The website is in a state of transition at the moment. We abandoned the old CMS and our webmaster is moving content over to the new site. While this goes on, some features might not work.cybervet wrote:I got initial contact and not the login details yet.
According to the site members have access to the database of QL programs maintained by Quanta, "in addition to the magazine, QUANTA has a large library of software, currently standing at over 900 programs written mostly by members. This is not Public Domain, as it is only available to members.
Details of programs in the library are kept in a database.
Copies of the database and Library Guide (disk LG01) are available from the Librarian, or to download from this section of the website. Non-members are welcome to download the Library Guide disk, to get an idea of what Quanta has to offer."
it would be an unpleasant surprise if this is not the case.
in addition members should be able to have access to past issues of quanta magazine (e-form) but I might be wrong on that.
Tassos
The members area was never used on the old site, as far as I know. The Library Guide disk was on there to download, but not the library itself.
The Library Guide disk can be zipped up and emailed to you if you want a copy. It's a bit big for a dial-up connection, but no problem if you have broadband. Once you have the Library Guide and know which disk you want, we may be able to zip up small numbers of individual disks and email them to members on request. There is a CD containing the entire library which can be copied for members. The Library itself is being frozen now. No new submissions have been received for some time as most software now appears free on websites or from people like RWAP, Jochen Merz and Quo Vadis.
Back issues of magazines are not all available electronically. Only ones from recent years have been saved electronically. John Gilpin has done some work scanning older issues, but he had few if any offers to help with that job and I don't know how far he got. I don't think it was anywhere vaguely near the full 29 or so years! (hope I'm wrong though...). I have the full set on paper and could probably scan individual articles for members on request but wouldn't have the time to scan whole issues, certainly not to proof read them. The ones from the early years are poor quality dot matrix print which is very hard to OCR with any degree of accuracy.
I would be the first to admit we certainly didn't get it right with the website, although we tried. The way forward now is a simpler, more basic website with more realistic ambitions.
I do not understand why they don't have a forum, based on phpBB, that has public areas so non-members can find out what Quanta's about, and a larger private area for dues-paying members. They could have a file/code exchange area, local group forums, etc.