[GeoNetwork-devel] Reference system database

GeoNetwork GeoNetwork Developer
1

Hi Francois,
Happy New Year!

On Jan 8, 2007, at 7:54 AM, François Prunayre wrote:

Hi Jeroen (and Patrizia), coming back to you regarding a spatial reference
system list. Did you choose a way to include one in your stand alone editor
?

No, there's no special way of handling those. Something for the future.

I started adding functionnality from the project in France to Geonetwork. My
first job was on the thesaurus side (see mailing list). For january, I
expect to spend some more time (3-4 days) to make the thesaurus integration
better according to comments I will have on the mailing list.

Later on, I expect to add other functionnalities which could be useful for
everyone (Contact directory, SRS list, new search criteria ?, French profil
?, ...). Maybe we could exchange on that to fix priority according to your
plan for the next release... maybe during february.

Roberto is currently adding so-called sub-templates to the editor. The principle is that small parts of a metadata record, for example a contact, can be stored in the catalog. The editor offers a drop down list at locations that have sub-templates available so the editor can choose the template he needs in that location. This will copy the content of the sub template into the metadata.

The functionality will be available by the time of the beta 1 release.

For your contact directory this would/could mean that it makes most sense to store contacts, SRS's etc as small XML sub-templates in the catalog. I would not like to see separate tables or so to store the same information :slight_smile:

For the future, the handling of specific sub-templates in the editor may be improved on a case-by-case basis to for instance allow a user to search for a sub-template through a query interface. This is something that Roberto has also been working on in a slightly different context and that might be of interest.

Another unsolved issue here is the updating of a sub-template and how that is reflected in the metadata that uses a sub-template already :frowning: Maybe a URI should be stored in the XML record in the places that use a sub-template!?

Ciao,
Jeroen

Regards. Francois

-----Message d'origine-----
De : Ticheler Jeroen [mailto:jeroen.ticheler@…124…]
Envoyé : mercredi 18 octobre 2006 12:58
À : François Prunayre
Cc : Patrizia (SDRN) Monteduro
Objet : Reference system database

Hi Francois,
We are working on a stand alone metadata editor and run into the spatial
reference system trouble :slight_smile: I know you are working on some plug in for
GeoNetwork to deal with those!? Do you have a database that we could use to
also include in the stand alone editor? How do you plan to deal with it?
Have the user select from a huge drop down list?
Ciao,
Jeroen

2

I think that subtemplates can only be profitable used to provide small
repetitive parts when editing a metadata. One example is the bbox
element while another is the thumbnails one. Instead of adding
all children by hand, the subtemplate does it all at once.

For me a contact information is *not* a part for which subtemplates
can be used. It is true that they avoid the repetitive task of adding all info
but it is not the right way to go. For now, subtemplates can be used
to store contact information only because geonetwork does not handle
xlink pointers. The drawback of this is evident: a change to the subtemplate
is not reflected to all metadata where it is used. This update should *not*
be forced for these reasons:

- subtemplates are not intended for this use

- introducing uri to link to the subtemplate breaks the compatibility with
  the ISO standard. Ok, one could use the same xlink attribute of the ISO
  standard but in this case the content of the link cannot be a subtemplate.

For me, the right direction to go is to change geonetwork in order to support
subcomponent of the iso standard that could be linked through xlink attributes
(maybe an even better approach would be to use some data structures of the
ebRIM model). This way, in the same metadata table we could put real metadata,
contact information, dataset and more. In this vision, the editor should allow the
possibility to specify xlink or real information for a contact or a party.

Obviously, this is a deep change in geonetwork that could be addressed after
gn 2.1.

Cheers,
Andrea

Roberto is currently adding so-called sub-templates to the editor.
The principle is that small parts of a metadata record, for example a
contact, can be stored in the catalog. The editor offers a drop down
list at locations that have sub-templates available so the editor can
choose the template he needs in that location. This will copy the
content of the sub template into the metadata.

The functionality will be available by the time of the beta 1 release.

For your contact directory this would/could mean that it makes most
sense to store contacts, SRS's etc as small XML sub-templates in the
catalog. I would not like to see separate tables or so to store the
same information :slight_smile:

For the future, the handling of specific sub-templates in the editor
may be improved on a case-by-case basis to for instance allow a user
to search for a sub-template through a query interface. This is
something that Roberto has also been working on in a slightly
different context and that might be of interest.

Another unsolved issue here is the updating of a sub-template and how
that is reflected in the metadata that uses a sub-template already :
( Maybe a URI should be stored in the XML record in the places that
use a sub-template!?

Ciao,
Jeroen

3

Hi Andrea,

On Jan 8, 2007, at 5:20 PM, Andrea Carboni wrote:

I think that subtemplates can only be profitable used to provide small
repetitive parts when editing a metadata. One example is the bbox
element while another is the thumbnails one. Instead of adding
all children by hand, the subtemplate does it all at once.

For me a contact information is *not* a part for which subtemplates
can be used. It is true that they avoid the repetitive task of adding all info
but it is not the right way to go. For now, subtemplates can be used
to store contact information only because geonetwork does not handle
xlink pointers. The drawback of this is evident: a change to the subtemplate
is not reflected to all metadata where it is used. This update should *not*
be forced for these reasons:

- subtemplates are not intended for this use

- introducing uri to link to the subtemplate breaks the compatibility with
  the ISO standard. Ok, one could use the same xlink attribute of the ISO
  standard but in this case the content of the link cannot be a subtemplate.

I agree with this view and my mention of URI was not the appropriate one, should have been xlink but the intent of the point I made was the same. Implementation should obviously be in line with the standard and not break it!

At the same time, I feel that for many users, sub-templates can be an appropriate way at this stage to deal with contacts even if not perfect. If you deal with 1 to 10 editors in your user groups, this will only create a small drop down list in the editor. We would simply make use of an existing function.

For me, the right direction to go is to change geonetwork in order to support
subcomponent of the iso standard that could be linked through xlink attributes
(maybe an even better approach would be to use some data structures of the
ebRIM model). This way, in the same metadata table we could put real metadata,
contact information, dataset and more. In this vision, the editor should allow the
possibility to specify xlink or real information for a contact or a party.

Obviously, this is a deep change in geonetwork that could be addressed after
gn 2.1.

Indeed this would be the right way! Only, since it involves much deeper changes to the application, the sub-templates option can offer a nice "transition" from a situation with no contact management at all to one that deals with contacts through xlinks, allowing to update a contact info just once without the need to revisit all metadata records to apply the changes to that contact.

Ciao,
Jeroen

Cheers,
Andrea

Roberto is currently adding so-called sub-templates to the editor.
The principle is that small parts of a metadata record, for example a
contact, can be stored in the catalog. The editor offers a drop down
list at locations that have sub-templates available so the editor can
choose the template he needs in that location. This will copy the
content of the sub template into the metadata.

The functionality will be available by the time of the beta 1 release.

For your contact directory this would/could mean that it makes most
sense to store contacts, SRS's etc as small XML sub-templates in the
catalog. I would not like to see separate tables or so to store the
same information :slight_smile:

For the future, the handling of specific sub-templates in the editor
may be improved on a case-by-case basis to for instance allow a user
to search for a sub-template through a query interface. This is
something that Roberto has also been working on in a slightly
different context and that might be of interest.

Another unsolved issue here is the updating of a sub-template and how
that is reflected in the metadata that uses a sub-template already :
( Maybe a URI should be stored in the XML record in the places that
use a sub-template!?

Ciao,
Jeroen

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