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The DSpace digital repository supports two user interfaces: one based on JavaServer Pages (JSP) technologies and one based upon the Apache Cocoon framework (XMLUI). This chapter describes those parameters which are specific to the Manakin (XMLUI) interface based upon the Cocoon framework.

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Overview of XMLUI / Manakin

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  1. A user visits an XMLUI page (by clicking a link or button, etc)
  2. That request begins in the root Cocoon sitemap.xmap (located at [xmlui]/sitemap.xmap). This is the main entry point for all requests
    1. Within that sitemap, various URL path matching takes place. If the request is to download a document, that document is returned immediately.
    2. However, in many cases, the request is for a page within the XMLUI. In this scenario, the root sitemap.xmap will load the [xmlui]/themes/themes.xmapfile, which controls all the Themes.
      1. The themes.xmap file will then load all "matching" themes which are configured in your [dspace]/config/xmlui.xconf file (see #Themes below).
      2. If more than one theme matches the current URL path, then the first match wins
      3. Once a matching theme is located, that theme's sitemap.xmapfile (located in its theme directory) is loaded and processed.

        1. The theme's sitemap.xmapis in charge of actually loading the theme's XSLT, CSS, etc. However, before it does that, you'll notice it makes a call to generate the DRI document for the current page as follows:

          Code Block
          <map:generate type="file" src="cocoon://DRI/{1}"/>
        2. This DRI call generates a brand new, internal Cocoon request. This request is then processed back in the root sitemap.xmap (remember how we said that this sitemap is the main entry point for all requests).
  3. Back in the root sitemap, the "DRI/**" call is matched. This causes the [xmlui]/aspects/aspects.xmapfile to be loaded. As the name suggests, this file obviously controls all the Aspects.
    1. The aspects.xmap file will then load all enabled Aspects which are configured in your [dspace]/config/xmlui.xconf file (see #Aspects below).
    2. Each aspect is loaded in the order that it appears. However, multiple aspects may be loaded for the same URL path. Remember, aspects can build upon each other (we call this an "aspect chain") as they work together to generate the final DRI document.
    3. When an Aspect is loaded, its sitemap.xmapis loaded & processed
      • NOTE: An aspect's sitemap.xmap is actually compiled into the dspace-xmlui-api.jar file. However, if you have a copy of DSpace source handy, it can be found in: [dspace-src]/dspace-xmlui/dspace-xmlui-api/src/main/resources/aspects/[name-of-aspect]/
    4. Each aspect is processed one-by-one (again in the order they are listed in xmlui.xconf). Each aspect may add, remove or change content within the DRI document. After the final aspect is finished processing, the DRI document is complete.
      • HINT: In the XMLUI you can always view the final DRI document by adding "?XML" or "&XML" on to the end of the current URL in your web browser.
  4. Once the final DRI document is complete (all aspects are done processing), the flow will return back to your Theme's sitemap.xmap (remember, this is the same location that triggered the loading of the Aspects in the first place).
  5. At this point, your Theme's sitemap.xmap will continue its processing. Generally speaking, most themes will then perform one or more XSLT transformations (to transform the final DRI document into XHTML). They also may load up one or more CSS files to help stylize the final XHTML.
  6. Finally, once the Theme has completed its processing (remember, only one theme is ever processed for a single request), the final generated XHTML document is displayed to the user.

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The <aspects> section defines the "Aspect Chain", or the linear set of aspects that are installed in the repository. For each aspect that is installed in the repository, the aspect makes available new features to the interface. For example, if the "submission" aspect were to be commented out or removed from the xmlui.xconf, then users would not be able to submit new items into the repository (even the links and language prompting users to submit items are removed). Each <aspect> element has two attributes, name and path. The name is used to identify the Aspect, while the path determines the directory where the aspect's code is located. Here is the default aspect configuration:

Code Block

<aspects>
        <aspect name="Displaying Artifacts" path="resource://aspects/ViewArtifacts/" />
        <aspect name="Browsing Artifacts" path="resource://aspects/BrowseArtifacts/" />
        <aspect name="Searching Artifacts" path="resource://aspects/SearchArtifacts/" />
        <aspect name="Administration" path="resource://aspects/Administrative/" />
        <aspect name="E-Person" path="resource://aspects/EPerson/" />
        <aspect name="Submission and Workflow" path="resource://aspects/Submission/" />
        <aspect name="Statistics" path="resource://aspects/Statistics/" />
        <aspect name="Original Workflow" path="resource://aspects/Workflow/" />
    </aspects>

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  • name (always required)The name attribute is used to document the theme's name.
  • path (always required)The path attribute determines where the theme is located relative to the themes/ directory and must either contain a trailing slash or point directly to the theme's sitemap.xmap file.
  • regex (either regex and/or handle is required)The regex attribute determines which URLs the theme should apply to.

  • handle (either regex and/or handle is required)The handle attribute determines which community, collection, or item the theme should apply to.
    If you use the "handle" attribute, the effect is cascading, meaning if a rule is established for a community then all collections and items within that community will also have this theme apply to them as well. Here is an example configuration:

    Code Block
    
<themes>
        <theme name="Theme 1" handle="123456789/23" path="theme1/"/>
        <theme name="Theme 2" regex="community-list"	path="theme2/"/>
        <theme name="Reference Theme" regex=".*" path="Reference/"/>
    </themes>

    In the example above three themes are configured: "Theme 1", "Theme 2", and the "Reference Theme". The first rule specifies that "Theme 1" will apply to all communities, collections, or items that are contained under the parent community "123456789/23". The next rule specifies any URL containing the string "community-list" will get "Theme 2". The final rule, using the regular expression ".", will match *anything, so all pages which have not matched one of the preceding rules will be matched to the Reference Theme.

Multilingual Support

The XMLUI user interface supports multiple languages through the use of internationalization catalogues as defined by the Cocoon Internationalization Transformer. Each catalog contains the translation of all user-displayed strings into a particular language or variant. Each catalog is a single xml file whose name is based upon the language it is designated for, thus:

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Manakin themes stylize the look-and-feel of the repository, community, or collection and are distributed as self-contained packages. A Manakin/DSpace installation may have multiple themes installed and available to be used in different parts of the repository. The central component of a theme is the sitemap.xmap, which defines what resources are available to the theme such as XSL stylesheets, CSS stylesheets, images, or multimedia files.
1) Create theme skeleton
Most theme developers do not create a new theme from scratch; instead they start from the standard theme template, which defines a skeleton structure for a theme. The template is located at: [dspace-source]/dspace-xmlui/dspace-xmlui-webbapp/src/main/webbapp/themes/template. To start your new theme simply copy the theme template into your locally defined modules directory, [dspace-source]/dspace/modules/xmlui/src/main/webbapp/themes/[your theme's directory]/.
2) Modify theme variables
The next step is to modify the theme's parameters so that the theme knows where it is located. Open the [your theme's directory]/sitemap.xmap and look for <global-variables>

Code Block

<global-variables>
        <theme-path>[your theme's 	directory]</theme-path>
        <theme-name>[your theme's name]</theme-name>
    </global-variables>

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[your theme's directory]/lib/style-ie.css (Specific stylesheet used for internet explorer)
4) Install theme and rebuild DSpace
Next rebuild and deploy DSpace (replace <version> with the your current release):

  1. Rebuild the DSpace installation package by running the following command from your [dspace-source]/dspace/directory:

    Code Block
    mvn package

  2. Update all DSpace webapps to [dspace]/webapps by running the following command from your [dspace-source]/dspace/target/dspace-[version]-build.dirdirectory:

    Code Block
    ant -Dconfig=[dspace]/config/dspace.cfg update

  3. Deploy the the new webapps:

    Code Block
    cp -R /[dspace]/webapps/* /[tomcat]/webapps
  4. Restart Tomcat
    This will ensure the theme has been installed as described in the previous section "Configuring Themes and Aspects".

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Example 2: all text replaced by references to localizable message keys:

Code Block

<document>
      <body>
        <div id="file.news.div.news" n="news" rend="primary">
          <head><i18n:text>myuni.repo.title</i18n:text></head>
          <p>
            <i18n:text>myuni.repo.intro</i18n:text>
            <i18n:text>myuni.repo.a.service.of</i18n:text>
            <xref target="http://myuni.edu/"><i18n:text>myuni.name</i18n:text></xref>
          </p>
        </div>
      </body>
      <options/>
      <meta>
        <userMeta/>
        <pageMeta/>
        <repositoryMeta/>
      </meta>
    </document>

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Any static HTML content you add to this directory may also reference static content (e.g. CSS, Javascript, Images, etc.) from the same [dspace-source]/dspace/modules/xmlui/src/main/webapp/static/ directory. You may reference other static content from your static HTML files similar to the following:

Code Block

<link href="./static/mystyle.css" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css"/>
  <img src="./static/images/static-image.gif" alt="Static image in /static/images/ directory"/>
  <img src="./static/static-image.jpg" alt="Static image in /static/ directory"/>

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  1. Login to XMLUI and create a new collection.
  2. Go to the tab named "Content Source" that appears next to "Edit Metadata" and "Assign Roles " in the collection edit screens.
  3. The two "Content Source" options are "standard DSpace collection" (selected by default) and "collection harvests its content from an external source". Select "harvests from an external source" option and click Save.
  4. A new set of menus appear to configure the harvesting settings:
    • "OAI Provider" is in the URL of the OAI-PMH provider that the content from this collection should be harvested from. The OAI-PMH provider deployed with DSpace typically has the format: http://dspace.url/oai/request For example, you could use the Demo DSpace OAI-PMH provider: "http://demo.dspace.org/oai/request"
    • "OAI Set Id" is the OAI-PMH setSpec of the collection you wish to harvest from. For DSpace, this Set ID has the format: hdl_<handle-prefix>_<handle-suffix>. For example "hdl_10673_2" would refer to the Collection whose handle is "10673/2" (on the DSpace Demo Server, this is the the Collection of Sample Items). If the target instance is using OAI 2.0 (DSpace 3.0 or the OAI 2.0 addon for DSpace 1.8.2), replace "hdl_" with "col_" if the set is a collection or with "com_" if it's a community.
    • "Metadata format" determines the format that the descriptive metadata will be harvested. The OAI-PMH server of the source DSpace instance may only support certain metadata formats. Select "DSpace Intermediate Metadata" if available (as this provides the richest metadata transfer) and "Simple Dublin Core" otherwise
    • Click the "Test Settings" button to verify the settings supplied in the previous steps. This will usually let you know if anything is missing or does not validate correctly. If you receive an error, you will need to fix the settings before continuing
  5. The list of radio buttons labeled "Content being harvested" allows you to select the level of harvest. These harvesting options include:
    • Harvest Metadata Only - will only harvest item metadata from the source DSpace (or any OAI-PMH source)
    • Harvest metadata and references to bitstreams (requires ORE support) - will harvest item metadata and create links to files/bitstreams (stored remotely) from the source DSpace (requires OAI-ORE)
    • Harvest metadata and bitstreams (requires ORE support) - performs a full local replication. Harvests both item metadata and files/bitstreams (requires OAI-ORE).
  6. Select the appropriate option based on your needs, and click Save

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  • Change Settings : takes you back to the edit screen (see above instructions)

  • Import Now: performs a single harvest from the remote collection into the local one. Success, notes, and errors encountered in the process will be reflected in the "Last Harvest Result" entry. More detailed information is available in the DSpace log.

    Warning
    title"Import Now" May Timeout for Large Harvests

    Note that the whole harvest cycle is executed within a single HTTP request and will time out for large collections. For this reason, it is advisable to use the automatic harvest scheduler set up either in XMLUI or from the command line. If the scheduler is running, "Import Now" will handle the harvest task as a separate thread.

  • Reset and Reimport Collection : will perform the same function as "Import Now", but will clear the collection of all existing items before doing so.

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