[GeoNetwork-devel] Funded work on Geonetwork user interface

GeoNetwork GeoNetwork Developer
1

Hi Cameron,

Cooperation and extra horsepower on this would be good!

You'd be aware that the current editor is generic - it is driven by the
schema XSDs because it needs to handle any XML-based metadata schema
(eg.ISO, DC, FGDC etc) - but it is possible to re-order and change the
interface a little as has been done with the profile based interface in
the BlueNet MEST eg. the 'ANZLIC Minimum' and 'ANZLIC Core' tabs - and
the added nicety of having the Minimum metadata for any profile be the
default tab. In reality though what has been done there is add a new
'form' layout through a custom XSLT - albeit in the existing interface
which is html forms based. Following that idea, I guess our current
efforts are about keeping the generic XSD ability but making the 'form'
layout more powerful and faster (and more accessible?) possibly using a
forms representation suited to XML like XFORMS.

I'm not sure the above will deliver what you want and/or in the timeframe
you're speaking about - so maybe an alternative would be to look at the
(Java) services part of geonetwork and figure out how you can get and put
XML from your editing app as a separate client - which I think is the
approach others are taking ie. treat geonetwork as a catalogue/data
discovery app. I think that others are talking about using such an
approach and can fill in the gaps.

I suspect that in the Australian context you're going to need a version
of geonetwork that has the ANZLIC profile in it as I don't think we have
a nice way of plugging in profiles to geonetwork yet. To this end I've
already made a commitment to make at least that part of the BlueNet MEST
source available via svn (with anything else useful being put up as a
proposal for inclusion in the trunk) so maybe thats something that would
help :slight_smile:

Needless to say all of the above is just one view - there are no doubt
others working on different approaches and maybe some of those will come
out in this discussion :-).

Cheers,
Simon
  
==============Original message text===============
On Fri, 16 May 2008 7:12:18 +1000 Cameron Shorter wrote:

Hello developers,

LISAsoft has been hired by the Bureau of Rural Sciences, Australia to
provide an improved interface to Geonetwork.

In particular, they would like to Metadata entry forms to be ordered in
a format which makes sense to a user, rather than in the order specified
by a schema.

We need to deliver by the 30 June, so the client might need to be a
stand alone application initially (desktop or browser based) so that we
can deliver before the next Geonetwork release.

My hope is that whatever we build will be of use to the Geonetwork
community and can be rolled into the Geonetwork codebase, hence this email.

I'm keen to hear suggestions on how we should design the application.
What work has already been done or is being done that we should build
upon or work with? I notice that Simon Pigot has been looking into
browser based issues. Simon, I'm keen to hear how we can slot into your
work.

The developer(s) who will likely be working on this will be strong in
AJAX development: Openlayers and Mapbuilder. I suspect that Mapbuilder
might be the right framework due to its strong support for XSL
translations. However, I'm open to using java based server side, or
something else instead.

--
Cameron Shorter
Geospatial Systems Architect
Tel: +61 (0)2 8570 5050
Mob: +61 (0)419 142 254

Think Globally, Fix Locally
Commercial Support for Geospatial Open Source Solutions
http://www.lisasoft.com/LISAsoft/SupportedProducts.html

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===========End of original message text===========

2

Hi Cameron and Simon,

On ven, 2008-05-16 at 16:17 +1000, Simon Pigot wrote:

Hi Cameron,

Cooperation and extra horsepower on this would be good!

Yes for sure.

You'd be aware that the current editor is generic - it is driven by the
schema XSDs because it needs to handle any XML-based metadata schema
(eg.ISO, DC, FGDC etc) - but it is possible to re-order and change the
interface a little as has been done with the profile based interface in
the BlueNet MEST eg. the 'ANZLIC Minimum' and 'ANZLIC Core' tabs - and
the added nicety of having the Minimum metadata for any profile be the
default tab.

We also working on that for Profil for France, and adding an INSPIRE
view. We made a small enhancement to allow switching from one tab to
another using Ajax (only refresh main form content and not the whole
page).

In reality though what has been done there is add a new
'form' layout through a custom XSLT - albeit in the existing interface
which is html forms based. Following that idea, I guess our current
efforts are about keeping the generic XSD ability but making the 'form'
layout more powerful and faster (and more accessible?) possibly using a
forms representation suited to XML like XFORMS.

I agree Simon, we should keep the generic mechanism based on schema.
Maybe to make the end user form more accessible we should improve the
add/remove/up/down button to be able to make the interface more
interactive ... I don't really know how to do that taking form element
sequence number up to date but maybe you have ideas on that ? :wink:

Then the existing generic schema based + Schematron validation is really
close to what we could achieve using an xForm.

I'm not sure the above will deliver what you want and/or in the timeframe
you're speaking about - so maybe an alternative would be to look at the
(Java) services part of geonetwork and figure out how you can get and put
XML from your editing app as a separate client - which I think is the
approach others are taking ie. treat geonetwork as a catalogue/data
discovery app. I think that others are talking about using such an
approach and can fill in the gaps.

Another method is to get the xml document in the client side browser
(more or less like the xml view), then create a GUI with a form and then
update the xml when users edit the form. Then post the XML back to the
server.

This is how an xForm works (making controls and validation on editing).

We made some tests on using extjs to make the form for an iso19110
editor (thanks Mathieu ;)) but we have some issues here:
* extjs have no support for xml namespace (extra JS required to handle
that)
* a lot of JS to make the editor
* seems quite hard to make it generic

Cheers. Francois

3

We will be having a kickoff meeting for this project with our
development team, Simon Pigot, and Evert Bleys, who has a lot of
experience with ANZLIC metadata profiles and XSL for these profiles.

If others would like to join us, we could potentially set up a skype call.
I expect we will be finishing up around 4pm.
If others would like to call in, then please send my your skype
details and when you would be available.
I suggest this timeslot:
http://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/meetingdetails.html?year=2008&month=5&day=21&hour=5&min=0&sec=0&p1=240&p2=16&p3=179&p4=137

An hour later might be possible.

On Sat, May 17, 2008 at 2:06 AM, Francois-Xavier Prunayre
<francois-xavier.prunayre@anonymised.com> wrote:

Hi Cameron and Simon,

On ven, 2008-05-16 at 16:17 +1000, Simon Pigot wrote:

Hi Cameron,

Cooperation and extra horsepower on this would be good!

Yes for sure.

You'd be aware that the current editor is generic - it is driven by the
schema XSDs because it needs to handle any XML-based metadata schema
(eg.ISO, DC, FGDC etc) - but it is possible to re-order and change the
interface a little as has been done with the profile based interface in
the BlueNet MEST eg. the 'ANZLIC Minimum' and 'ANZLIC Core' tabs - and
the added nicety of having the Minimum metadata for any profile be the
default tab.

We also working on that for Profil for France, and adding an INSPIRE
view. We made a small enhancement to allow switching from one tab to
another using Ajax (only refresh main form content and not the whole
page).

In reality though what has been done there is add a new
'form' layout through a custom XSLT - albeit in the existing interface
which is html forms based. Following that idea, I guess our current
efforts are about keeping the generic XSD ability but making the 'form'
layout more powerful and faster (and more accessible?) possibly using a
forms representation suited to XML like XFORMS.

I agree Simon, we should keep the generic mechanism based on schema.
Maybe to make the end user form more accessible we should improve the
add/remove/up/down button to be able to make the interface more
interactive ... I don't really know how to do that taking form element
sequence number up to date but maybe you have ideas on that ? :wink:

Then the existing generic schema based + Schematron validation is really
close to what we could achieve using an xForm.

I'm not sure the above will deliver what you want and/or in the timeframe
you're speaking about - so maybe an alternative would be to look at the
(Java) services part of geonetwork and figure out how you can get and put
XML from your editing app as a separate client - which I think is the
approach others are taking ie. treat geonetwork as a catalogue/data
discovery app. I think that others are talking about using such an
approach and can fill in the gaps.

Another method is to get the xml document in the client side browser
(more or less like the xml view), then create a GUI with a form and then
update the xml when users edit the form. Then post the XML back to the
server.

This is how an xForm works (making controls and validation on editing).

We made some tests on using extjs to make the form for an iso19110
editor (thanks Mathieu ;)) but we have some issues here:
* extjs have no support for xml namespace (extra JS required to handle
that)
* a lot of JS to make the editor
* seems quite hard to make it generic

Cheers. Francois

--
Cameron Shorter
Geospatial Systems Architect
Tel: +61 (0)2 8570 5050
Mob: +61 (0)419 142 254

Think Globally, Fix Locally
Commercial Support for Geospatial Open Source Solutions
http://www.lisasoft.com/LISAsoft/SupportedProducts.html

4

Hi Cameron,
I'll try to connect through Skype if possible. I would need some name(s) though. Mine is 'ticheler' (what a fantasy).

With the comments below I think you get some idea of where we are. A generic editor seems to be a preferred editor for at least a number of users that want deep control on the metadata, no matter what standard. At the same time I think we indeed need a "simple" editor with tabbed views. If this could be based on Xforms that would be a great start. It could indeed just focus on a specific application profile. If well done, it should be possible to adapt it to / customize it for other application profiles. Using the load xml/store xml approach seems to make sense at that point.

I feel we'd move in a direction where we have:
- an XForms based editor for most users
- a generic editor (existing already, but under further improvement) for specialists

- a search results and full presentation that is disconnected from the editing interface that is based on Extjs in future release. It currently uses prototype and scriptaculous.

My 2 cents.
Ciao,
Jeroen

On May 20, 2008, at 9:55 AM, Cameron Shorter wrote:

We will be having a kickoff meeting for this project with our
development team, Simon Pigot, and Evert Bleys, who has a lot of
experience with ANZLIC metadata profiles and XSL for these profiles.

If others would like to join us, we could potentially set up a skype call.
I expect we will be finishing up around 4pm.
If others would like to call in, then please send my your skype
details and when you would be available.
I suggest this timeslot:
The World Clock Meeting Planner - Details

An hour later might be possible.

On Sat, May 17, 2008 at 2:06 AM, Francois-Xavier Prunayre
<francois-xavier.prunayre@anonymised.com> wrote:

Hi Cameron and Simon,

On ven, 2008-05-16 at 16:17 +1000, Simon Pigot wrote:

Hi Cameron,

Cooperation and extra horsepower on this would be good!

Yes for sure.

You'd be aware that the current editor is generic - it is driven by the
schema XSDs because it needs to handle any XML-based metadata schema
(eg.ISO, DC, FGDC etc) - but it is possible to re-order and change the
interface a little as has been done with the profile based interface in
the BlueNet MEST eg. the 'ANZLIC Minimum' and 'ANZLIC Core' tabs - and
the added nicety of having the Minimum metadata for any profile be the
default tab.

We also working on that for Profil for France, and adding an INSPIRE
view. We made a small enhancement to allow switching from one tab to
another using Ajax (only refresh main form content and not the whole
page).

In reality though what has been done there is add a new
'form' layout through a custom XSLT - albeit in the existing interface
which is html forms based. Following that idea, I guess our current
efforts are about keeping the generic XSD ability but making the 'form'
layout more powerful and faster (and more accessible?) possibly using a
forms representation suited to XML like XFORMS.

I agree Simon, we should keep the generic mechanism based on schema.
Maybe to make the end user form more accessible we should improve the
add/remove/up/down button to be able to make the interface more
interactive ... I don't really know how to do that taking form element
sequence number up to date but maybe you have ideas on that ? :wink:

Then the existing generic schema based + Schematron validation is really
close to what we could achieve using an xForm.

I'm not sure the above will deliver what you want and/or in the timeframe
you're speaking about - so maybe an alternative would be to look at the
(Java) services part of geonetwork and figure out how you can get and put
XML from your editing app as a separate client - which I think is the
approach others are taking ie. treat geonetwork as a catalogue/data
discovery app. I think that others are talking about using such an
approach and can fill in the gaps.

Another method is to get the xml document in the client side browser
(more or less like the xml view), then create a GUI with a form and then
update the xml when users edit the form. Then post the XML back to the
server.

This is how an xForm works (making controls and validation on editing).

We made some tests on using extjs to make the form for an iso19110
editor (thanks Mathieu ;)) but we have some issues here:
* extjs have no support for xml namespace (extra JS required to handle
that)
* a lot of JS to make the editor
* seems quite hard to make it generic

Cheers. Francois

--
Cameron Shorter
Geospatial Systems Architect
Tel: +61 (0)2 8570 5050
Mob: +61 (0)419 142 254

Think Globally, Fix Locally
Commercial Support for Geospatial Open Source Solutions
http://www.lisasoft.com/LISAsoft/SupportedProducts.html

-------------------------------------------------------------------------
This SF.net email is sponsored by: Microsoft
Defy all challenges. Microsoft(R) Visual Studio 2008.
http://clk.atdmt.com/MRT/go/vse0120000070mrt/direct/01/
_______________________________________________
GeoNetwork-devel mailing list
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GeoNetwork OpenSource is maintained at http://sourceforge.net/projects/geonetwork