TOCH Archive update

[leonventer]

Hi all,

We're getting VERY close to the end of August... It was encouraging to hear that some parties are in negotiations with Ruy to take over the running of this fine forum. That would be the ideal outcome.

In case those negotiations don't work out, for whatever reason, I've been making an archive of TOCH as a "Plan B".
Here's a progress update:

A) I've now finished the saving of all threads and posts on TOCH to a database.

B) Having a complete archive is all well and good, but of little value unless it's easy to access and navigate, so I've also been working on a web application for viewing it conveniently. For ease-of-use (and a bit of nostalgia), I wanted the new interface to retain TOCH's look and feel. Since I don't have access to vBulletin (the forum software that TOCH runs on), I've had to recreate the behavior and appearance of TOCH from scratch. There are some small differences, but I'm sure the interface of the archive will look familiar and feel comfortable to TOCH members when they access it. See the enclosed screenshots of the main page, a forum page, and a thread page.

C) The TOCH archive will be published at www.luftwaffedata.com (not to be confused with Andy Mitchell's excellent Lufwaffedata Wiki site at www.luftwaffedata.co.uk!)
I chose this domain name because:

1. it precisely describes the site's intended purpose, i.e. a repository of Luftwaffe data resources, and
2. it was available.

My new site is not meant to compete with, or detract from, Andy's site. I believe they will complement each other nicely, and both will be useful to researchers and enthusiasts.

D) Caveats/limitations:

• Currently, there is just a placeholder page at www.luftwaffedata.com, but keep an eye on it for developments. I'll also be publishing updates on John Vasco's new Facebook page and the LRG site.
• Access to the TOCH archive will be free, but it will require registering on the site with your full name, email, birth year, and a password. (You'll log in using your email and password, and your name will identify you on the site.) I'm doing this to prevent bot traffic from hogging all the bandwidth, and to comply with new website regulations (esp. in the UK.)
• Because it's an archive, it'll operate in read-only mode -- it doesn't support the adding of new threads or posts.
• In the interest of time, the initial release of the TOCH archive will not include a search engine. Yes, that's a bummer, but I am implementing a "Luftwaffe-aware" search feature that handles variations in the names of aircraft, units, people, places, and dates for more effective and convenient searching. I think you'll like it.
• The thread page currently displays posts in Threaded Mode only, i.e. a hierarchical view of the posts and their relationships to each other. I will also be adding support for Linear Mode (a straight chronological listing of a thread's posts) for those who prefer that view.
• The TOCH data in the archive is still in its raw, unprocessed form. What this means is that, if you're viewing a post in the archive that contains a link to another TOCH post, the link won't work because it'll still be pointing to the TOCH site instead of the TOCH archive site. I'll be updating all such internal links to point to the TOCH archive instead, but it'll take a while.

The eagle-eyed will notice that the sample screenshots have the heading "12 O'Clock High Version 2.0 Archive". This is because I'll also be publishing an archive of the first version of TOCH, which existed from the late 1990's to 2004. That site had a very frustrating capacity of only 2,000 posts, so each new post would cause the oldest one to drop off. I managed to save about 60,000 of the dropped posts from 1998 to 2004. They contain information as informative and useful as the posts on the current TOCH, so I'll work on adding the "TOCH Version 1.0 Archive" to the site as well.

I'm really hoping for good news that will make it completely unnecessary to publish the TOCH archive -- all fingers crossed. However, regardless of that outcome, I will be adding several other useful resources to www.luftwaffedata.com over time. Your patience is appreciated because it's a lot of work and complexity for my decaying brain to handle.

All questions, concerns and comments welcomed.

Regards,
Leon Venter


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