On 9 Sep 1996, Jason L Tibbitts III wrote:
> Carlos M Gutierrez writes:
> > Let us not forget that a Web interface is not just for list members,
> > but -more importantly- for list administrators, moderators, and
> > owners.
>
> I still think that forcing the admin to use a Web interface is asking too
> much. It's a nice thing to have, but...
At our site, having a managers' web interface to Majordomo has made a
profound difference:
* Managers can bounce subscribers w/out access to the bounce list
password, and without having access to the host that the bounce
program lives on.
* Editing the info and config files and (and with my hacked MD) the
archive files actually looks like file editing, thanks to the use
of TEXTAREAs.
* Copy & Paste that most users have can be optionally used for
great results: Copying a list of addresses from a Windows
database, pasting into a subscribe window, and subscribing
them all instantly. Or, copying a document out of a word
processor and pasting into the TEXTAREA as a way to save the
info file, (or again, with my hacked MD) to 'put' an archive
file.
This doesn't take into account how much easier a web interface is for
most users. This system works with Lynx, and MD functions normally -
(also responds to e-mail commands).
But wait, there's more! :)
Having this system has made a huge difference for our entire MIS: We're
now using Majordomo as an easy way for users to put info on-line. The
archive directory can be a link to a web page directory. At our
University, we have hundreds of course descriptions that we wanted to put
on-line, that were in Wordperfect. Because the web interface allows for
copy&paste, we were able to put them directly into a directory that the
web server can view. And now, the one set of documents can be served by
both the webserver and the listserver. A cron job runs once an hour that
creates a 2-level hierarchy of web pages based on what archive files have
been created. (See http://www.ed.umuc.edu/syllabi and "undergrad-syllabi"
served by majordomo@faculty.ed.umuc.edu)
I've taken this further by adding a "web-mirror" option to our Majordomo
config file. In this mode, "get" pipes an archive file through "lynx
-dump", turning html into plain text. To support our Distance Education
program, whole sections of our web site are accessible both as web pages
and as listserve archive files - (total database consistency). When this
is the case, the Majordomo+Web Interface can even act as a simple HTML
editor.
- Robb
-
Robb Shecter PGP Fingerprint:
University of Maryland, European Division 5F 70 B1 A7 B9 F9 42 67
Information Systems and Administrative Computing 11 27 47 EE 35 80 04 AA
References:
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