churchdir 0.3

Convert an address book from csv format to a web page.

• Introduction

• Installing

• Running the program

• Photos

• Changelog

Introduction

This program creates an address book from a spreadsheet file. The address book that is created is an html file which can be put on the Internet (a password protected location [1] is strongly recommended), or on a local, in-house server. The spreadsheet file contains your lists of addresses. This file is saved in csv format.

The churchdir program was created using the Python programing language and it can be run on any computer (Windows, Mac, Linux, etc.) on which Python is installed. Python [2] is free to download [3] and use.

Python 2.7 or 3.x will work. 3.x is recommended.

Installing

Once Python is installed on your computer (see above) install the Church Directory software by executing this command from the command line:

easy_install churchdir

This will download the program from a repository of Python programs from pypi.python.org and install it on your computer.

Running the program

This program works via the command line. Create a directory in which to work and then make it your working directory:

C:\> mkdir mydirectory
C:\> cd mydirectory

Then execute the program like this:

C:\mydirectory> churchdir-quickstart

You will then be asked a series of questions; most specifically, the name of the input file. If the input file doesn’t exist, a sample one will be created for you. (You should use this csv file to begin your address list since it contains the correct headers. Use a spreadsheet program to edit.)

After all the questions are answered, the output file (the address book) is created in the current working directory.

Photos

Photos, specified in the “Photo URL” column of the input file, should be a head shot of one person, preferably 96x96 pixels. A secondary, larger photo may be specified in the “Photo Secondary” column. When a user visits the html page and if he clicks on the head shot photo, the secondary photo appears.

Changelog

• version 0.1: intial release

• version 0.2: program now better handles bad csv input files

• version 0.3: bug fix: erroneous error message was being shown.

---

Footnotes

[1]

How to password protect a directory using .htaccess: link

[2]

An author of Python tutorial books explains Python: youtube video

[3]

Download Python: https://www.python.org/downloads/