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The magic of small databases

tomcritchlow.com

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Re: The magic of small databases

#51

Post by mootpoints »

dmje wrote: post #20

I run a little agency in the UK who works with museums to help them with digital. A large part of this is getting collections online. Some years ago we commissioned a developer to make CultureObject[0], a free and open source WordPress plugin to make it easier to ingest collections data for display on the web. At the heart it's a glorified data importer, and many people just use the CSV mode to sync and import collec…

I'm curious about what you make of Omeka, and whether you think it relates to OP's point. It's quite common in the digital humanities, but I've never seen it used outside that context.

Re: The magic of small databases

#52

Post by tomrod »

noduerme wrote: post #39
tomrod wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is this not Libre Office, more or less?

I don't understand. How would you use LibreOffice to build a collection of object photos and descriptions, with custom descriptors and normalized data references, that could be deployed as a searchable / filterable website?

Key value store in Libre Calc with backup storage somewhere for file objects and file references in sheet. Deploy as csv.

Re: The magic of small databases

#53

Post by marniewebb »

H2O — https://h2o.law.harvard.edu/ — is a now-defunct collaborative syllabus project from Harvard that gets at a lot of this I think. It’s basically a list maker with a lot of additional capabilities. While it’s made for small list of things it’s easy to imagine this is a piece of the solution.

Re: The magic of small databases

#54

Post by dmje »

mmsimanga wrote: post #49
dmje wrote: post #20

I run a little agency in the UK who works with museums to help them with digital. A large part of this is getting collections online. Some years ago we commissioned a developer to make CultureObject[0], a free and open source WordPress plugin to make it easier to ingest collections data for display on the web. At the heart it's a glorified data importer, and many people just use the CSV mode to sync and import collec…

I see you decided on Wordpress, if you were going to use a CMS I think Drupal 7 would have been a good choice. Drupal has concept of entities and views. An entity as the name suggests is essentially a table and you can add all sorts of different fields to it. From simple text and number fields to images and fields that lookup other entities thus creating relationships between entities. Views is another construct that…

WordPress has custom post types, taxonomies and metafields so is very capable of dealing with complex relationships if you need it to. What's challenging is going from simple columnar data such as CSV to something complex and relational.

We chose WordPress because of its ubiquity and power - plus it's insanely easy to host and use as a non technical editor, which (last time I looked) can't be said of Drupal.

Re: The magic of small databases

#55

Post by dmje »

mootpoints wrote: post #51
dmje wrote: post #20

I run a little agency in the UK who works with museums to help them with digital. A large part of this is getting collections online. Some years ago we commissioned a developer to make CultureObject[0], a free and open source WordPress plugin to make it easier to ingest collections data for display on the web. At the heart it's a glorified data importer, and many people just use the CSV mode to sync and import collec…

I'm curious about what you make of Omeka, and whether you think it relates to OP's point. It's quite common in the digital humanities, but I've never seen it used outside that context.

I really like Omeka. It's a very cool project and we did look into it early on. Really though we chose WP because it's ubiquitous - no lock in, very powerful, easy for editors to use. With the right nudging it does all the things Omeka does.

Re: The magic of small databases

#56

Post by dmje »

noduerme wrote: post #29
dmje wrote: post #20

I run a little agency in the UK who works with museums to help them with digital. A large part of this is getting collections online. Some years ago we commissioned a developer to make CultureObject[0], a free and open source WordPress plugin to make it easier to ingest collections data for display on the web. At the heart it's a glorified data importer, and many people just use the CSV mode to sync and import collec…

This is a really cool niche... and I love the idea of it being more generally applicable or extensible to the kinds of private collections of objects that the writer is describing. (I really like what the article seems to be arguing for). It seems like the data storage / search / filtering aspects of your software would be really fun and interesting to develop flexible solutions to. The Wordpress aspects probably wou…

That's a nice idea - point a script at a CSV file and generate a bunch of flat files for each item using some kind of simple templating language. I might take this back to the guys at the Platform and see if we can do a POC for the clients who have zero budget but want to get going with something straightforward... Thanks for the thinking :-)

Re: The magic of small databases

#57

Post by noduerme »

tomrod wrote: post #52
noduerme wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't understand. How would you use LibreOffice to build a collection of object photos and descriptions, with custom descriptors and normalized data references, that could be deployed as a searchable / filterable website?

Key value store in Libre Calc with backup storage somewhere for file objects and file references in sheet. Deploy as csv.

What I'm describing, and what the article suggests, isn't about a UI for creating key-value stores that can be saved as CSVs. Any database UI wrapper can do that. The concept is about ingesting CSVs, normalizing the data, and turning them into websites. The parent I was responding to built a system (or two systems, apparently) for doing this as SaaS based around Wordpress.

Re: The magic of small databases

#58

Post by dangoor »

digitalsankhara wrote: post #18
gcanyon wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

FileMaker is still a thing. I don't know their internal financials, but they've steadily improved the product over the years. https://www.claris.com Or if you want to go super-niche, Panorama is still around, and (they say) the longest-running Mac software developer apart from Microsoft. https://www.provue.com Either one makes it easy to build a database+interface.

I had a distant memory about this Mac based spreadsheet/database thing but could not remember its name (Panorama). Couldn't surface it in searches either. Thought about it the other week and here we are! Odd pricing though = pay in advance credits. Ummm, not something I'd like to use for work when I'm in the middle of an important analysis with a deadline and I (inevitably) run out of credits and have to start faffin…

When I read your comment, I thought the credits system sounded like it was going to be complicated or messy and involving usage. Turns out that they're just trying to make a potentially more affordable subscription model that automatically accounts for times when you're not using the software.

Each credit allows a month of use. Seems pretty straightforward, but I agree with you that because these aren't an auto-renewing subscription you could find yourself needing to pay at an unexpected time.

Re: The magic of small databases

#59

Post by aabbcc1241 »

For collection of links with short description for projects/services, there are many awesome list on github.

For more complex data to be shared, maybe it can be csv/md/mdx shared over git as well?

It can have stable url and be searchable from github, search engines, and 3rd indicies

Re: The magic of small databases

#60

Post by noduerme »

dmje wrote: post #56
noduerme wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a really cool niche... and I love the idea of it being more generally applicable or extensible to the kinds of private collections of objects that the writer is describing. (I really like what the article seems to be arguing for). It seems like the data storage / search / filtering aspects of your software would be really fun and interesting to develop flexible solutions to. The Wordpress aspects probably wou…

That's a nice idea - point a script at a CSV file and generate a bunch of flat files for each item using some kind of simple templating language. I might take this back to the guys at the Platform and see if we can do a POC for the clients who have zero budget but want to get going with something straightforward... Thanks for the thinking :-)

Thanks. I was inspired by this article and by your WP implementations of a similar notion. I can't stand WP but I've written a couple CMSs from scratch. As I wrote the idea, it struck me this concept might be something I'd enjoy building as my next side project. If you do decide to create something along those lines as an open platform, maybe I could contribute.
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