by exporting the existing data as html files.)
I have tested it with various programs (MyInfo, My Notes Keeper, Memo Book, Ultra Recall etc.) and the result with all of them seems to be more or less the same. That means: not bad, but there are always two weak points for which I could not find a solution:
1) The time delay: If you have a lot of data it takes quite a long time until the website will open (completely). (Obviously because of the big number and/or size of the created html files.)
2) The missing of a (good) search possibility: It seems that a website created (by exporting the html files) cannot offer a “built-in” search possibility (at least for the titles of the documents/items which would be sufficient for my purposes). So the visitor of the website must use the search facility of his browser respectively some add-on (as for example “FindBar Tweak” for Firefox). This works quite good as a workaround but it is by no means a satisfying compensation of a good built-in search facilty.
Please take a look at the following website. Of course it is not created with an outliner software. But as you can see there is a big similarity to the interface of such software and the way the website can be used would perfectly fulfill my needs.
I would like to ask you if you know an outliner software with which you can achieve such a result when exporting the database as a website:
http://woerterbuchnetz.de/DWB/
What you see is an old and famous German dictionary (from the 19th century). (Some technical details about the database – for those who understand German: http://dwb.uni-trier.de/de/die-digitale-version/datenbank/ )
The two weak points mentioned above do not exist here:
- The website opens without delay.
- You have a comfortable search possibilty (for the keywords of the dictionary): On the left you have (above the tree with the keywords) a search field. Type in there a (german) word and you will get immediately the result, for example: “Hund” (= dog) or “Sonne” (= sun).
I use MyInfo as outliner software and I told its developer (Petko) about this website. I am very happy because he told me that the user interface of MyInfo after the next main upgrade (to MyInfo 7) will have quite the same structure as it can be seen on the website (including the excellent search facility!).
So I can say that my needs presumably will be fully satisfied by the next generation of MyInfo concerning the structure/functionality of its interface on the DESKTOP. But I doubt if this structure/functionality will be kept when exporting the data(base) as a WEBSITE.
Of course I could ask Petko but I do not want to be impatient or demanding. ;-) So instead I would like to ask the experts here in the Forum if such a transfer of structure/functionality to the website version of an outliner database is technically possible at all and if there exists already such an outliner software.
Thanks for your interest.
Posted by WSP
Aug 12, 2015 at 07:32 AM
Tester, I too am a longtime user of MyInfo, and your comments left me feeling slightly alarmed. Did Petko really say that the user interface of MyInfo 7 will resemble the online German dictionary you cite? (Or was he perhaps only talking about improved speed?) I looked at the website and was impressed by its clever use of columns, but I’m not at all sure that I would want MyInfo itself to resemble this on my computer screen.
———————————————————
Tester wrote:
As most of you will know, various outliners offer the possibility to
>publish the created data as a website. (As far as I have seen, it works
>always by exporting the existing data as html files.)
>
>I have tested it with various programs (MyInfo, My Notes Keeper, Memo
>Book, Ultra Recall etc.) and the result with all of them seems to be
>more or less the same. That means: not bad, but there are always two
>weak points for which I could not find a solution:
>
>1) The time delay: If you have a lot of data it takes quite a long time
>until the website will open (completely). (Obviously because of the big
>number and/or size of the created html files.)
>
>2) The missing of a (good) search possibility: It seems that a website
>created (by exporting the html files) cannot offer a “built-in” search
>possibility (at least for the titles of the documents/items which would
>be sufficient for my purposes). So the visitor of the website must use
>the search facility of his browser respectively some add-on (as for
>example “FindBar Tweak” for Firefox). This works quite good as a
>workaround but it is by no means a satisfying compensation of a good
>built-in search facilty.
>
>Please take a look at the following website. Of course it is not created
>with an outliner software. But as you can see there is a big similarity
>to the interface of such software and the way the website can be used
>would perfectly fulfill my needs.
>
>I would like to ask you if you know an outliner software with which you
>can achieve such a result when exporting the database as a website:
>
>http://woerterbuchnetz.de/DWB/
>
>What you see is an old and famous German dictionary (from the 19th
>century). (Some technical details about the database – for those
>who understand German:
>http://dwb.uni-trier.de/de/die-digitale-version/datenbank/ )
>
>The two weak points mentioned above do not exist here:
>
>- The website opens without delay.
>
>- You have a comfortable search possibilty (for the keywords of the
>dictionary): On the left you have (above the tree with the keywords) a
>search field. Type in there a (german) word and you will get immediately
>the result, for example: “Hund” (= dog) or “Sonne” (= sun).
>
>I use MyInfo as outliner software and I told its developer (Petko) about
>this website. I am very happy because he told me that the user interface
>of MyInfo after the next main upgrade (to MyInfo 7) will have quite the
>same structure as it can be seen on the website (including the excellent
>search facility!).
>
>So I can say that my needs presumably will be fully satisfied by the
>next generation of MyInfo concerning the structure/functionality of its
>interface on the DESKTOP. But I doubt if this structure/functionality
>will be kept when exporting the data(base) as a WEBSITE.
>
>Of course I could ask Petko but I do not want to be impatient or
>demanding. ;-) So instead I would like to ask the experts here in the
>Forum if such a transfer of structure/functionality to the website
>version of an outliner database is technically possible at all and if
>there exists already such an outliner software.
>
>Thanks for your interest.
>
Posted by Tester
Aug 12, 2015 at 01:03 PM
WSP wrote:
> (Or was he perhaps only talking about improved speed?)
No, in this context we did not talk about speed.
WSP wrote:
> I looked at the website
>and was impressed by its clever use of columns
Yes, that is exactly what I like too - in combination with the built-in search field above the tree. And without being able to speak on behalf of Petko, I think that he referred to these aspects (surely to the built-in search field). (That’s the reason why I spoke about “structure” and “functionality” of the interface.)
WSP wrote:
>but I’m not at all sure
>that I would want MyInfo itself to resemble this on my computer screen.
If you mean the more aesthetic details like colours, fonts etc. of the cited German dictionary: I do *not* think that similarity will concern such details. ;-) At least this was not at all the subject we talked about.
Posted by PIMfan
Aug 12, 2015 at 02:39 PM
Tester -
Another app you might want to investigate is RightNote (Pro version), which can be found at http://bauerapps.com/rightnote/.
RightNote Pro includes an “Export to Webbook” function that turns a RightNote file into a mini-website, including top navigation (mapped to the RN “pages”) and a “search as you type” search box in the bottom left side of the screen.
1) Time delay: I don’t have any massive gigabyte RN databases to test, but I have always found RN (and the search function in particular) to have very snappy performance. How well that translates into the webbook version of a db I am unable to comment on….
2) The missing of a (good) search possibility: As noted above, RN search is quite efficient, and the underlying db is SQLite (which is generally regarded well for performance).
One limitation of the webbook format is that - unlike the RN desktop client - search is limited to the text of the content. The ability to search and leverage tags (which the desktop version supports) is not included in the webbook export.
But overall, not a bad choice to check out, and the 30-day eval available for download is the Pro version….
d
Tester wrote:
>1) The time delay: If you have a lot of data it takes quite a long time
>until the website will open (completely). (Obviously because of the big
>number and/or size of the created html files.)
>
>2) The missing of a (good) search possibility: It seems that a website
>created (by exporting the html files) cannot offer a “built-in” search
>possibility (at least for the titles of the documents/items which would
>be sufficient for my purposes). So the visitor of the website must use
>the search facility of his browser respectively some add-on (as for
>example “FindBar Tweak” for Firefox).
Posted by Tester
Aug 12, 2015 at 05:27 PM
Thanks for this suggestion, PIMfan. I just tested RightNote a little bit and this webbook feature is indeed very interesting.
I had already tested RightNote some time ago by using the (usual) feature of html export and was not satisfied at all because there were (and still are) massive problems with Unicode (html export does not work for notes with non-latin characters). But this webbook feature is something quite new (added in March 2015 according to the Release History) and it works without any problems concerning Unicode.
Especially the search function of the webbook is a fine thing. It is more or less what I would expect (or let’s say dream of) when publishing a database (created by an outliner) in the web. :-)
About speed at the moment I cannot say too much beacuse I tested it only with about 10 (small) notes/documents. And of course with this small number and size all worked perfectly quickly.
Of course RightNote has also also some disadvantages or shortcomings (as every software compared to one’s personal needs an prerences, I think). But in general my impression is now (with the webbook feature) very good.
I will keep an eye on RightNote, but a change (from MyInfo) would be a very difficult decision as my database at MyInfo contains already about 13.000 documents/notes and in general I am very satisfied with MyInfo. The ideal solution would be that the next version of MyInfo offers something similar as RightNote with its webbook. ;-)
Thanks again for your reply, PIMfan.