Generic Interfaces for Managing Web Data

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Generic Interfaces for Managing Web Data
Oleg Burlaca Institute of Mathematics and
Computer Science Academy of Sciences of
Moldova oburlaca_at_neonet.md
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61 of companies who have already deployed Web
content management software still rely on manual
processes to update their sites.

• Users would like
• Smaller and less complex systems
• Documentation should provide concrete ideas for
  how to structure project and make maximum use of
  features
• Scalable user interface features can be
  removed/added as required
• Better UI for content creation and management of
  workflow.

"Web Content Management Covering the Essentials,
Avoiding Overspending", Jupiter Research 2003,
http//www.jupiterresearch.com
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Major problems when designing for or implementing
content management software

1. Commercial software too expensive and required
   too much time to implement
2. Difficult to integrate with other systems
3. Determining requirements
4. Migrating old content
5. Training authors and editors

The Problems with CMS, January 2003 The
Asilomar Institute for Information Architecture
(AIfIA) http//aifia.org/pg/the_problems_with_cms.
php
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Questions

1. How to view data from different angles and
   provide facilities to navigate deep hierarchies ?
2. How to provide an intuitively clear and
   convenient way to manage entity multirelations ?
3. How to tie a generic UI to the application logic
   ?

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What is Content Management ?

• A set of tasks and processes for managing
  content
• An emerging field thats concerned with making
  information easier to manage and access

Information Integrate Automate Access Disseminate
The main purpose of a CMS
Enhanced integration and automatization of
processes that contribute to efficient
dissemination of information on the Internet
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Generic User Interfaces
Advantages

• Reduced development time
• Scalability
• No hand coding
• Less testing
• Consistent look and feel
  Standardization Less training

Disadvantages

• The existence of rules
• Additional DB overhead
• Ascetic look
• Troublesome accomplishment of specific tasks

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Web site structure
Custom pages
Index pages
Entity pages (item)
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Item Page
Item data
Related Items
related items shared data
shared data
private data
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What is Information Architecture ?

• The structural design of an information space to
  facilitate task completion and intuitive access
  to content
• The art and science of structuring and
  classifying web sites and intranets to help
  people find and manage information

Intuition Access Structure Classification Find Man
age
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Entity type definition

• Visual appearance
• Database fields and associated editors
• Relationship specification
• Events

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Entity type database fields

• ltfieldsgt
• ltf name"thumb" editor"ImgEdit" /gt
• ltcategory caption"Brief" /gt
• ltf name"brief_en" editor"Memo" caption"En"
  height"50" /gt
• ltf name"brief_ro" editor"Memo" caption"Ro"
  height"50" /gt
• ltcategory caption"Perioada" /gt
• ltmultieditor fixed1" /gt
• ltf name"date1" caption"Start"gt
  ltdefaultgtNOW()lt/defaultgt lt/fgt
• ltf name"date2" caption"End"gt
  ltdefaultgtNOW()lt/defaultgt lt/fgt
• ltmultieditor /gt
• ltf name"ora1" editor"Time"gt
• ltoptions format"HourMin" /gt
• lt/fgt
• lt/fieldsgt

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UI database fields
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Entity type Relationship

• ltlinkage mode"tree" gt
• ltfieldsgt
• ltf name"info" caption"info" /gt
• lt/fieldsgt
• lttypesgt
• lttip id"1"gt
• ltfieldsgt
• ltf name"info" /gt
• lt/fieldsgt
• lt/tipgt
• lttip id"10"gt
• ltfieldsgt
• ltf name"info" /gt
• ltf name"active" editor"CheckBox /gt
• ltf name"content" editor"Memo"
• height"100" /gt
• lt/fieldsgt

Common Attributes
Related entity Specific Attributes
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UI Entity Relations
Related items
Focused items relation attributes
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Multiple Relations
Articles
A2
Related Items (8)
Similar Articles
A1
A4
References
A4
A3
Hidden
A5
Similar Articles
References
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Entity type Events
lteventsgt ltOnCreategt lte type"sql"gt
INSERT INTO site_en_related
VALUES (id, 444, 10, 1) lt/egt lte
type"http"gt ltparamsgt
lturlgthttp//neonet.md/cgi/build.cgilt/urlgt
ltprmsgtididlt/prmsgt
lturgentgt0lt/urgentgt
ltmethodgtgetlt/methodgt lt/paramsgt
lt/egt lt/OnCreategt ltOnCloseAfterCreate ...
gt ltOnOpen ... gt ltOnRelateNode ...
gt lt/eventsgt
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Data Shortcuts
CtrlEnter Locate Focus Item
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NeoSite
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Toolbars from XML doc
Search Window
Content Tree
Monitoring Error logs
Search Results
FTP Activity
Opened entities and tasks
HTTP Activity
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Experience
www.patria.md www.tehnomarket.md www.e-democracy.m
d www.monument.md russiannet.org www.press.mednet.
md www.stats.mednet.md www.csa.acad.md www.pll.md
www.profitclub.md
http//baraka.neonet.md
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Conclusions

• Develop primitive UI elements but not complex,
  customized interfaces
• Provide context to manage content
• Use well established interface patterns

Questions

• How to manage n-ary relations ?

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Content Management System developers view

• Manage HTML Templates
• Monitoring Log Files
• Manage Scripts

• GUI to data
• Executing raw SQL queries
• Backup / Restore

• Get Size Upload Images
• Upload documents(pdf,doc)
• Basic download support

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Content Management System users view
html
pdf, xls
email
templates