Conventions’ PublicationsService & Web Prototype

Sasha Mazurov

20 May 2014

Objectives

1.Create a web service to access information on Conventions’ publications from M-Filesapplication

2.Develop a web application based on the service that display the provided information to public

M-Files

Distributed Windows file system that allows to store additional properties (metadata) with the corresponding file.

Properties: abstract, description, language, keywords, publication date, …

PublicationA set of M-File objects with the same Un-number property

• Each of this files differs by language and file format. Language specific properties are translated.

• This set have common properties. For example, keywords, programmes, chemicals.

Properties• Name or title (file name)• Title • Description – (short description in English) or Abstract/Summary• Language – value list• Programme/Subject Matter (related internal programme) – value list multi select• Corporate Author• Author(s)• Web Published• Chemical – value list multi select• Pages (number of)• PublicationDate-Year; PublicationDate-Month; PublicationDateDisplay• Publication Symbol (should contain ISBN or equivalent)• UN-number• Terms (equivalent of keywords) – value list multi select

Web serviceBased on OData standard which allows developers to read publication’s information and use it in other applications.

Architecture

M-FilesSynchronization Application

Database

Web ServiceWeb Application

Database schema

Generic properties solution: don’t need to change schema for adding new M-Files properties

Aggregates information from M-Files application and stores it in database

User configuration (App.config):

Connection String (path to database):<connectionStrings>

<add name="PublicationsContext" connectionString="Data Source=(LocalDB)\v11.0;AttachDbFilename=f:\sasha\ConventionsPublications\Sync\Data\Publications.mdf;Integrated Security=True;Connect Timeout=30" providerName="System.Data.SqlClient" />

</connectionStrings>

Configure what properties to store in database:<appSettings file="PrivateSettingsUnep.config">

<add key="MFilesView" value="Web publications" /><add key="PublicationProperties" value="Programme/Subject Matter;Chemical;Keyphrases"/><add key="LangPublicationProperties" value="Name or title;Title;Description;Author(s);Corporate Author;Pages (number

of);Publication Symbol;PublicationDateDisplay"/><add key="DefaultLanguage" value="English"/>

</appSettings>

Synchronization Application

Web application prototype

Issues

• Each Convention has separate set of properties. Usually the properties with the same meaning in different conventions has the same names (titles), but some of them not. For example: “Chemical”, “Chemicals”, “All chemical”; “Keywords”, “Keyphrases”. For convenience, these names should be unified in all conventions.

Summary• The following tools were developed

(https://github.com/mazurov/ConventionsPublications):• Generic database schema for storing information from

M-Files• Application for synchronizing M-Files and database• OData web service to read information from database• Prototype of the web application.

Next:Create a web application for the existing UNEP portal in collaboration with Zoi.net designer.