Getplan argument documentation

The CGI field names and values used by getplan.cgi are as follows:

type (default road)

The type of feature. This is used along with the name to find an attribute file describing the feature; the type indicates which directory the file will be in.

name

The name of the attribute file containing the feature. The type field indicates which directory to find the file in.

output (default html unless browser recognized as text-only, in which case html-pre)

Sets the type of output. Possible values include:

html

The normal type of output, using tables to position the entries.

html-pre

HTML output but using the <pre> tag and drawing the entries using ASCII graphics.

vrml

A VRML world containing this street is produced.

parsed

Just display the results of parsing the attribute file (and adding any unvetted updates if wanted), for debugging.

data

Just return the results of parsing the attribute file (and adding any unvetted updates if wanted), typically for other programs to read. This is in a plain text file (not HTML), in the attribute file format.

grid

Just display the first stage of laying out the data, for debugging.

Other modes will be added later, including vrml, and possibly prose, verse, and haiku.

graphics (default according to browser kind)

Display a graphic in each cell, representing the variety, kind, or type of the entry in the cell; or colour the cell in (for example, roads grey and rivers blue). The assignment of graphics to cells of different properties is done by the graphics control file, graphics.attr.

detail (default off)

Provide more detail of the entry; this includes the attribute file fields

• kind
• description
• opening-times
• review
• provides

zoom

Restricts the page to display just the entry named as the value of the zoom field. This will normally be used with detail=on, but does not force this.

pictures (default according to browser kind)

Include the images given by the picture field of each entry.

unvetted (default on)

Merge changes from the new edits file.

edit (default off)

Produce an edit form for each entry.

debug (default off)

Adds various debugging output; this includes a listing of the data structure representing the whole street, both before and after layout adjustments, and lists all the fields of each entry inside the entry. Quite what is included here may vary from time to time according to what the implementor has been debugging most recently.

verbose (default off)

Provide some more information about what the map system is doing, but not as much as for debug.

extra

Specifies extra fields to include in each entry. This field is a string, in which substitutions using field names are done using the syntax {variable}, and {variable/default} (a bit like Bourne shell substitutions, but avoiding the $ character so that shells in the CGI system don't snaffle it, and with / instead of - to separate the default, as - may well occur in field names) are substituted using field names of the currently entry as variables. A few special variables will also be made available by the system throughout an attribute file, including:

• !pagefile
• !pagetype
• !pagename
• !date
• !browser

and also all the fields of the central (first) entry of the attribute file will be visible, although shadowed by entries of the same name in the current entry.

special

Specifies a construction of fields (as for extra) to output as the only contents of each entry. This makes provision for a variety of tricks, such as describing whole streets in haiku using the haiku fields of entries.

special-page-start

A string to output at the start of a page built using special. See also special-page-start, special-page-end.

special-page-end

A string to output at the end of a page built using special.

hide_unvetted (default off)

Stop showing the menu option for uncluding unvetted changes; also, don't show unvetted changes, and don't show the further options menu entry. This is meant for ``nanny'' use, e.g. in school sites.

hide_edit (default off)

Stop showing edit links, and also stop showing further options.

all_edit_links

Always put an edit link on every entry.

helpful (default on)

Include some help information on each page.

hour

Force the time of day to be the given hour (should be between 0 and 23). Otherwise, the local wall time on the server will be used. This may be used to decide which version of a graphic to use (e.g. lights on or off).

day

Force the day of the week to be the given day ("sun", "mon", etc, or fuller names than that, case ignored). Otherwise, the local wall time on the server will be used. This may be used to decide which version of a graphic to use.

Force the month of the year to be the given month ("jan", "feb", etc, or fuller names, case ignored). Otherwise, the local wall time on the server will be used. This may be used to decide which version of a graphic to use (e.g. trees with or without leaves, or covered in snow).

parts

Which parts of the page to display. This may be any one of:

• head
• body
• all

ex

The user expertise level, a number between 0 and some small integer. Various things change according to this. If you go above 0, edit and zoom links are displayed, but always in an abbreviated form, and you always get the advanced form of the editor. Users of level 2 and above can delete non-dummy entries (when delete actually works, that is).

Proposed future arguments

If the below list is empty, I have implemented all those of which I have thought!

Non-arguments

Some of the style parameters are worked out from various things, and not given explicitly. They are documented here partly to help you see what's going on, but mostly so I can print all style fields in a way that includes a reference into this page!

suppress automatic graphics enabling

If you ask explicitly for no graphics or no pictures, when your browser appears to be one that can handle graphics or pictures, this flag comes on, which forces the same switching-off to be propagated in the URLs for side-road links and so on from the page being generated.

forced_date

If you give the time or date explicitly in the URL, this flag comes on. This is so that it can be propagated in the URLs for side-road links and so on from the page being generated.

For more information, see the index to the technical documentation.