Rod,

a few moments ago I discovered another web service that gives synonyms:

wordnetweb.princeton.edu/perl/webwn

Looks promising on first try..

Regards

Martin

We're looking through some data from the old index.  The magazine names were abbreviated, does anyone happen to have the full list of magazines and their codes?  

Here's a set of codes:   "LS,   RC, LQ, KEYS, RF, RC, DE, WT, MT, MR, CRM, SM, CT, GR, ON, MM, T, SG, MG, NMRA, RMJ, OST, SN3, RMC, MRP, GAZ, OSN, RR, NS"  Some of these we can guess (e.g. RMC - Railroad Model Craftsman, NMRA - NMRA Bulletin/Scale Rails, GAZ - probably Narrow Gauge & Short Line Gazette) but a couple have me clueless right now.

Thanks in advance!

dave (emery@grebyn.com)

CRM -- Canadian Railroad Modeller

Perhaps you could give us a list of what you have figured out, just to get us started?

Rod

LS - Live Steam 1969 -2005

RC - Rail Classics  1972 -1996

LQ - Locomotive Quarterly   no Dates

KEYS - Keys Lock & Lantern  130 issues no dates

RF - Rail Fan 1974 - 2010

RC - Rail Classics (Special Issues) 1974 - 1996

DE - Diesel ERA 1990 - 2008

WT ?

MT - Model Transport

MR - Model Railroading 1969 - 2006

CMR - Canadian Railway Modeler

SM - ?

CT- Classic Toy Trains 1990 - 2009

GR - Garden Railways 1989 - 2007

ON - ?

MM - Modelmaker Magazine 1929-1940

T- Toy Trains Dec 1951 - Fall 1954

SG - "S" Gaugin 1973 - 2004

MG - ?

NMRA - you have that correct

RMJ -  Rail Model Journal 1989 - 2008

OST - "O" Scale Trains  ?unknown dates

SN3 -  "Sn3 modeler 1984 - 2010

RMC - You have that correct

MRP - Model Railroad Planner 1997 - 2009

NG&SLG - Narrow Gauge and short Line Gazette march 1975 - 2010

NGD - Narrow gauge Digest for the Imaginative Modeler 1982 -1990

OSN - "O" Scale News Dates ?

RR - ? unknown

NS - "N" Scale Railroading 2000-2010

These are just a few of what I have so if you need more post the initials and I'll see what I have.

Dan

MR - Model RailroadeR 1934 - Present

MG - Model RailroadinG 1969 - 2006

MM - Mainline Modeler 1970 - 2006

RRM - Railroad Modeler

MRG - Model Railroading

TRN - Trains

PMM - Prototype Modeler

GDN - Graden Railways

BL - NMRA Bulletin

MRRN - Model Railroad News

N SCA - N Scale

Dan

Correction to my earlier one -

CRM - Canadian RAILWAY Modeller  - note double "l"

RR - Railfan & Railroad ??

Rod

Hi,

it looks like I finalized the data model for now. See at

home.vrweb.de/martin_fischer/overview.html

Feedback is welcome.

I hope this work is helpful for somebody. Personally I'm going to play around with it for my personal use.

Regards

Martin

I'll have to look at it at home where I can see graphics.  I think it's going to work, though, whith the amount of thought that has goneinto it.  If you want one final check, just go back through and state the database design in plain english, as if the database has not been built, and see where the current design falls short. 

I thought of an idea for the "series title" issue.  I think it will be easiest if the titles are left alone in the title section - [title, sub title, excerpt title] and then a simple "series" column is used to link multiple articles together.  For instance, say My article is part one.  I enter it, and then come to the "series" drop box, which has an [...] in the event I want to look up a record [it would pop up a search routine that would return as the result the article primary key].  Now if the other articles do not yet exist in the database, and the author does not have time to enter the other article's data, or he does not have the informaiton, there would be a second "series" column [and this would be good for ALL magazines] that gives the "Part" that this article covers - 1, 2, 3, 4, etc.

Another potentially useful column might be the "Article Order" Column, which would give the position of the article in the magazine or re-issue of the article.  Multiple entries for the order would be allowed, with the autofill set to "1"; Careful editing would ensure the order is eventually rectified.  This would tell users and administrators which magazines are potentially done, or if there are articles missing - and not just because the missing pages are filled with adds or photospreads. 

Thinking over it again, My articles and My publications would be separate entities in separate tables.  The first half of the form would preclude entering the article data, and the next part of the form would contain the publicaiton data.  The submiter would see it all on one page, though it is being entered in multiple tables.  Once the article is added, there would be a command button under the "Article Entry" portion called "add to publication", which would enable the user to enter the publication data - selecting similar data from dropdown selections, and entering new data where it is not available form the drop downs.

So If I have an article that is published in six places because Kalmbach has really ...... out the article and got a LOT of mileage out of it, I would first enter the article and then select "add a pub." which would give me one form worth of publicaiton fields.  I would then hit "add a pub" again [as it would float below the form] and it would present a second form worth of publication fields.  At least, that's one idea of how to make it work.

Honestly speaking though, getting this stuff figured out now really saves a lot of headache later - and htough it might be an anvil when you only need a tack hammer, my experience is, it's always better to have a toolbox that matches every job, than it is to have a tool that's jsut kinda good most of the time...

Another interesting note: sometimes RMC would run a Prototype article about a specific subject; right after the prototype article would appear a modeling article reproducing that exact prototype.  Sometimes it was the same author, sometimes not.  And I bet there's also the case of specific prototypes and modeling articles separated by multiple issues.  The "series" column might be able to be commandeered to provide additional options that cover these other situations. 

This isn't a matter of "The Prescott, Ariz. Depot," and "modeling a depot," but rather, the former and "Modeling the Prescott Ariz. Depot."  In this case, the database might use "P[...]" for the prototype articles and "M[...]" for the modeling articles, where the elipses are the numerical assignment given to the article.  P1, P2, P3 would each be a separate prototype article.  P1.1, P1.2, P1.3 would represent a single prototype article broken across three subsections/issues.  M1, M2, M3 would each be Modeling articles on the same subject...and now I'm at a lost how to connect the prototype and the modeling articles...damn, lost my trian!  Anyhow, food for thought...

Indexing photospreads like Boomer Trail seems a bit daunting...but...hey, it's a thought to through out there too.  If there is a "photograph" subdatabase table, indexing of photographs may very well be possible, similar to how the articles are indexed.  Today, yes, that's too ambitious, but someday, it might be useful - and once the "Article" index table works flawlessly, it should be a simple matter to add in the "Photograph" index structure and the "Trackplan" index table table and others that might come up...

I think our implementation, including data loading from the data that NMRA has available, is going well.  But we're not ready to go public yet, in part as we still need to work out the hand-off of both code and data to NMRA including an understanding with NMRA where/how they'll host it.  

dave