Arctos Developers Guide

Tips, tricks, and conventions for developing Arctos code

CFML

Arctos is written primarily in CFML and HTML.

• within <cfoutput></cfoutput> tags, # is a special character; #variable# means render variable variable as HTML. # used as text (eg, as an anchor in a URL) must be escaped. someURL.com#anchor must be written as someURL.com##anchor
• outside of <cfoutput></cfoutput> # is just a character.

URLS

• make internal URLs relative - /somePage never http://....somePage
• use DataServices/Linkerizer to build URLs. There are currently three classes of URL supported:
  • no class–>default browser behavior
  • external–>”pop out” image appended, open in new window
  • newWinLocal–>”info” image appended, open in new window (use for links to arctos.museum information pages such as code tables)

CSS

• when possible, use /includes/style.css for styling. (Directions for minimizing are inline.)
• for one-off use, in-page CSS (<style></style> tags) is acceptable but less preferred
• avoid inline styling (<div style="...."></div>); this makes it very difficult to change things and keep a consistent look and feel

Recommended Code Editors

Sublime Text

Atom

Brackets

A CFML Support - ColdFusion 11 extension is available for Brackets.

Eclipse

The CFEclipse plugin is currently not supported and older versions may not be from reliable sources. The Eclipse and CFEclipse can be downloaded by following the instructions at Installing CFEclipse. We suggest using the IDE for Web and JavaScript Developers as recommended in the instructions. NOTE this was not functioning properly as of December 1, 2020.

Datasource

Arctos uses various datasources for various reasons. Most queries should be one of two entries:

• Datasource user_login logs in to the database as the Arctos user. This connection must be supplied with valid credentials.
• Datasource cf_codetables is a special pre-authenticated user who has SELECT on ct* tables. This user should be used for all possible connections which SELECT from codetables, for performance reasons, and these queries should always be set to cache. The query name should always be the name of the code table to further support caching. For example:

<cfquery name="ctdatum" datasource="cf_codetables" cachedwithin="#createtimespan(0,0,60,0)#">
   select datum from ctdatum order by datum
</cfquery> 

Expand Select

This toggles MULTIPLE for a SELECT of id “accn_status”:

<span data-ctl="accn_status" class="ui-icon ui-icon-arrow-4-diag expandoSelect"></span>

Button-Links

Button + HREF

<a href="somepage.cfm"><input type="button" class="lnkBtn" value="Some Text"></a>

Code Table Definer

<span class="infoLink" onclick="getCtDocVal('cttaxon_name_type','taxon_name_type');">Define</span>

where cttaxon_name_type is the relevant code table and taxon_name_type is the ID of the element being defined.

Or as a label

<label class="likeLink" onclick="getCtDocVal('ctcataloged_item_type','cataloged_item_type');" for="cataloged_item_type">
   Catalog Item Type
</label>

Pick/select Inputs

• prefix placeholder with ‘type+tab to pick ….’
• CSS class: pickInput
  • after success: goodPick
  • after fail: badPick

Color Codes

(see css file for current defintion)

“Arctos blue”: –arctosdarkblue

ARCTOS BODY

• –arctoslightblue

TEXT

• Fonts (all, including Section Label title): –arctosdarkblue
• helpLinks and Hypertext –arctoslinkcolor
• Hover text –arctoslinkhovercolor
• Visited Hypertext –arctosvisitedlinkcolor

QUERY BLOCK STRIPEY GRID

• Color 1/odds (darker): –arctosdarkstripecolor
• Color 2/evens (lighter): –arctoslightstripecolor

HIGHLIGHTS

• target: –arctoshighlightcolor

BUTTONS

• Search/Submit Query: input.schBtn #82B8EA
• Customize: input.cstmBtn #C9D2DC
• Quit/Clear: input.qutBtn #FFFFFF
• Choose/Pick: input.picBtn #A7E8FF
• All/Link: input.lnkBtn #89B2C1
• Save: input.savBtn #F5C03D
• None/Delete: input.delBtn #f99f67

FOOTER

• SuperFooterDiv background #113d64
• MainFooterDiv background #BBD3DB

BANNER/LOGIN Terms box

• yellow: #5FC03D

Logos

BLUE

• Single bear logo

• Arctos text bear logo

• Arctos full text logo
• Arctos full text logo - resized for header

BLACK

• Arctos full text logo

WHITE

• Arctos full text logo

IPT Mapping

• Adding New Terms - any time a new field is added to the Darwin Core Archive, that field MUST go at the end of the list, otherwise, all of the mappings that come after wherever it is added will be offset by one term and the data will fail to publish.

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