ISG Account Website Conventions

CS Framework

This website is based off of the style used for many official CS pages. This mandates that the webpages be in validating HTML 4.01 and CSS level 2.1. Also, there is an inclusion of a menu bar at the left side of each page.

As of Fall 2010, the centralized CLF menus are not supported via the menu editor at https://www.cs.uwaterloo.ca/odyssey/web/menuEditor/ as this functionality was broken when www.student.cs was switched from Solaris to a new Linux machine. Instead, menu edits should be made in the file /software/odyssey-3_apache/data/shared/templates/vhosts/www.student.cs.uwaterloo.ca/fake_bottomInclude.shtml.

Root directory

The .htaccess file contains a large number of rules designed primarily to prevent old URLs that existed before the page was redesigned from breaking. These rules should be left intact. Some of the rules remove a .html ending from any URLs; this means that you cannot have .html files (you should have .shtml anyway), but also strongly suggests that you never include these extensions yourself in any URLs. This also sets up some custom error document pages.

This directory also contains a couple of style sheets that are useful on other pages; style.css is a cache of style information that is useful on a number of course websites, and pic_instr.css is used on any ISG account pages that have step-by-step instructions with illustrating pictures.

scripts

This is the hidden directory, intended primarily for course staff, located from the web at ISGScriptsManPages

With the exception of docsrc/scripts, which are local files, this subdirectory is generated from data in /u/isg/docsrc; it contains a directory hierarchy oft symlinks to corresponding .shtml files in subdirectories of docsrc/scripts.

first

As indicated in the documentation, this subdirectory should no longer be of use, and strong consideration should be given to removing it entirely; even the README inside this directory suggests as much should have happened already.

Other subdirectories

coursework contains information that will help students in their day-to-day course work, but which may not be obvious to them.

policies contains information about ISG, CS, or university-wide policies that students need to follow. Notably, this directory contains the file academic_integrity_include, which should be included via SSI, PHP or some other mechanism on all course websites (or copied for a course outline).

res contains resources about various languages or environments in use in CS. It should be updated on a regular basis with any relevant links; unfortunately, it has tended to stagnate.