Category Archives: Release

Dynamic Tabs for Metadata

CSS, Image Description, JavaScript, Release

I generate and store quite a lot of metadata with my photos, as can be gathered from my faceted photo index. Until now, I have simply displayed most of it beneath each photo on its page, but I wanted to make the interesting parts stand out more, while still providing access to the rest.

CSS and JavaScript to the rescue.

Simon Willison created a small script for toggling sections of page, easytoggle and debugging in Safari, which was subsequently improved to also handle Safari. That seemed like a great way to approach the problem — making it possible to structure the information, while still leaving it accessible to all.

However, there were (of course) a few quirks with that implementation, so I added a few lines of code to make it possible to not display the menu tabs when JavaScript isn’t enabled, and to make the inactive tabs dim until selected: easytoggle3.js

To designate a section as the tab section (to make it not show up without javascript), identify it with #toggle, and add a CSS instruction to make it not display: display: none. The rest of the script works just as the original, where links with class="toggle" are used to identify the parts that should be togglable.

WordPress Plugin: Weighted Interests

Release, WordPress

I recently ran into Matt Kingstons’s Weighted Categories plugin. It was inspired by flickr’s tag list, showing tag usage with a font size for each tag proportional to the number of photos tagged.

I decided to clean it up a bit and make it work on pages that didn’t include all posts, and then turned it into an example of how to extend the FOAF Output Plugin profile page (example, download, source).

The current version is 1.1 (released 2005-01-02).

Changes since 1.0:
  • Fixed problems when no interests were found.

This plugin requires the FOAF Output Plugin. Note that only categories that are classified as interests by the FOAF Output Plugin (that is, the ones that have a URI in their description) are included in the list. If you wish to show all categories, simply change the line that gets the list of interests:

$cats=get_foaf_output_interests(falsetrue);

In case you are interested, here’s the CSS I added to my global stylesheet to make it look like it does:

.profile dl dd.weighted-interests { 
  text-align: center; 
  padding: 0.5em; }
.profile dd.weighted-interests li { 
  list-style: none; 
  display: inline; 
  margin: 0.2em; }
.profile dd.weighted-interests a { 
  text-decoration: none; }

librdfutil

MySQL, Redland, Release

Since last year I have been storing metadata about my photos, and other stuff like the twilight data, in a Redland triple store, backed by the MySQL storage implementation I wrote. I have been writing various PHP scripts for maintaining and querying the various graphs, and I found that there were a few basic tasks I kept implementing, writing the same code over and over again. At one point I finally started factoring them out into a common “library”, librdfutil (syntax highlighted version).

Most of the functions are only helpful in a PHP and/or MySQL environment, but a few of them might make it into the core Redland API at some point if other people find them useful and we can persuade Dave Beckett to include them.

The current version of this library is 0.0.1 (this entry will server as the changelog).

  • librdfutil_mysql_cbd_original_lite: Add the original CBD (without reification) for a node object to a model.
  • librdfutil_mysql_cbd_lite: Add revised CBD (without reification) for a node object to a model.
  • librdfutil_strings_to_node: Create a new librdf_node from a set of strings.
  • librdfutil_stringset_to_statement: Create a new librdf_statement from a set of strings.
  • librdfutil_tuple_to_statement: Create a new librdf_statement from a database tuple.
  • librdfutil_model_to_string: Get a serialised representation of a model, in R3X or Turtle syntax.
  • librdfutil_stream_to_string: Get a serialised representation of a stream of statements, in R3X or Turtle syntax.
  • librdfutil_node_to_turtle_string: Generate Turtle syntax fragment for node.
  • librdfutil_node_to_hash: Get a string hash (the MySQL ID) of a node object.
  • librdfutil_strings_hash: Get a string hash (the MySQL ID) of a node.

A few additional notes:

  • The MySQL specific functions, the ones that start with librdfutil_mysql, require ADODB.
  • In case anyone is wondering about the naming of the CBD functions, I expect to implement the full specification(s) at a later date — or perhaps someone else will contribute them…
  • At some point, a pretty API overview with usage examples will be created, for easy reference.

Comments, bug reports, and suggestions are as always much appreciated. Thanks to Russell Cloran for initial thoughts and comments on the pre-release version.

Redland/MySQL utilities

MySQL, Redland, Release

Since it seems a number of people are using the MySQL backend storage for Redland, most notably crschmidt with his julie in #julie on freenode, now seems like a good time to “release” a few shell scripts I have put together.

Common to all of them is the use of the Unix principle of quiet operation iff successful, and non-zero return codes when not.

redland-mysql-optimize (latest version: 0.2)
As with all databases, it’s a good idea to make sure the indices are up-to-date. The redland-mysql-optimize script will make sure that all relevant tables in a triple store have indices that reflect the contents of each table in the best way possible. The script depends on the mysql command line client.
Usage example: 
redland-mysql-optimize db

Changes since 0.1:

  • Changed a $1 to $*, thanks Russell!
redland-mysql-clean (latest version: 0.2)
When a statement is deleted from a MySQL triple store through the Redland API, the associated node tables (Bnodes, Resources and Literals) are not updated — more on why that is in a separate post. Also, a statement can currently be asserted more than once in a single context.
Together, these issues can lead to the various tables containing more data than needed. The redland-mysql-clean script will, when run against a specific database, remove all orphaned nodes and duplicate statements in all models. It’s a good idea to run the redland-mysql-optimize script after a cleanup. The script depends on perl, the mysql command line client, and the join (1) utility.
Usage example: 
redland-mysql-clean db

Changes since 0.1:

  • Fixed interpolation of $model, thanks to Russell – again!
redland-mysql-drop-model (latest version: 0.1)
The Redland API doesn’t include a method for removing a model once it has been created in a storage. This script makes up for that, helping out when a model is no longer needed. Be sure to run the redland-mysql-clean and redland-mysql-optimize scripts afterwards. The script depends on perl and the mysql command line client.
Usage example: 
redland-mysql-drop-model model db

NOTE: This is a destructive script.

WordPress Plugin: seeAlso’s

FOAF, RDF, Release, WordPress

What is now several weeks ago, Christoph Görn hacked a bit on my FOAF Output plugin, and asked for seeAlso links to be included. Short of the mythical WordPress triple store (factory?) I couldn’t see a better way to do it than building on the concept from the Semantic Visits add-on: Using the link manager.

I challenged Danny Ayers to write the plugin/add-on, but he’s been busy lately, with the RSS book and all, so here it is, the seeAlso’s Plugin (view source). While I was at it, I also fixed a few buglets in the FOAF Output Plugin and added trust ratings for friends and bio:olb.

The current version is 1.0 (this blog entry will serve as a changelog).

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