Guildford Diocesan Guild of Church Bell Ringers

These webpages are hosted by kind permission on http://www.unirom.co.uk. Visit UniRom-dot-co-dot-uk to find out about UniRom systems. We supply data storage, searching and management solutions using Microsoft and NEXTPage technology, and can advise on any electronic publishing issues.

UniRom Systems also hosts the Godalming Choral Society and Childrens Classic Concerts webpages.

Feedback

Any constructive comments are gratefully received and imported into an on-going programme of improvement. Please e-mail comments to Nicholas Haggett (WebMaster).

Or you can leave a comment on the server for me to read later! - click here. You can say whatever you like on the feedback page because the only person who can read them is me.

Technical Information

The Guild website is hosted in Farncombe, Surrey on a webserver managed by UniRom Systems Ltd., by kind permission. This server runs Microsoft Internet Information Server version 4 (IIS4).

The website uses Active Server Pages (ASP) scripting which means the code is processed by the webserver before being sent to the client as HTML. This allows a multitude of nifty features to be exploited, such as per-user customised display, on-the-fly generation of navigation menus and extraction of data from data sources. Several languages are available for ASP including PerlScript, Java Server Pages and VBScript. On the Guild site I use PerlScript (see ActivePerl).

The site has two small databases: one for towers and one for people's emails. Originally I thought about putting these into Access but in the end I simply kept them as Excel workbooks. From ASP I can connect to these using the Open DataBase Connectivity (ODBC) API and load the data just as if they were conventional databases. In addition they are easier to maintain.

For editing the Guild pages I use Emacs, the self documenting, fully customisable editor from the GNU Software foundation. Emacs does not have a What You See Is What You Get (WYSIWYG) interface, but for those who like to see and have control over their code it is one of the best editors available (and of course can be used for any programming, not just for webpages). It can also let you read your newsgroups and email when you get bored (and is virus-proof) and if you feel it lacks some feature you can go right ahead and add it using the built in Emacs-Lisp compiler. Need I say more?

Emacs session:

For editing photographs on the site I use Macromedia Fireworks which is great for editing web graphics. Its pretty cool for creating icons and simple drawings too.

N.Haggett,   200402131830,   :-)