Screen Shot

The default library displays its content in a tree hierarchy.

	Product name DocumentLibrary Description Builds complex document archives, featuring full-text search, Review-and-Submit workflow, Topic Index. Release Date 2001/10/30 Version DocumentLibrary 1.0b3 Overall Rating (all ratings are on scale of 1-5 with 5 sushi being the best) Usability Beside the product installation some external text converters need to be downloaded and installed. The product is easy to use however some time is needed to familiarize with the product's handling due to the its complexity. Software Design Created Libraries can be modified using DTML, Cascading Style Sheets and some Java Script. The built-in plugin structure allows to add support for additional text formats. Documentation Some text files. Detailed code comments. Mailing list. Usefulness Setting up a complex and working document archive is done in no time and it can be easily modified. Categories Content Management What's new Support for postscript files added. Size 59914 bytes Requirements Zope 2.3.2+ UNIX platforms, limited support for MS Windows wvware: www.wvware.com Xpdf: www.foolabs.com/xpdf xlHtml: www.xlhtml.org Prescript: www.nzdl.org/html/prescript.html URL DocumentLibrary or sourceforge.net License BSD Licence Creator Casey Duncan, Bill Schmidt from Kaivo www.kaivo.com Packaged as Python Product The package includes BTreeFolder 0.2.

Provides full-text search abilities.
The entire look-and-feel of created libraries can be modified easily.
Support for new text formats can be added.

Uploaded documents are stored in the ZODB. This might cause problems with huge amounts of data.


Description

One of Zope's many benefits is the variety of tools it provides to help you build powerful content management systems. However the expense to create a more sophisticated system might be immense and so there are some Zope products which try to ease the development process. DocumentLibrary helps you to create content management systems that deal with text-based content. The created libraries allow their users to browse through the documents, full-text search is provided, and there is even a submit-and-review-workflow.

DocumentLibrary is a Python product. The basic installation is plain and should work without any problems. The BTree Folder product which is used is installed automatically with the whole package. Yet you will have to take some time to install some external text converters which have to be downloaded from their corresponding websites. Moreover some security settings have to be done and the Path variable might need some modification. An included text file covers these issues in detail.

Whereas a document library instance is added all the necessary objects for a default library are created. This includes various DTML methods, a Document Store, which will include the library's content, a Vocabulary object and the Topic index, where the library's topics are organized.

A DocumentLibrary organizes its documents in a hierarchical topic structure. So the next step is to define the topic hierarchy. This is done via the Root Topic Index object, where the needed topics are added. A topic itself is a folderish object and can include subtopics. In this way brachiated structures can be produced. Another way to do that is to import an outlined topic structure from a text file. At this point the default document library is completely operational. Documents can be uploaded by those users who have been given the permission to do so. Submitted documents can be rejected or accepted. The library can be browsed and searched through. When a document is added it is indexed and thus can be searched.

A DocumentLibrary can be adapted without difficulty. So the DTML methods which form the library's interface can be edited; you have the possibility to use cascading style sheets to change the archive's design. The easiest way to do so would be to use the sample style sheet and to modify it. That will automatically affect the whole library. With an uploaded document, metadata is stored, such as information about the document's author or a short description. The metadata schema for all documents can be changed at once in modifying a central property sheet. You can define the document types which can be allowed to be uploaded as well as you can prohibit the upload of certain file types. Adding support for new file types is also quite simple due to the built-in plug in architecture. Inside the Zope installation's DocumentLibrary product folder there is a directory which contains one converter module for each supported file type. In these modules the name of the new file type needs to be defined and the convert() method needs to be implemented. Especially if there is a external text converter at your disposal this can be done without much effort. Unfortunately there is no stand-alone documentation which would provide detailed information on how to get used to DocumentLibrary and how to make use of all its features. But there is a README file which helps you getting started and there are comments included in the default DTML documents. Though you might be a little confused at the beginning you will get accustomed to the handling of DocumentLibrary quickly. Moreover there's a mailing list where you might take advantage of other DocumentLibrary users' experiences.

DocumentLibrary is a very useful product. Setting up a mature document library can be done in a minute. After that you will have a complete document archive at hand where users can browse its content, search for it and submit their own documents. With the use of DTML, some style sheets and Java Script the library can be adapted easily to meet your needs. If you are dealing with textual content and plan to present it via a web interface, do not hesitate and have a look at this product.