DSpace XML UI Project

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DSpace XML UI Project

• Texas AM University
• Digital Initiatives, Research and Technology
• Scott Phillips, Cody Green, Alexey Maslov, Adam
  Mikeal, Brian Surratt, John Leggett

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Agenda

• What Why
• Design goals
• Architectural Overview
• Schema Overview
• Themes
• Future Work
• Questions

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What is the XML UI?

• The XML UI is a new front-end for DSpace that
• Enables communities and collections to customize
  their interface
• Improves support for internationalization
• Removes stylistic logic from the core DSpace
  business logic

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Why?

• Why is this good?
• Branding
• University level
• Community level
• Institutional credibility
• Community ownership buy in
• Increase DSpace adoption?

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Design Goals

• Enable each community collection to maintain a
  distinct look and feel
• Separate business logic from stylistic controls
• Increase ease of adaptability
• Languages
• Other formats
• Provide an alternative user interface
• With no API or DB changes

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Architectural Overview

• HTTP Request
• Tomcat identifies the Java servlet
• Java Servlets
• Processes form data
• Determines flow control
• Instantiates the XML Object
• XML Manager
• Creates the XML Document
• Calls the XML Object
• XML Object
• Inserts content into the document
• Theme Manager
• Determines the theme
• Applies the theme
• HTTP Response
• Serializes the document into a stream for
  transmission.

HTTP Request
Java Servlets
DSpace
themes.xml
XML Manager
Theme Manager
XML Objects
HTTP Response
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HTTP Request

• Tomcat receives the HTTP Request
• Directs request to a Java Servlet
• No difference from the current webui (except a
  different implementation of the servlet is used)
• Future plug-in architecture?

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Java Servlets

• Processes the form data
• Determines flow control
• Instantiates the XML Object
• Servlet XML Object ( JSP ) coupling made more
  explicit

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XML Manager

• Creates the XML Document
• Interfaces with
• XML Framework
• XML Object
• Theme Manager
• Roughly equivalent to the webuis JSPManager

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XML Framework

• Document Object Model (DOM) based
• Objects vs streams or events
• Easier manipulation
• XML Framework
• Used by the XML Manager XML Objects
• Manipulate the DOM
• Specific to the DSpace XML UI Schema
• (described later in the presentation)

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XML Object

• Inserts the desired content into the
• document
• Uses the XML Framework
• Equivalent in purpose to JSP pages.
• Pure java
• No lt some java code here gt tags!

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XML Object (Example)
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XML Object (Example)
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Theme Manager

• Determines the theme based on
• user supplied theme parameter
• url path
• regex expression
• collection or community
• Themes are configured by an XML file, themes.xml
• There is no equivalent of the theme manager in
  the existing implementation

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Theme Manager (themes.xml)
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HTTP Response

• Finally the XML Manager
• Serialize the DOM into a stream
• Transmit to the user

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Schema Overview

• Examining an existing DSpace page we found three
  main parts

Meta information about the page
Available navigational options
The main body
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Schema Overview

• Three major parts
• meta
• options
• body
• Display types
• sections
• tables
• forms

page
meta
options
body
section
tabular
form
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Themes

• Transform the DSpace XML into a display format
• Themes are implemented in XSL
• May filter content
• For XHTML interfaces
• css_base
• A set of templates to transform the DSpace XML UI
  schema into XHTML
• Themes are able to use what they like and
  override what they dont.

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Future Work

• Plug-in architecture
• User selected themes
• Integration of XForms and multi-page forms
• Shared library of common themes

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Summary

• XML UI is a new front end for DSpace
• Customize look feel for communities
  collections
• Increase community adoption of DSpace
• Architectural Overview
• XML Objects, XML Manager, Theme Manager
• XML UI Schema
• Three parts
• Three display types
• Two language models
• Themes
• Base libraries for easy development

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Questions?