Support for Multiple Schemas

A simple enhancement proposal to add support for multiple (flat) schemas.
Current assignee: Martin Hald. Basic implemenation complete, alpha version available as http://sourceforge.net/tracker/index.php?func=detail&aid=1242663&group_id=19984&atid=319984^{Image Removed} a patch on SourceForge.

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method. Of course additional functionality will be needed in the UI (administration UI etc.) to realise the schema support but everything should work as before when the relevant changes are made elsewhere. Care will be needed to do everything in a way that doesn't impact performance. (Don't want to add to ScalabilityIssues ScalabilityIssues1.4!)

Code Block

org.dspace.administer

New class

MetadataSchema

...

and other DSpace Java objects. _Maybe belongs in

...

org.dspace.content

?_

DCType

becomes

...

needs updating (see below).
Maybe create a backwards-compatible class

DCType

?

Code Block

org.dspace.content

• Code Block
  org.dspace.content.Item

  will need a few changes.

  Code Block
  getDC()/setDC()

  etc. need to work exactly as before. Not difficult. It will also need some extra get/set methods for the

  Code Block
  MetadataField

  (and maybe

  Code Block
  MetadataSchema

  ?).
• New class

  Code Block
  MetadataValue

  : identical to

  Code Block
  DCValue

  , except with a

  Code Block
  MetadataSchema

  value. Can make

  Code Block
  DCValue

  a subclass of

  Code Block
  MetadataValue

  for backwards-compatibility.

Code Block

org.dspace.search

Will work with DC with no changes as it uses APIs and not direct D access. Will need to be modified to use new metadata schema values.

...

 search.index.1 = author:dc.contributor.*
 search.index.2 = author:dc.creator.*
 search.index.3 = title:dc.title.*
 search.index.4 = medium:vracore.material.medium

Code Block

org.dspace.browse

Code and table views will need alteration.

Other changes

• Format of

  Code Block
  [dspace]config/registries/dublin-core-types.xml

  will need to be altered. (Perhaps even can use XSLT for backwards-compatilibity )
• Custom submission form stuff could be extended to take advantage of this new stuff
• Batch importer/exporter – should be easy to retain backwards compatilibity (with "

  Code Block
  dublin_core.xml

  " clearly indicating Dublin Core, can use different filename for other metadata)
• History system??
• UI changes to item display page