Introduction
This page describes a set of tools that can be used to distribute mensa plans for universities. It is meant for committed students and organizations in charge for the mensas.What tools are used
The set of tools consists of a generation framework to create the appropriate data and a set of clients to access this data.Database Creation
The generation framework contains several Perl scripts to create the appropriate information. If the only data source is a webpage you can modify the example parser to extract the needed information from that website. You have to create a specifically formatted file that the other programs will work on.Reading Devices
There are three applications to access the database. The first one is UniMensa which is a software for PalmOS handhelds. The second tool is jMensa. It is a viewer written in Java for mobile devices (mainly cell phones). And last but not least there is the Mensa WAP interface to access the database from WAP capable devices.How you can use it
To adopt the framework all you need to do is to get a right creation tool chain in place. This means to find an appropriate data source and transform the information in a simple text file containing the most important information. A set of tools that I use for the RWTH Aachen/Studentenwerk Aachen mensas can be found and documentation can be found on the backend page.Then you need to adapt the frontend software to use your database. There is some documentation on the page about the frontends. Here is a quick list of alternatives.
- PalmOS: UniMensa
- Für Java-fähige Handys: jMensa
- Skyper/Funknetz: Von der Amateurfunkgrupp der RWTH Aachen gibt es die Speisepläne per Funkrufsender/Skyper
- Von der Media Computing Group der RWTH Aachen gibt es iEat für Mac OS X
- iPhone: mmyMensa
