Freeform Format Requirements

NOTE: This software and associated documentation are
Copyright © 1997-1998 Patricia A. Lindsay.
Except for the CCHelper Manual written by Carol A. Haagensen

Freeform Format Requirements:

• Each query is begins with a line that starts with at least 3 hyphens ('---').

• The various parts of the queries are identified to CCHelper with "tags". All of the text between a tag and the next tag or the end of the query will go with the tag preceeding the text (except for the special case of a "mailto" embedded in the "QRYTEXT", see below). The tags can be in any order. Each of the tags are optional, although at least one tag that supplies the researchers name or e-mail address is required (NAME:, EMAIL: or <A HREF MAILTO:).

  Any "end of lines" (also called hard-returns or carriage-return/line feeds) or leading or trailing spaces in the imported data will be dropped, so you do not need to remove these. This means that a tag can be on the line previous to the data, data can be split between multiple lines and there can be spaces before and after a tag.

  If you have multiple pages, I recommend you prep one first and go through the import process before prepping the others.

  This documentation is focused on importing queries, but the same process can be followed for importing surname registrations. CCHelper will determine whether the text being imported is a query or surname registration based on whether there is a QRYTEXT: tag present or not.

  Note that CCHelper will remove any <p> and <br> from all fields except the QRYTEXT and NOTE during the import.

Tags:

• NAME: The researcher's name

• EMAIL: The researcher's e-mail address

• ...mailto...: This is any valid 'mailto' HTML tag with no changes required. Examples:
  1. <A HREF="MAILTO:asmith@aol.com>Adam Smith</A>
  2. <A HREF="MAILTO:asmith@aol.com>asmith@aol.com</A>)

  If the e-mail text is different than the associated text (as in the first example), the text will be used for the researcher's name.

  The "mailto" can be embedded in the QRYTEXT, CCHelper will extract the "mail to" and use the text before and after the "mailto" for the QRYTEXT.

• QRYTEXT: The text of the query. If this tag is not present, the post will be loaded as a surname registration.

• SURNAMES:The surnames to be indexed for the query. Any special chars, HTML tags or duplicate surnames will be ignored, so if you have surname links to other pages (eg <a href="surf.htm#GARRISON">GARRISON</a>, <a href="surf.htm#GUSTIN">GUSTIN</a>) on your query page, that list of links would be valid surname list.

  This tag is not required to index the surnames, but does allow for direct import when the surnames have already been extracted. CCHelper will allow you extract the surnames (any "words" in all upper case) from the query text with the push of a button. It also lets you put the surnames in upper case before you to do the extract.

• DATE: The date of the post. CCHelper can read a variety of formats (eg. 3/21/1997; 3/21/97; Monday, March 21, 1997; Mar 21, 1997). Whatever the format, a month, day and year are required. If the DATE: tag is not present, the post will be loaded with the current date.

• URL: The researcher's Web page URL.

• OMIT: Tells CCHelper to skip the text after this tag and before the text tag or the end of the query. Note that by default any text between the start of a query and the first tag will be omitted.