DSpace UI

1
DSpace UI

• Alexey Maslov

2
DSpace in general

• A digital library tool useful for storage,
  maintenance, and retrieval of digital documents
• Two types of interaction
• Command line for administrative use
• Automatically generated user interface

3
The original DSpace Interface

• http//txspace.tamu.edu/dev/
• Automatically created upon installation and
  deployment
• Fully functional from the onset
• Dynamically generated through an interaction
  between Java Servlets and Java Server Pages

4
The original DSpace Interface (cont.)
HTTP Request

• HTTP Request
• Tomcat identifies the Java servlet
• Java Servlets
• Processes form data
• Determines flow control
• Invokes the JSP Manager
• JSP Manager
• Calls and applies the JSP pages
• JSP Pages
• Create the HTML
• HTTP Response
• Transmits HTML to the user

Java Servlets
DSpace
JSP Manager
JSP Pages
HTTP Response
5
Editing The JSPs

• The JSPs are stored in the DSpace source
  directory under the /jsp subdirectory
• They can be edited by
• Copying the .jsp file to be edited into the
  /jsp/local subdirectory
• Modifying it as needed
• The changed JSP will override the one that came
  with the installation

6
Issues with the JSP DSpace Interface

• JSP pages create the HTML directly, in most cases
  complete with the styling information
• There is one JSP page for each DSpace page, so
  changes to all of DSpace require modification of
  most JSPs
• http//txspace.tamu.edu/

7
The XML based DSpace Interface

• http//txspace.tamu.edu/dev-xml2/
• DSpace XML UI is generated through an interaction
  between Java Servlets, XML Objects, XSLT styling
  language and Cascading Style Sheets
• Java Servlets and XML Objects create an XML
  document describing a DSpace page
• XSLT transforms the XML into HTML
• The HTML is rendered using styling rules provided
  by CSS

8
XML Based DSpace Interface (cont.)

• The end result of JSP based UI is the HTML that
  will be sent to the browser
• The end result of XML based UI is an XML document
  that contains all the information necessary to
  build a DSpace page, but none of the visual
  formatting
• The themes are then used to convert the XML into
  HTML and apply styling rules to it

9
XML Based DSpace Interface (cont.)
HTTP Request

• 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
• Outputs the resulting XML document

Java Servlets
DSpace
themes.xml
XML Manager
XML Objects
Theme Manager
HTTP Response
10
Modifying the DSpace XML UI

• You do not edit the Java side of DSpace
• Modifications are instead performed on the XSLT
  and CSS.

HTML Document
XML Document
Final Output
HTTP Response
XSLT Templates
CSS Rules
11
The XML

• XML, or eXtensible Markup Language, is a data
  storage format
• The XML Document generated by the Java Servlets
  doesnt do anything on its own
• Since it serves as a base for a DSpace page, it
  is also the same between all themes
• http//txspace.tamu.edu/dev-xml2/?themeintroXML
• http//txspace.tamu.edu/dev-xml2/?themesapphireX
  ML
• http//txspace.tamu.edu/dev-xml2/?themerubyXML
• http//txspace.tamu.edu/dev-xml2/?themespaceXML

12
DSpace XML UI Schema
Gray Language element 1 Must be one
0,1 May be one ? May be one group
None or many
Legend
page
1
1
1
meta
options
body
?
1
title
search
browse
1



section
tabular
form
1
trail
item

?
?
?
label
label
label
item

actions
1
0,1
0,1
pagination
image
pagination

userAgent
1
item


list
emptyText
division


1
browserVersion
0,1
administrative
?
columns
item


label
1
browserType
item

para
column
fieldGroup



1
contextPath
0,1
context
?
label
?
label
user
1
item

row


0,1

field
1
language
id
lang

cell
0,1
0,1
1
item
params

email
lastName
?
?
0,1
0,1
help
label
firstName
logoutUrl



?

link
emphasize
image
value
option
13
The XSL

• XSL, or the eXtensible Stylesheet Language, is
  used to transform the XML data into HTML
• It does so through template matching, which
  applies rules to and generates HTML for matching
  XML tags
• A base library exists to convert XML into HTML
  that be used or extended by each theme
• http//txspace.tamu.edu/dev-xml2/themes/

14
The CSS

• The output of XSL transformations is HTML that
  can be output and rendered in a browser
• It still, however, lacks any visual styling
• http//txspace.tamu.edu/dev-xml2/?themespace
• Cascading Style Sheet rules can be applied to the
  HTML to render it graphically
• http//txspace.tamu.edu/dev-xml2/?themeintro
• http//txspace.tamu.edu/dev-xml2/themes/intro/mai
  n.css

15
Overall

• Most of the visual changes are done in CSS
• XSLT templates can also be overridden to make
  structural modifications
• Finally, the theme manager can be configured to
  apply certain themes to specific DSpace
  components

HTML Document
XML Document
Final Output
HTTP Response
XSLT Templates
CSS Rules
16
To recap

• All DSpace pages are boiled down to single XML
  format
• Themes, which are combinations of a CSS style
  sheet and XSLT templates, convert the XML to
  styled HTML
• Different themes can be applied to different
  subset of DSpace
• http//di.tamu.edu/dspace-xmlui/

17
References

• XML Tutorial
• http//www.w3schools.com/xml/default.asp
• HTML Tutorial
• http//www.w3schools.com/html/default.asp
• CSS Tutorial
• http//www.w3schools.com/css/default.asp
• XSLT Tutorial
• http//www.w3schools.com/xsl/default.asp