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Introduction

The Fedora Web Administrator (a.k.a. the Admin GUI) makes it possible to easily view, edit, update, and create objects in a Fedora repository. A new version of the Administator will provide many of the same tools, but be deployed as a web application and so be more easily accessible (via a web browser) to those responsible for building and maintaining a repository instance. The goal of the information on this page is to provide an overview of the features that may be included as part of the new Administrator. The current technical plan calls for use of the REST API as the back-end for the Administrator with a RIA (technology TBD) interface.

User Interface

A mockup of the new Fedora Administator UI is available here.

Current Features

The following list of features are those which are provided by the current Fedora Administrator. Items which it may be possible to delay including in the new Administrator (i.e. not in version 1) are listed in a lighter font. Items which may not be included in the new Administrator are marked through.

• Log in to a repository based on host:port, protocol, username, password
• Create New Object Template
  • Data object
  • Content model
  • Service Def
  • Service Dep
• Open an object by PID
  • Display object properties (state, label, created date, modified date, owner)
    • Allow changing object state (to active, inactive or deleted)
    • Allow changing object label
    • Allow changing owner id
  • Display object xml
  • Export the object
  • Purge the object
  • Display a list of the object's datastreams
  • Display datastream info (id, control group, state, versionable, created, label, mime type, format URI, alternate ids, fedora url, checksum)
    • Allow changing datastream state (to active, inactive or deleted)
    • Allow changing datastream versionable
    • Allow changing datastream label
    • Allow changing datastream MIME type
    • Allow changing datastream Format URI
    • Allow changing datastream Alternate IDs
    • Allow changing datastream Checksum type (to Disabled, MD5, SHA-1, SHA-256, SHA-384, SHA-512)
  • View datastream content (Control Group=E,R or MIME-type=image/jpeg, image/gif, image/png)
  • Import datastream content (upload)
    • from client file system (with file browser to choose file)
    • from URL
  • Export datastream content to client file system (with file browser to choose export directory) (download)
  • Edit datastream content (Control Group=X,M and MIME type=text/plain, text/xml, application/rdf+xml)
    • Text/XML files edited directly
    • RELS-EXT triple editor - add new triples, edit/delete existing triples
      • subject predefined as object being edited
      • predicate selectable from 5 options or can be edited directly
      • object is free text
      • isLiteral checkbox
      • type selection (<untyped>, long, int, float, double, dateTime)
  • Purge datastream
  • Add new datastream
    • Set ID
    • Set control group
    • Set state (active, inactive, deleted)
    • Set versionable
    • Set MIME type (options based on control group)
    • Set label
    • Set Format URI
    • Set Alternate IDs
    • Set checksum
    • Import content (for X, M control group)
      • from local file system (with file browser to choose file)
      • from URL
    • Set location (for E, R control group)
    • View imported data
    • View data from url
    • Save new datastream, discard changes
• Ingest Object(s)
  • Ingest one object from file (with file browser to choose file)
    • Select format
  • Ingest one object from repository (based on host/port, protocol, user/pass)
  • Ingest multiple objects from directory (with file browser to choose directory)
    • Select format
  • Ingest multiple objects from repository (based on host/port, protocol, user/pass)
• Export Object(s)
  • Export one object (with file browser to choose export directory)
    • Select format and export context
  • Export multiple (all) objects (with file browser to choose export directory)
    • Select format and export context
• Purge object (without first opening object)
• View object xml (without first opening object)
• Change repository
• Search repository
  • Select fields to display (22 field options)
  • Simple query
  • Advanced query (entering conditions based on fields)
  • Search results display selected field options
  • Search results allow selection of multiple objects with a context menu
    • Open object
    • View object xml
    • Export object
    • Purge object
    • Set object state to (active, inactive, deleted)
• Batch processing
  • Build Batch
    • Choose Object template (input file), XML specs (input directory), Fedora objects (output directory), Object processing map (output file) (choice of xml or text)
    • Run batch building
  • Ingest Batch
    • Choose Fedora objects (input directory) and Output processing map (output file) (choice of xml or text)
    • Run batch ingest
  • Build and ingest batch (see options on build batch)
  • Modify batch
    • Select process directives (selected using file browser)
    • Validate directives file (selected using file browser)
• Access Console
  • Run any of 9 API-A calls, parameters are entered on pop-up screen
  • Call response lists responsObject.toString()
• Management Console
  • Run any of 19 API-M calls, parameters are entered on pop-up screen
  • Call reponse lists responseObject.toString()

New Features

provides a web-based user interface to perform repository administration. The application, which was built using Adobe Flex, uses a Flash plugin to run within a web browser. All coordination with the Fedora repository is performed using the Fedora REST API. The Fedora Web Administrator can be used to discover, display, ingest, modify, and purge objects and datastreams within a Fedora Repository.

The Fedora Web Administrator was first released as part of Fedora 3.2. This is considered the beta release of the Web Administrator, as it has yet to be tested thoroughly enough to be considered production ready. For more information on the Web Administrator in Fedora 3.2, consult the Fedora 3.2 documentation.

The goal of this page is to discuss the features and issues that should be addressed in future versions of the Web Administrator.

Links

Web Administrator in the Fedora 3.2 Documentation
Original mockups for the Web Administator UI
Old Administrator Features Comparison

Considerations for new features

These are features which may be included in the new Administrator in the future. Some of these may also be significant enough to warrant a stand-alone interface.

• User administration
• Repository configuration (fedora.fcfg)
• Statistics / Reporting / Validation
• RELS search
• Saved search queries
• Saved search result sets
• Search result count (with no returned result set)
• Dublin Core editor
• Relationship browser
• Smart object builders (FCREPO-525)
• Use rebuilder
• Collection semantics
• Plug-in manager
• Security policy (XACML) editor
• Ability to specify sort order on search results
• I18N support
• Copy Object function
• Multiselect on search results to allow opening and/or purging multiple objects
• Datastream version view