MEW index interfaces application

Hello all!

Mainly for my own convenience I built interfaces to access the index data of MEW produced by Mr. Colin Usher.
I re-structured the data to ensure its quality and avoid repetition, and finally created appropriate interfaces.
Included in each of the resulting tables I added a text field in order to allow each user to enter their comments to each ARTICLE, each AUTHOR and each SUBJECT.

The work produced a menu and four forms, three of which are intended for maintenance (insert, update and delete) allowing some level of querying. The fourth form is specifically oriented to query the articles allowing multiple criteria combined and inexact criteria.

I want this application tobe available to the community (if there is someone interested ...) but I would like first to obtain feedback from one or two users who feel empowered and willingness to act as guinea pig. Objective being to ameliorate the application before it is spread (if it will be..).

The application is and will be completely free to use and was produced using free and open software: Free Pascal compiler and Lazarus accessing a very small but powerfull relational database management system called SQLite.

The application maintenance should, ideally, be centralized and the data file with new records be available to interested parties. Alternatively, each user must extract the data from the magazine and insert them.
I e-mailed Mr Colin Usher asking his permission to use the data it provides so gently making it public and to ask him about his availability or interest in using this application to manage the information centrally, but so far no answer.

Installation of the application is very simple involving just copying files to the directory (s) to be designated.

Thank You Bob for volunteering.

Edited By dcosta on 14/12/2011 16:14:03

Hello John!

Thank You for volunteering.

As You may have seen in my album the application is almost ready so, the kind of help I need is not, at the moment, in programming. It is more on the side of a enlightened user pointing errors and making suggestions or whatever he thinks is pertinent.

Also some utility like this one needs to mature a little before the code is spread freely, the risk being of various versions coexisting and then nobody caring of maintenance because there are various versions.

After one version of the application will be tuned and settled (I hope it will happen in a few weeks) I'll make the application available to all interested asking only from people eventually modifying or adding to the code to share the modifications with me, so the modifications, if interesting, may be shared with other users.

At the moment I've yet to decide on a non entirely manual method of loading new data for each issue of MEW.

I also need to wait a little more for the answer of Mr. Colin Usher to my e-mail.

Hello all.

As of today i put new versions of the MEW and ME indexes in my poor site and anyone interested may download them.

The file for the MEW index is named MEW_Index_20120624190817.zip and it is up to the Volume 190 issue 01 (4758 articles).

The file for the ME index is named ME_Index_20120624190817.zip ant it is up to the Volume 201 issue 4419 (1787040 articles)

I couldn't yet work on the module to query all through both consolidated indexes. I hope to have it ready at the end of the summer.

Important Note:
Mr. Colin Usher, the creator and responsible for the Excel index for the MEW wrote in the last file that, and i quote "This index is now discontinued”.
This means that somebody should continue this light but important task of maintaining the MEW index. Me, not being an english speaking person, am not the best candidate to continue the light, but important, task of maintaining the index.

In the other hand i may try to help anyone interested in the task. Namely bettering the already available interfaces created to that purpose and, if there is enough interest to create an module to export data to, say, Excel.

Anyone interested, please, send me a message with an adequate e-mail address.

Best regards
Dias Costa

Edited By David Clark 1 on 25/06/2012 09:25:01

For what it's worth, Dias, I couldn't open the MEW zip file with WinZip. However, it opened OK with WinRAR.

(Make what you can of that).

Had the same problem as Sid, none of the archives will open with winzip however, they will extract using 7zip.

Graeme

Thanks David.

I get an error when I try and run the ME_indexes,exe program (MEW one is OK)

Can any one else run it OK?

The error is " Sqlite3Ds-cross_issue_date: SQLITE_MISUSE - unable to open database file"

Dave

Hello Sid,
Hello Graeme,
Hello Dave (Steambuff),
Hello David,

Thank You all for Your kind help.
I hope the problems found in the applications ME and EiM are now gone. Simple problems resulting from a "one man band" work.

The file Indexes_Please_ReadMe.txt has some usefull information.
The file for the MEW index is named MEW_Indexes_25-06-2012.zip and it is up to the Volume 190 issue 01 (4758 articles).

The file for the ME index is named ME_Indexes_25-06-2012.zip ant it is up to the Volume 201 issue 4419 (1787040 articles)

The file for the EiM index is named EiM_Indexes_25-06-2012.zip and it is up to to the Volume 34 issue 01 (6170 articles).

Please consider that the ME_Indexes application may make You wait more than half a minute to open because it has to read all the 178000 articles to, then, be able to answer quickly after loading the data.


To David Clark.
A special thank for publishing the applications in Your site.
Is there a rule stoping the people in the forum to make references to other magazines? If so I've not noticed it and so can't but appreciate You had edited and modified my message in order to exclude that mention and let it be published.
If the rule is new, please, make the statmente, or let me know where i can find the rules, so the things become clear and i don't feel as a target of special treatment.

Best regards
Dias Costa

Hello Sid,
Hello Graeme,
Hello Dave (Steambuff),
Hello David,
Hello All,

Forgot to say the previous versions of the files were compressed using 7Zip which is more command line oriented and more flexible. I'm sorry for the inconvenience.
In future i'll use Alzip which, apparently, generate a more common format of zip file.

Also forgot to say in my previous post that the applications are opened for all people interested.

Best regards
Dias Costa

Edited By dcosta on 25/06/2012 15:14:30

Hi Dias

I will leave it at the moment but if we get complaints from the 'other' magazine, I will have to remove it.

regards David

Hello David,

I realy appreciate Your answer explaining to me the reason for editing and changing my previous message.
I understand Your reasons and will understand if You have to take some future action in the same sense, for the same reason, if any complaint will be made.

Now the “things” are clear to me.

Best regards
Dias Costa

Hello David,

If You want Your site to be up to date, after i replaced the fault files in my site, the link to the files in Your site needs to be updated with the new version of the said files.

The same applies to the links in my first message today. They became obsolete after i changed the name of the files to be compatible with Alzip and MSDOS idiosyncrasies.

Thanks in advance
Dias Costa

Hi Dias

Not bothered about the links.

I only put the files up using Winzip so people could open them.

Now deleted.

regards David

Hello All,

There are new, downloadable, releases of the ME, MEW and EiM Indexes in this Link

The new release of the ME_Indexes now takes only less than five seconds to return data (previously it did take more than 30 seconds). Obviously those values are dependent on each machine's capabilities.
The other applications suffered only minor corrections.

If no candidate(s) appear to maintain the MEW_index data (only for new issues), i will do support it for awhile and i will be glad to receive correction to my poor English from the most interested people on the forum.

I certainly would apppreciate to be notified if some problem arises in the use of the Index applications.


Best regards
Dias Costa

Edited By dcosta on 28/06/2012 20:09:35

Hi Dias,

firstly: thanks for all the work you put into this.

Now where the ME index runs ok on my system, both the MEW and the E..(psst!!) index start with a Windows error: No Data Media (my translation; I see the German text). There is an exception code given, which I cannot paste here and don't want to re-write it unless really necessary.

When clicking 'continue' or 'abort' (several times) the program then starts correctly it seems.

Have others also this problem? Can you do something about that?

Many thanks, Hansrudolf