Proposal title

Date	2010/09/07
Contact(s)	Simon Pigot
Last edited
Status	in progress
Assigned to release	2.7.x
Resources	Available

Overview

Metadata Schemas (including profiles) should be pluggable in GeoNetwork. This means that a user/admin should be able to use a service to add a profile/schema to their existing GeoNetwork installation without having to make changes to Java code, xslts and javascript.

Proposal Type

• Type: Core Change
• App: GeoNetwork
• Module: Kernel, Data Manager

Links

• Documents:
• Email discussions:
• Other wiki discussions:

Voting History

• Not yet proposed.

---

Motivations

To add a schema to GeoNetwork a user currently has to:

• add the schema and ancillaries to web/geonetwork/xml/schemas directory
• add codelists and labels xml files to web/geonetwork/WEB-INF/config.xml
• add presentation xslts to web/geonetwork/xsl and import them into web/geonetwork/xsl/metadata-utils.xsl
• modify web/geonetwork/xsl/{metadata.xsl,metadata-utils.xsl} to switch on schema for full and brief mode processing
• add brief, summary and full presentation xslts to web/geonetwork/xml/csw/schemas
• add schema detection code to the autodetectSchema method in DataManager.java
• add namespaces used for elements to the tooltip javascript (web/geonetwork/scripts/editor/tooltip.js and web/geonetwork/scripts/editor/simpletooltip.js)
• schemas added to GeoNetwork exist inside the web application deployment making it more difficult to manage upgrades and new deployments of GeoNetwork

This is not only tedious but requires a fair bit of knowledge to ensure that the installation is not broken by inappropriate or incorrect changes. In some cases these changes are large enough that communities with national schemas/profiles will create their own branch of GeoNetwork to support their schema/profile. This should not be necessary.

Removing the need to make code changes and consolidating schema information will make adding a schema to GeoNetwork much easier. Having plug in schemas/profiles will also remove the need to create a code branch to support the schema/profile.

Proposal

Make the following changes:

• consolidate presentation xslts into the schema directory
• remove the need for switch on schema type in metadata.xsl and metadata-utils.xsl
• provide the ability to rewrite xslt imports using a URI resolver and oasis catalog file
• allow users to rewrite

Backwards Compatibility Issues

New libraries added

Explain which and why new libraries are required for that proposal ...

Risks

Participants

• List of participants and role (if necessary) in current GIP