DSpace UI

Alexey Maslov

DSpace in general

A digital library tool useful for storage, maintenance, and retrieval of digital documents

Two types of interaction:– Command line for administrative use– Automatically generated user interface

The original DSpace Interface

http://txspace.tamu.edu/dev/

Automatically created upon installation and deployment

Fully functional from the onset

Dynamically generated through an interaction between Java Servlets and Java Server Pages

The original DSpace Interface (cont.)

1. HTTP Request– Tomcat identifies the Java

servlet2. Java Servlets

– Processes form data– Determines flow control– Invokes the JSP Manager

3. JSP Manager– Calls and applies the JSP

pages4. JSP Pages

– Create the HTML5. HTTP Response

– Transmits HTML to the user

DSpace

Java Servlets

JSP Manager

HTTP Request

HTTP Response

JSP Pages

Editing The JSPs

The JSPs are stored in the DSpace source directory under the /jsp subdirectory

They can be edited by– Copying the .jsp file to be edited into the

/jsp/local subdirectory– Modifying it as needed

The changed JSP will override the one that came with the installation

Issues with the JSP DSpace Interface

JSP pages create the HTML directly, in most cases complete with the styling information

There is one JSP page for each DSpace page, so changes to all of DSpace require modification of most JSP’s

http://txspace.tamu.edu/

The XML based DSpace Interface

http://txspace.tamu.edu/dev-xml2/

DSpace XML UI is generated through an interaction between Java Servlets, XML Objects, XSLT styling language and Cascading Style Sheets– Java Servlets and XML Objects create an XML document

describing a DSpace page– XSLT transforms the XML into HTML– The HTML is rendered using styling rules provided by CSS

XML Based DSpace Interface (cont.)

The end result of JSP based UI is the HTML that will be sent to the browser

The end result of XML based UI is an XML document that contains all the information necessary to build a DSpace page, but none of the visual formatting

The themes are then used to convert the XML into HTML and apply styling rules to it

XML Based DSpace Interface (cont.)

1. HTTP Request– Tomcat identifies the Java servlet

2. Java Servlets– Processes form data– Determines flow control– Instantiates the XML Object

3. XML Manager– Creates the XML Document– Calls the XML Object

4. XML Object– Inserts content into the document

5. Theme Manager– Determines the theme– Applies the theme

6. HTTP Response– Outputs the resulting XML

document

DSpace

Java Servlets

XM

L O

bje

cts XML

Manager

ThemeManager

themes.xml

HTTP Request

HTTP Response

Modifying the DSpace XML UI

You do not edit the Java side of DSpace

Modifications are instead performed on the XSLT and CSS.

HTTP Response

XSLTTemplat

es

XMLDocume

nt

CSSRule

s

HTMLDocume

ntFinal

Output

The XMLXML, or eXtensible Markup Language, is a data storage format

The XML Document generated by the Java Servlets doesn’t do anything on its own

Since it serves as a base for a DSpace page, it is also the same between all themes– http://txspace.tamu.edu/dev-xml2/?theme=intro&XML

– http://txspace.tamu.edu/dev-xml2/?theme=sapphire&XML

– http://txspace.tamu.edu/dev-xml2/?theme=ruby&XML

– http://txspace.tamu.edu/dev-xml2/?theme=space&XML

page

meta optionsbody

trail

item

userAgent

browserVersion

browserType

user

contextPath

title search browse

actions

administrative

language

item

item

item

item

section

tabular

form

link

label label

para

help

emphasize

list

columns

emptyText

pagination

row

label

column

image

item

image

value

params

field

division

label

label

fieldGroup

pagination

*

* * *

λ

*

*

*

*

* * *

*

*

*

*

*

*

*

*

*

*

*

*

λ λ

λ

λ

λ

λ λ

1

1

1

1

1

1

11 1

1

11

1

1

context

item*

λ

0,1 0,1

0,1

0,1

DSpace XML UI Schema

Gray Language element 1 Must be one 0,1 May be one λ May be one group * None or many

Le

ge

nd

labelλ

cell

label

option*

firstName

id

email

logoutUrl

lastName

lang*

0,1

0,1 0,1

0,1

0,1

The XSL

XSL, or the eXtensible Stylesheet Language, is used to transform the XML data into HTML

It does so through template matching, which applies rules to and generates HTML for matching XML tags

A base library exists to convert XML into HTML that be used or extended by each theme

http://txspace.tamu.edu/dev-xml2/themes/

The CSS

The output of XSL transformations is HTML that can be output and rendered in a browser

It still, however, lacks any visual stylinghttp://txspace.tamu.edu/dev-xml2/?theme=space

Cascading Style Sheet rules can be applied to the HTML to render it graphicallyhttp://txspace.tamu.edu/dev-xml2/?theme=intro

http://txspace.tamu.edu/dev-xml2/themes/intro/main.css

Overall

Most of the visual changes are done in CSS

XSLT templates can also be overridden to make structural modifications

Finally, the theme manager can be configured to apply certain themes to specific DSpace components

HTTP Response

XSLTTemplat

es

XMLDocume

nt

CSSRule

s

HTMLDocume

ntFinal

Output

To recap…

All DSpace pages are boiled down to single XML formatThemes, which are combinations of a CSS style sheet and XSLT templates, convert the XML to styled HTMLDifferent themes can be applied to different subset of DSpacehttp://di.tamu.edu/dspace-xmlui/

References

XML Tutorialhttp://www.w3schools.com/xml/default.aspHTML Tutorialhttp://www.w3schools.com/html/default.aspCSS Tutorialhttp://www.w3schools.com/css/default.aspXSLT Tutorialhttp://www.w3schools.com/xsl/default.asp