About MVD

# About Mariposa's Variorum Dadabase

A description for MVD members of what the MVD is and how to use it.
( This page in progress... if you have a question that you need to have answered see the last item in the list below )

Hey I didn't mean to come to this page! What is the MVD? What does the name Mariposa's Variorum Dadabase mean? How do I link to MVD documents? How do I create MVD documents? How do I customize forms including adding the ability to send a letter from a document? Where can I get the scripts for this program? What if my question isn't answered here? Hey I didn't mean to come to this page! Then you must've found a broken link. This is the default page which is displayed if a file in a link you used cannot be found. Please report this broken link to the administrators of this site: Contact Global Dialog goto top What is the MVD? The MVD is a program which allows one to create, manage and search through documents on a web site. It is actually a collection of three different cgi scripts. One script allows one to create and edit html documents through the use of one's browser. This means one does not need to have telnet or ftp access to the server where the MVD documents are stored. But one does need to be an MVD member with a username and password in order to do this ( see item #4 ). Another script parses and filters those documents and displays them to people browsing the web site which any particular instance of the MVD serves. Filtering means that extra items can be added, on the fly, to basic html documents as they are served to the browser. This keeps the size of each document to a minimum as well as allowing one to make certain changes only once in one central location and having it applied globally to each document in the MVD dadabase. The last script allows one to search for text strings and regular expressions in the collection of MVD documents. goto top What does the name Mariposa's Variorum Dadabase mean? The MVD originally started out as a learning exercise in writing interactive and dynamic webpages and developed into a way of organizing the video-tape library of the programmer's (Gerry Smith) very good friend Mariposa 'Posy' Perkins. Posy helped greatly with ideas and suggestions and even bits and pieces of code and algorithms. The name was early on called "Mariposa's Video Database." It soon developed into much more than a way of cataloging video-tapes and so a new name was needed... hopefully something that used the same initials so that the programmer didn't have to change too much in the scripts ( variables? what are variables? ). Posy is responsible for the 'Variorum Dadabase' name... she likes playing with wurds and is a very wyrd and silly one. I invite you to pick up a good dictionary at this point. More and more features were added to it and it later became blended into being a part of The Global Dialog project. The force behind the GD project, Valerie Gremillion, has also contributed greatly to the development of this software. I thank both of these wonderful ladies for their input while at the same time taking all the blame for these script's shortcomings. See the end of item #3 for more about the names of these scripts... goto top

last updated: Jan. 23 2004