Mechanics

Each department has a designated Web directory in the departmental Web space on tigger. The webmaster creates a subdirectory within their department's directory to hold the biodata, which may be called biodata or resume or any other name.

Assuming that the subdirectory is called biodata, the webmaster does the following:

1. Log into tigger and change their directory to their department's directory in tigger. For example, the OEM department's departmental Web directory is in /usr/local/etc/httpd/htdocs/depts/oem/ , so their webmaster issues the command:
   cd /usr/local/etc/httpd/htdocs/depts/oem
   
   
2. Create biodata subdirectory:
   mkdir biodata
   
   
3. Change permissions of the subdirectory by issuing the command:
   chmod 755 biodata
   
   
4. Make subdirectory biodata your working directory:
   cd biodata
   
   
5. Create a template file with the name resume_template. You can not call it by any other name. Create it with any editor you like.
   
   • resume_template contains all the fields of the resume such as Name, Work Experience etc. Put each field you want in the resume on one line in the resume_template file. The Examples page explains how to edit resume_template. Once you have listed all the biodata fields on separate lines in the resume_template file, save the file in biodata sub-directory.
   • To get you started you can copy resume template no. 1 (template1.txt) to your present working directory by issuing the following command:
     cp /usr/local/etc/httpd/htdocs/depts/accc/webpub/bio/template1.txt ./resume_template
     
6. Create a stylesheet file with the name stylesheet.css. You can not call it by any other name.
   • Each line of stylesheet.css corresponds to its equivalent line in resume_template. For example, if the first line in your resume_template is Name, then the corresponding first line in stylesheet.css will be called name. Yes, the name in the stylesheet must be all lowercase letters because stylesheet will not recognize tags with uppercase letters.
   • Also, the stylesheet does not recognize spaces. So, if you have a field called Work Experience in resume_template file, it needs to be called workexperience in stylesheet.css.
   • Please remember that Name of resume_template cannot be called names or james in the stylesheet file. Similarly, Work Experience can not be called just work or just experience or jobexperience or work_experience in stylesheet.css.
   • Does the stylesheet.css has exactly the same information as resume_template except for all lower case words and no spaces between words?
     No. Stylesheet contains more than that. The name and workexperience are just the tags. For example, if you want the name to be displayed in green, your stylesheet.css would contain something like this:
     .name{color:green}
     So what we did is put a dot (.) before name and specified the property.
   • Do you necessarily need to specify properties for each tag? No. If you do not want any styles to be applied to a particular field you can leave the tag blank. For example, if you don't want a style to be applied to work experience, put following line in your stylesheet.css file:
     .workexperience{}
   • The Examples page explains how to edit stylesheet.css. For more information, see the ACCC tutorial on CSS stylesheets.
     
   • Once you have listed all the styles in separate lines, save the stylesheet.css file in biodata sub-directory.
     
   • To get you started, you can copy stylesheet no. 1 (stylesheet1.txt) to your present working directory by issuing the following command:
     cp /usr/local/etc/httpd/htdocs/depts/accc/webpub/bio/stylesheet1.txt ./stylesheet.css
     
   
   
7. Create header file with the name header. You can not call it by any other name. Create it with any editor you like.
   The Examples page explains how to edit header file.
   
   
8. Create footer file with the name footer. You can not call it by any other name. Create it with any editor you like.
   The Examples page explains how to edit footer file.
   
   
9. Now create zero-size .shtml file with for each faculty or staff member who wants to enter their biodata, using their netid. For example, if the faculty or staff member's netid is adabyron, issue the command:
   touch adabyron.shtml
   Why to create a .shtml file and not .html file? A .shtml file allows server-side includes, so it can dynamically display department's header and footer with the faculty or staff member's biodata. The Examples page has sample header and footer files. For more information, see the ACCC tutorial on shtml files and server side includes.
   
   
10. Change the file permissions of all the files you have just created:
    chmod 755 *

You have created all four configuration files and .shtml files for the faculty and staff members in your department.
If you add .shtml files in the future, make sure that you change their permissions to 755: chmod 755 netid.shtml

Now you can ask the faculty and staff members to visit the following URL and enjoy working on their biodata:
https://tigger.uic.edu/htbin/cgiwrap-auth/bin/biodata.pl/depts/OEM/biodata
The only difference between this sample URL and the one your department will use is that the part of the URL after biodata.pl changes to your actual biodata directory. Also note that you need to mention only the part of directory structure starting from depts. For example:

Aside from the .shtml file, you create the biodata configuration files only once for all your entire department. Whenever and individual faculty or staff member wants to enter their biodata, you create their netid.shtml file using their netid and direct them to the appropriate URL

The Examples page has a full working example of what we just discussed.