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titleFor more information & diagrams

For a more detailed overview of XMLUI/Manakin, see the following resources:

The XMLUI (aka Manakin) is built on Apache Cocoon framework. The XMLUI uses Cocoon to provide a modular, extendable, tiered interface framework

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  1. A user visits an XMLUI page (by clicking a link or button, etc)
  2. That request begins in the root Cocoon sitemap.xmap (located at [xmlui]/sitemap.xmap). This is the main entry point for all requests
    1. Within that sitemap, various URL path matching takes place. If the request is to download a document, that document is returned immediately.
    2. However, in many cases, the request is for a page within the XMLUI. In this scenario, the root sitemap.xmap will load the [xmlui]/themes/themes.xmapfile, which controls all the Themes.
      1. The themes.xmap file will then load all "matching" themes which are configured in your [dspace]/config/xmlui.xconf file (see #Themes below).
      2. If more than one theme matches the current URL path, then the first match wins
      3. Once a matching theme is located, that theme's sitemap.xmapfile (located in its theme directory) is loaded and processed.
        1. The theme's sitemap.xmapis in charge of actually loading the theme's XSLT, CSS, etc. However, before it does that, you'll notice it makes a call to generate the DRI document for the current page as follows:

          Code Block
          <map:generate type="file" src="cocoon://DRI/{1}"/>


        2. This DRI call generates a brand new, internal Cocoon request. This request is then processed back in the root sitemap.xmap (remember how we said that this sitemap is the main entry point for all requests).
  3. Back in the root sitemap, the "DRI/**" call is matched. This causes the [xmlui]/aspects/aspects.xmapfile to be loaded. As the name suggests, this file obviously controls all the Aspects.
    1. The aspects.xmap file will then load all enabled Aspects which are configured in your [dspace]/config/xmlui.xconf file (see #Aspects below).
    2. Each aspect is loaded in the order that it appears. However, multiple aspects may be loaded for the same URL path. Remember, aspects can build upon each other (we call this an "aspect chain") as they work together to generate the final DRI document.
    3. When an Aspect is loaded, its sitemap.xmap is loaded & processed
      • NOTE: An aspect's sitemap.xmap is actually compiled into the dspace-xmlui-api.jar file. However, if you have a copy of DSpace source handy, it can be found in: [dspace-src]/dspace-xmlui/dspace-xmlui-api/src/main/resources/aspects/[name-of-aspect]/
    4. Each aspect is processed one-by-one (again in the order they are listed in xmlui.xconf). Each aspect may add, remove or change content within the DRI document. After the final aspect is finished processing, the DRI document is complete.
      • HINT: In the XMLUI you can always view the final DRI document by adding "?XML" or "&XML" on to the end of the current URL in your web browser. See more instructions for debugging in Manakin theme tutorial.
  4. Once the final DRI document is complete (all aspects are done processing), the flow will return back to your Theme's sitemap.xmap (remember, this is the same location that triggered the loading of the Aspects in the first place).
  5. At this point, your Theme's sitemap.xmap will continue its processing. Generally speaking, most themes will then perform one or more XSLT transformations (to transform the final DRI document into XHTML). They also may load up one or more CSS files to help stylize the final XHTML.
  6. Finally, once the Theme has completed its processing (remember, only one theme is ever processed for a single request), the final generated XHTML document is displayed to the user.

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In an effort to save the programmer/administrator some time, the configuration table below is taken from 5.3.43. XMLUI Specific Configuration.

Property:

xmlui.supportedLocales

Example Value:

xmlui.supportedLocales = en, de

Informational Note:

A list of supported locales for Manakin. Manakin will look at a user's browser configuration for the first language that appears in this list to make available to in the interface. This parameter is a comma separated list of Locales. All types of Locales country, country_language, country_language_variant. Note that if the appropriate files are not present (i.e. Messages_XX_XX.xml) then Manakin will fall back through to a more general language.

Property:

xmlui.force.ssl

Example Value:

xmlui.force.ssl = true

Informational Note:

Force all authenticated connections to use SSL, only non-authenticated connections are allowed over plain http. If set to true, then you need to ensure that the 'dspace.hostname' parameter is set to the correctly.

Property:

xmlui.user.registration

Example Value:

xmlui.user.registration = true

Informational Note:

Determine if new users should be allowed to register. This parameter is useful in conjunction with Shibboleth where you want to disallow registration because Shibboleth will automatically register the user. Default value is true.

Property:

xmlui.user.editmetadata

Example Value:

xmlui.user.editmetadata = true

Informational Note:

Determines if users should be able to edit their own metadata. This parameter is useful in conjunction with Shibboleth where you want to disable the user's ability to edit their metadata because it came from Shibboleth. Default value is true.

Property:

webui.user.assumelogin

Example Value:

webui.user.assumelogin = true

Informational Note:

Determine if super administrators (those

whom

who are in the

Administrators

Administrator group) can login as another user from the "edit eperson" page. This is useful for debugging problems in a running dspace instance, especially in the workflow process. The default value is false, i.e., no one may assume the login of another user.

Property:

xmlui.user.loginredirect

Example Value:

xmlui.user.loginredirect = /profile

Informational Note:

After a user has logged into the system, which url should they be directed? Leave this parameter blank or undefined to direct users to the homepage, or /profile for the user's profile, or another reasonable choice is /submissions to see if the user has any tasks awaiting their attention. The default is the repository home page.

Property:

xmlui.theme.allowoverrides

Example Value:

xmlui.theme.allowoverrides = false

Informational Note:

Allow the user to override which theme is used to display a particular page. When submitting a request add the HTTP parameter "themepath" which corresponds to a particular theme, that specified theme will be used instead of the any other configured theme. Note that this is a potential security hole allowing execution of unintended code on the server, this option is only for development and debugging it should be turned off for any production repository. The default value unless otherwise specified is "false".

Property:

xmlui.bundle.upload

Example Value:

xmlui.bundle.upload = ORIGINAL, METADATA, THUMBNAIL, LICENSE, CC_LICENSE

Informational Note:

Determine which bundles administrators and collection administrators may upload into an existing item through the administrative interface. If the user does not have the appropriate privileges (add and write) on the bundle then that bundle will not be shown to the user as an option.

Property:

xmlui.community-list.render.full

Example Value:

xmlui.community-list.render.full = true

Informational Note:

On the community-list page should all the metadata about a community/collection be available to the theme. This parameter defaults to true, but if you are experiencing performance problems on the community-list page you should experiment with turning this option off.

Property:

xmlui.community-list.cache

Example Value:

xmlui.community-list.cache = 12 hours

Informational Note:

Normally, Manakin will fully verify any cache pages before using a cache copy. This means that when the community-list page is viewed the database is queried for each community/collection to see if their metadata has been modified. This can be expensive for repositories with a large community tree. To help solve this problem you can set the cache to be assumed valued for a specific set of time. The downside of this is that new or editing communities/collections may not show up the website for a period of time.

Property:

xmlui.bistream.mods

Example Value:

xmlui.bistream.mods = true

Informational Note:

Optionally, you may configure Manakin to take advantage of metadata stored as a bitstream. The MODS metadata file must be inside the "METADATA" bundle and named MODS.xml. If this option is set to 'true' and the bitstream is present then it is made available to the theme for display.

Property:

xmlui.bitstream.mets

Example Value:

xmlui.bitstream.mets = true

Informational Note:

Optionally, you may configure Manakin to take advantage of metadata stored as a bitstream. The METS metadata file must be inside the "METADATA" bundle and named METS.xml. If this option is set to "true" and the bitstream is present then it is made available to the theme for display.

Property:

xmlui.google.analytics.key

Example Value:

xmlui.google.analytics.key = UA-XXXXXX-X

Informational Note:

If you would like to use google analytics to track general website statistics then use the following parameter to provide your analytics key. First sign up for an account at http://analytics.google.com, then create an entry for your repositories website. Google Analytics will give you a snipit of javascript code to place on your site, inside that snip it is your Google Analytics key usually found in the line: _uacct = "UA-XXXXXXX-X" Take this key (just the UA-XXXXXX-X part) and place it here in this parameter.

Property:

xmlui.controlpanel.activity.max

Example Value:

xmlui.controlpanel.activity.max = 250

Informational Note:

Assign how many page views will be recorded and displayed in the control panel's activity viewer. The activity tab allows an administrator to debug problems in a running DSpace by understanding who and how their DSpace is currently being used. The default value is 250.

Property:

xmlui.controlpanel.activity.ipheader

Example Value:

xmlui.controlpanel.activity.ipheader = X-Forward-For

Informational Note:

Determine where the control panel's activity viewer receives an events IP address from. If your DSpace is in a load balanced environment or otherwise behind a context-switch then you will need to set the parameter to the HTTP parameter that records the original IP address.

Configuring Themes and Aspects

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For more information about the [dspace-source]/dspace/modules/ directory, and how it may be used to "overlay" (or customize) the default XMLUI interface, classes and files, please see: Advanced Customisation

MathJax Support

The Mirage and Mirage 2 themes of the XMLUI user interface support rendering of math formulae via the inclusion of the MathJax JavaScript library. This feature was added to DSpace 5 with DS-635, and from version 5 through version 6.2 a single dollar sign ($...$) was the configured delimiter for math formulae. With DS-3087, the default delimiters ( $$...$$ and \[...\] for displayed mathematics, and \(...\) for in-line mathematics) of MathJax are used–this is true for DSpace versions 6.3 and higher. For more help with using MathJax, see the MathJax documentation.

Creating a New Theme

Manakin themes stylize the look-and-feel of the repository, community, or collection and are distributed as self-contained packages. A Manakin/DSpace installation may have multiple themes installed and available to be used in different parts of the repository. The central component of a theme is the sitemap.xmap, which defines what resources are available to the theme such as XSL stylesheets, CSS stylesheets, images, or multimedia files.
1) Create theme skeleton
Most theme developers do not create a new theme from scratch; instead they start from the standard theme template, which defines a skeleton structure for a theme. The template is located at: [dspace-source]/dspace-xmlui/dspace-xmlui-webbapp/src/main/webbapp/themes/template. To start your new theme simply copy the theme template into your locally defined modules directory, [dspace-source]/dspace/modules/xmlui/src/main/webbapp/themes/[your theme's directory]/.
2) Modify theme variables
The next step is to modify the theme's parameters so that the theme knows where it is located. Open the [your theme's directory]/sitemap.xmap and look for <global-variables>

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