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ALADIN
High Resolution Numerical Weather Prediction Project
Website of the ALADIN Consortium
History of aladin websites
Article published on 26 May 2011
last modification on 16 September 2013

by Patricia

Short history of aladin website

Here are the major evolutions of the aladin website :

  • end of 1995 : informations for ALADIN partners are available (in postscript format) on a public ftp : newsletters, information for visitors, quasi-operational bulletins, ...
  • beginning of 1999 : the ALADIN project has its web site : http://www.cnrm.meteo.fr/aladin/ : presentation of the consortium, how to contact people, newsletters, information for visitors, meetings announcements and minutes, documentations and stays reports. The website is managed "by hand" and contains short html pages with many links within themselves.
  • end of 2000 : the website has some new functionalities such as a "trombinoscope", a site map, a search tool, an interface for registration of ALADIN participation (cgi code); a dedicated website is built for alatnet (using frames tool).
  • end of 2003 : a new graphic design for the aladin website (using CSS and tables rather than frames that are now completely out of fashion !), more information (stays reports, documentations, ...).
  • end of 2005 : the aladin documentation is moved on a new dedicated website : http://www.cnrm.meteo.fr/gmapdoc/ that contains also gmap and arpege documentation.
  • end of 2006 : a restricted part of the aladin web is added ("Partners pages") where authorized partners can get some technical documentation on cycles or E-suites and some daily outputs
  • end of 2007 : each LTM/correspondent can maintain information about his/her models, domains, platforms, ... up-to-date thanks to new interfaces in the LTM pages (php, MySQL)
  • mid-2008 : the aladin website gathers 12000 files (.html or .ps or .pdf or .jpg or .php or .cgi files, directories, ...) and the average files transmitted daily is about 2500 !.. : let’s homogenize and reorganize everything with modern tools !
  • end of 2008 : just before its 10-year anniversary, the whole aladin public web has been moved on a SPIP website. The pages have been reorganized in order to diminish the number of SPIP articles (gathering former .html files in one article with many join documents in .pdf or .jpeg for pictures). Hopefully, one can now find information more easily. The interface pages (registration of aladin participation, update of information about models, domains ..) are unchanged. Passwords for these interface pages or for "Partner" pages remain the same.
  • 2009 - 2010 : the main core of the website remains unchanged (with only minor technical updates but with an extended content).
  • spring 2011 : the old LTM/correspondents pages for registration of the participations are replaced by a new tool (developed with PhP instead of cgi), more user friendly and it gives more possibilities to the LTMs ; the maps of the domains declared by the LTM on their operational pages are improved.
  • summer 2011 : the whole site jumps few SPIP versions ; its data base and its templates are adapted.
  • September 2013 : aladin runs on SPIP3; its templates are re-designed (based on Escal templates) : many functionalities should make the aladin browse easier.