VOH // Script Distribution

Virtual office hours is run by several scripts that handle question submission, posting, and answering. These scripts are available for use by academic institutions free of charge. Please send email to voh@chem.ucla.edu. Commercial users must write to establish a licensing agreement.

October 8, 1997: Notice! There was a small typo in the Robot that would cause it to quitely fail. In the GetConf routine the configuration entries should split on the ",". The previous version used ":". The bot file here and the tar file versions have been corrected.

August 14, 1997: Flash!! Updated (slightly) scripts, full directory, install instructions all together in one easy to use package! Get the NEW VOH tar file (version 1.1)!!

NOTICE: As I'm no longer working on VOH, this will probably be the one and only posted upgrade. Please send questions and comments to voh@chem.ucla.edu.
Thanks you!!

Matthew Walker

Unix Scripts:

These are the new ones included with the tar file...

qsf.pl ** Question Submission Form
qtba.pl ** Questions to be Answered
qa-ann.pl ** Question/Answer & Announcements
voh-lib.pl ** VOH unified resource file

Mac Scripts:

You should be able to run the UNIX scripts if you:

Set $system_type="Mac" in the voh-lib.pl file
Change all filesystem directory separators to ":" instead of the "/" used by UNIX.

These scripts will run under MacPerl 5. Requires the MacHTTP "Glue" (which allows scripts to be called by a web server such as MacHTTP or WebStar) and MacSMTP.pl (which allows mail to be sent by the scripts) to run. These can be found at the same archives where MacPerl is located. See: For MacPerl Stuff

Windows NT Scripts:

The Unix scripts should work unmodified. Set $system_type to NT.

Example HTML:

Question Submission Form
Announcements
Questions Answered
Question/Answer & Announcement Request Form
We are now using the server's htpasswd system to secure answer submission, therefore the password section of this document (and the checking part of qa-ann.pl) has been removed. Place all documents that you wish only your instructors and staff to use in a directory that requires a password for net access.
For the Mac, WebStar's builtin password protection system (which uses realms) is used.
For NT, I haven't figured it out yet... check back soon.

Configuration File

Because of the unfortunate coincidence that the MacOS uses ":" as it's directory separtor, I had to switch the Mac version of the voh.conf to a different separtor. I used ",". Because we needed both class and instructor information in the voh.conf file for the Mac project, the lecture field was subdivided into lecture:instructor fields by a colon. This facilitated extending the file structure an additional level. Hence, all versions of the scripts now expect a "," field separator in the voh.conf file!

Some Maintenance Scripts

These guys are definitely prototypes.

HTML Generator, Alphanumeric
HTML Generator, W/Hack to make sequential numbers come out right. I use htmlgen-num to create the per page linked tests.
Renames files, en masse
Notice! There was a small typo in the Robot that would cause it to quitely fail. In the GetConf routine the configuration entries should split on the ",". The previous version used ":". The bot file here and the tar file versions have been corrected.
A little robot (cron script) that uses the voh.conf file to send email to instructors informing them of waiting questions. ** Updated September 22, 1996

Instructions

Currently only a short description

voh@chem.ucla.edu // Last revision: August 14, 1997