yitznewton / EmeraldView
EmeraldView is a lightweight front-end for the digital library software Greenstone. It is written in PHP, using the CodeIgniter application framework.
$ hg clone http://bitbucket.org/yitznewton/emeraldview/
Welcome to EmeraldView
EmeraldView is a lightweight front-end for the digital library software Greenstone. It is written in PHP, using the Kohana application framework. EmeraldView runs "on top" of the existing Greenstone installation, without changing its files or operation at all. One could run the standard Greenstone front-end and EmeraldView simultaneously. Conversely, either Greenstone or EmeraldView can be run independently of the other.
We would be overjoyed if you have any contributions or suggestions to share, particularly in design. You can reach our lead at yitzchak.schaffer@gmx.com
Why?
We are aiming to solve several key weaknesses of the stock front-end:
- Greenstone's cryptic URLs of unusual size are a fail for user comprehensibility, search engine crawlers, bookmarking, etc.; for example, to display a certain page of a certain collection:
http://greenstone.example.org/gsdl/cgi-bin/library?e=d-00000-00---off-0tidhar--00-2----0-10-0---0---0direct-10---4-------0-1l--10-en-50---20-about---00-3-1-00-0-0-01-1-0utfZz-8-00&a=d&c=tidhar&cl=CL1&d=HASH835d74745be9b88f5f6420 - Though extensive customization of the display is possible, there are some stopping points where modification and recompilation of the C++ source is required; this goes beyond the capabilities of the staff of many libraries who would be able to adjust PHP code like EmeraldView's.
- The customization that is supported is via a system of micro-templates referred to as ''macros.'' This system is so heavily nested and cross-referenced that it is quite difficult to conceptualize and modify how any given page is generated.
How?
EmeraldView provides a
- simply-defined
- framework-based
- object-oriented
- MVC-style approach to routing and content generation, and replaces "macros" with a theming approach familiar to modern web designers.
EmeraldView provides access via URLs such as:
- http://emeraldview.example.org/baseball/browse/title
- http://emeraldview.example.org/baseball/search?q=wade+boggs
- http://emeraldview.example.org/baseball/baseball-guide/32/4
Demo
We are working on restoring the demo and API documentation after our recent migration to BitBucket - please stay tuned.
Construction
Please excuse our appearance; we are in heavy development as well as in the midst of a migration from Trac.
More information
This revision is from 2009-12-29 20:55