Message-Id: <mailto:199603011731.LAA05515@library.wustl.edu> Date: Fri, 1 Mar 1996 12:21:12 -0500 From: Jon Reynolds <mailto:REYNOLDJ@GUNET.GEORGETOWN.EDU> Subject: Databases for multi-image documents -Reply To: Multiple recipients of list IMAGELIB
This is mostly for Bob Rosenberg, but others may be interested. Have your delete finger poised:I have completed a tentative working model which links (and displays) images to our in-house database system. I have thought about the problem of multi-image documents, and think it is solvable, but haven't actually done it yet. (folder level ˙he document; relate a file to folder level with one record per image...) At the moment, we type in the file names, but don't anticipate any difficulty writing the code to do it by high-lighting the name and pressing Enter...whenever we get into actual production mode.
I am held up by three factors: 1) my time's been focused on our Web site; 2) the shift to Windows; 3) Making a final decision on what will be our precise objective(s) ...in the short run at least. We are all shooting at moving targets.
Re #1: We are convinced that the Web is the biggest deal since Gutenberg. Have thus concentrated on writing routines to export HTML marked up files AND segment them in web sized chunks. This is going well.
Re #2: I use Clipper with add-on libraries. I think it is a great language; if you can imagine it, I maintain that someone, if not me, can write it in Clipper. On the other hand, it is well on the way to becoming a dead language...but then I wonder if that might not prove an advantage -no more upgrades - at least as long as DOS lives. (Actually there is also a UNIX variant that we are looking at seriously). There are many migration paths to Windows, but I find Windows programming much more difficult than the programming I do in Clipper and DOS, and I don't even like to use it. I edit a Newsletter for a DC area programmer's group, and there is no consensus on the road ahead. This group is me + 60 people who make their living from database programming. Access has a few advocates, but they tell me it will crap out on very large files, but haven't been able to tell me just HOW large. There are partisans of everything: Foxpro, Visual dbase, Visual Basic, Delphi, Powerbuilder, Windows libraries for Clipper...I'll experiment when the opportunity comes... since hitting 50 I have understood King Lear a lot more, but perhaps I should be thinking of Hamlet.
Re #3: Like everyone else, we are conflicted on questions of resolution, copyright, appropriate web access, and how to afford scanning oversize items. We started out intending to simply improve access and preservation by allowing users to view photos and graphics and fragile docs. on computer screens in our reference room; this was immediately extended to our electronic information resource center and then to the World Wide Web...
This is getting too long... so in conclusion, I don't think you are asking for the moon at all. Like the Nike ads say, Let's just do it!
Jon Reynolds