tm4j-users — Forum for users of the TM4J API or apps developed by this project.

Re: [TM4J-users] TM4J project web site & XTM (was RE: new member)

[Florian H. <f.g...@gm...>]

Hello again!

[Kal]
> After all, the (IMHO) best servlet container is Tomcat, and thats open 
> source... I would be interested to see how far an XSLT-only implementation
> could get. I know that at least one consultant has successfully used XSLT 
> as a means of publishing topic maps.

Which company was this?

[Kal]
> Apart from the ability to swap stylesheets, what other advantages does 
> Cocoon offer ? Can anyone summarize them for us ?

Not that this is anywhere near a decent *summary*, but there's a few things
I've noticed in Cocoon which don't seem to be implemented as nicely in
Velocity. Nonetheless I wouldn't say I were an expert at either, mind you.

* Better XSLFO support: wouldn't it be awesome to be able to browse, say,
the TM4J dev guide, in XHTML, on-line and at the same time have a PDF version
of same available at one click, all of which is generated from a single XTM
source tree?

* Nice built-in caching of XSLT output.

* No nitty-gritty special scripting language, just pure Java and XML for
Markup nerds like me. OK, I admit that last comment wasn't quite useful. :-)

Gerd, good to hear from you on the list! It's been way too quiet without
you. :-)

-- Florian





-- 
GMX - Die Kommunikationsplattform im Internet.
http://www.gmx.net

Re: [TM4J-users] TM4J project web site & XTM (was RE: new member)

[Gerd M. <Ger...@sm...>]

> At 10:09 AM 11/22/2001 +0100, Gerd Mueller wrote:
> >I've already built a simple TopicMap navigation tool
> >with TM4J on top of Cocoon.
> 
> I like Cocoon.  Gerd, can you say any more about the simple TM navigation 
> tool you built for Cocoon?  I'd like to see it.

Unfortunatly this is not possible right now since it doesn't work.
There some problems with the latest Cocoon version. But it is not
very sophisticated. The entry point is a list of all topics. If
you click on a topic you get an overview of it with all its names,
sub topics, parent topics, and the associations where it plays
a role. A similar page shows an overview of an association. So,
this tool presents the topicmap from a more technical point of view.

If I have the time I'll make it running again and provide an online
demo.

Best Regards,
Gerd

--
________________________________________________________________
Gerd Mueller                                    ge...@sm...     
SMB GmbH                                  http://www.smb-tec.com

Re: [TM4J-users] TM4J project web site & XTM (was RE: new member)

[Jack P. <jac...@th...>]

At 10:09 AM 11/22/2001 +0100, Gerd Mueller wrote:
>I've already built a simple TopicMap navigation tool
>with TM4J on top of Cocoon.

I like Cocoon.  Gerd, can you say any more about the simple TM navigation 
tool you built for Cocoon?  I'd like to see it.

Cheers
Jack

Re: [TM4J-users] TM4J project web site & XTM (was RE: new member)

[Gerd M. <Ger...@sm...>]

> > > [Kal]
> > > > There are lots of options here:
> > > >
> > > > XSLT only - good for static websites. May be restricted in functionality
> > > > JSP only  -  good for dynamic websites. Full access to API functionality
> > > > but requires Java coding skills
> > > > JSP with XSLT - good for dynamic websites Full access to API. Styling
> > > > could
> > > > be provided through XSLT without requiring Java coding.
> > > > JSP with Velocity - good for dynamic and static websistes. Potentially
> > > > full
> > > > access to API (may require an interface layer between the Java API and
> > > > Velocity - though that should be quite thin). Site developers can work
> > > > without needing to know any Java - although some functionality might
> > > > require quite a lot of scripting
> > > > JSP with Velocity and XSLT - Dynamic and static websites. Site 
> > developers
> > > > don't need to know any Java. Velocity could be used to generate XML 
> > which
> > > > is styled with XSLT.
> > > > [...]
> > >
> > > Let me just pitch in one quick thought, as I'm really tired tonight and
> > > ought to get some sleep: what about Cocoon?
> >
> >+1 from me. I've already built a simple TopicMap navigation tool
> >with TM4J on top of Cocoon. But to be honest, I don't know Velocity
> >very good, so I'm not sure about the pro's and con's. What I don't
> >like on JSP is the concept of writing Java Code in my HTML site.
> >Also, does it always need to be HTML when I use JSP ? Or is it also
> >possible to use XML ? I wouldn't like to be fixed on HTML. The
> >XML/XSLT approach it much flexible. E.g. we could print all the
> >stuff to PDF which is no problem with Cocoon.
> 
> Cocoon would be interesting to look at. I followed it in its early releases 
> but gave up when Cocoon 2 started to look Too Hard (tm ;-) Perhaps it is 
> time to face that fear and revisit it. Cocoon's flexible styling would 
> defn. be an advantage. However, if we are talking about large maps held in 
> a backend such as Ozone, it would be impractical to run the XTM 
> representation of the whole map through Cocoon each time we want to deliver 
> a single page, so we need some method to serialize fragments of the topic 
> map. JSP can provide that mechanism (it isn't limited to HTML) - in fact 
> you can use the XSL document() function to invoke a JSP which generates the 
> XML input to the XSLT processing...thats quite cool ;-)
> 
> Apart from the ability to swap stylesheets, what other advantages does 
> Cocoon offer ? Can anyone summarize them for us ?

Cocoon2 offers a complete Web-Application runtime environment. You
can intergrate various datasources, such as SQL databases, handle
formular requests and it is extentable. Also I like the stream
based concept. The data is piped via SAX events through various
stages:

                      generator (database, etc.)
                         |
                        \|/
                  +-> transformer (XSL or something hardcoded)
                  |      |
                  +------+
                        \|/
                      serializer (HTML, PDF, etc.)

All this is defined in a sitemap. The only thing that isn't 
supported yet very well is some kind of page flow definition,
i.e. which page follows after a certain formular submit and
things like that. I like Cocoon, but I'm also open to learn 
something new like Velocity.

Best Regards,
Gerd

--
________________________________________________________________
Gerd Mueller                                    ge...@sm...     
SMB GmbH                                  http://www.smb-tec.com

Re: [TM4J-users] TM4J project web site & XTM

[Niko S. <ni...@on...>]

On Thursday 22 November 2001 10:09, Gerd Mueller wrote:
> [...] What I don't like on JSP is the concept of writing Java Code in my 
> HTML site. [...]

Just to let you know, that this was on of our major design goals to have 
codefree HTML/XML pages when we designed the Navigator Framework 2nd 
Generation (which is used by Ontopia's Omnigator V). This is why we have 
chosen the Custom Tag Library aproach which allows also non programmers to 
participate in the Web App development. With this it's very easy (and just a 
few lines of XML statements) to retrieve information from your topicmap, 
process and present it (our custom tags are not allowed to produce any HTML)
meaning to embed it into whatever you like (HTML/XML/Plain) kind of velocity 
text generation tool, we have also written an environment for evaluating the 
pages outside a web container (for example from the command line).

> Also, does it always need to be HTML when I use JSP ? Or is it
> also possible to use XML ? I wouldn't like to be fixed on HTML. 

You are not bound a specific content type with JSP. So it is absolutely no 
problem to generate XML (for example we have built a WAP version of the 
Omnigator which renders WML).

Greetings,
Niko

Re: [TM4J-users] TM4J project web site & XTM (was RE: new member)

[Kal A. <ka...@te...>]

At 10:09 22/11/2001 +0100, Gerd Mueller wrote:
>On Wed, 21 Nov 2001 23:25:34 +0100 (MET)
>Florian Haas <f.g...@gm...> wrote:
>
> > [Kal]
> > > There are lots of options here:
> > >
> > > XSLT only - good for static websites. May be restricted in functionality
> > > JSP only  -  good for dynamic websites. Full access to API functionality
> > > but requires Java coding skills
> > > JSP with XSLT - good for dynamic websites Full access to API. Styling
> > > could
> > > be provided through XSLT without requiring Java coding.
> > > JSP with Velocity - good for dynamic and static websistes. Potentially
> > > full
> > > access to API (may require an interface layer between the Java API and
> > > Velocity - though that should be quite thin). Site developers can work
> > > without needing to know any Java - although some functionality might
> > > require quite a lot of scripting
> > > JSP with Velocity and XSLT - Dynamic and static websites. Site 
> developers
> > > don't need to know any Java. Velocity could be used to generate XML 
> which
> > > is styled with XSLT.
> > > [...]
> >
> > Let me just pitch in one quick thought, as I'm really tired tonight and
> > ought to get some sleep: what about Cocoon?
>
>+1 from me. I've already built a simple TopicMap navigation tool
>with TM4J on top of Cocoon. But to be honest, I don't know Velocity
>very good, so I'm not sure about the pro's and con's. What I don't
>like on JSP is the concept of writing Java Code in my HTML site.
>Also, does it always need to be HTML when I use JSP ? Or is it also
>possible to use XML ? I wouldn't like to be fixed on HTML. The
>XML/XSLT approach it much flexible. E.g. we could print all the
>stuff to PDF which is no problem with Cocoon.

Cocoon would be interesting to look at. I followed it in its early releases 
but gave up when Cocoon 2 started to look Too Hard (tm ;-) Perhaps it is 
time to face that fear and revisit it. Cocoon's flexible styling would 
defn. be an advantage. However, if we are talking about large maps held in 
a backend such as Ozone, it would be impractical to run the XTM 
representation of the whole map through Cocoon each time we want to deliver 
a single page, so we need some method to serialize fragments of the topic 
map. JSP can provide that mechanism (it isn't limited to HTML) - in fact 
you can use the XSL document() function to invoke a JSP which generates the 
XML input to the XSLT processing...thats quite cool ;-)

Apart from the ability to swap stylesheets, what other advantages does 
Cocoon offer ? Can anyone summarize them for us ?

Cheers,

Kal

Re: [TM4J-users] TM4J project web site & XTM (was RE: new member)

[Gerd M. <Ger...@sm...>]

On Wed, 21 Nov 2001 23:25:34 +0100 (MET)
Florian Haas <f.g...@gm...> wrote:

> [Kal]
> > There are lots of options here:
> > 
> > XSLT only - good for static websites. May be restricted in functionality
> > JSP only  -  good for dynamic websites. Full access to API functionality 
> > but requires Java coding skills
> > JSP with XSLT - good for dynamic websites Full access to API. Styling
> > could 
> > be provided through XSLT without requiring Java coding.
> > JSP with Velocity - good for dynamic and static websistes. Potentially
> > full 
> > access to API (may require an interface layer between the Java API and 
> > Velocity - though that should be quite thin). Site developers can work 
> > without needing to know any Java - although some functionality might 
> > require quite a lot of scripting
> > JSP with Velocity and XSLT - Dynamic and static websites. Site developers 
> > don't need to know any Java. Velocity could be used to generate XML which 
> > is styled with XSLT.
> > [...]
> 
> Let me just pitch in one quick thought, as I'm really tired tonight and
> ought to get some sleep: what about Cocoon?

+1 from me. I've already built a simple TopicMap navigation tool
with TM4J on top of Cocoon. But to be honest, I don't know Velocity
very good, so I'm not sure about the pro's and con's. What I don't
like on JSP is the concept of writing Java Code in my HTML site.
Also, does it always need to be HTML when I use JSP ? Or is it also
possible to use XML ? I wouldn't like to be fixed on HTML. The
XML/XSLT approach it much flexible. E.g. we could print all the
stuff to PDF which is no problem with Cocoon.

Best Regards,
Gerd

--
________________________________________________________________
Gerd Mueller                                    ge...@sm...     
SMB GmbH                                  http://www.smb-tec.com

Re: [TM4J-users] TM4J project web site & XTM (was RE: new member)

[Florian H. <f.g...@gm...>]

[Kal]
> There are lots of options here:
> 
> XSLT only - good for static websites. May be restricted in functionality
> JSP only  -  good for dynamic websites. Full access to API functionality 
> but requires Java coding skills
> JSP with XSLT - good for dynamic websites Full access to API. Styling
> could 
> be provided through XSLT without requiring Java coding.
> JSP with Velocity - good for dynamic and static websistes. Potentially
> full 
> access to API (may require an interface layer between the Java API and 
> Velocity - though that should be quite thin). Site developers can work 
> without needing to know any Java - although some functionality might 
> require quite a lot of scripting
> JSP with Velocity and XSLT - Dynamic and static websites. Site developers 
> don't need to know any Java. Velocity could be used to generate XML which 
> is styled with XSLT.
> [...]

Let me just pitch in one quick thought, as I'm really tired tonight and
ought to get some sleep: what about Cocoon?

More tomorrow. |-)

-- Florian

-- 
GMX - Die Kommunikationsplattform im Internet.
http://www.gmx.net

Re: [TM4J-users] TM4J project web site & XTM (was RE: new member)

[Kal A. <ka...@te...>]

At 14:21 21/11/2001 +0100, Florian Haas wrote:
>[me]
> > >Actually generating the site from XTM exclusively is, I think, beyond our
> > >possibilities at the moment. For now, we don't even have a set of XSLT
> > >stylesheets we can use in order to transform everything into HTML. Thomas
> > >and I are thinking about taking care of that eventually, but for now we
> > have
> > >to acknowledge that what we've got is quite little. Unless of course you,
> > >Kal, talk to your friends at Ontopia and they give away the Omnigator for
> > >free! :-)
>
>[Kal]
> > That would be an idea - though we would need somewhere to host it too -
> > Sourceforge don't support JSP on their hosts :-( As we reach the point of
> > needing a dynamically generated site from XTM, it would be nice to do it
> > with TM4J tools anyway - and I think that within that time frame some
> > alternative hosting solution may come up...Especially if my consulting
> > takes off ;-)
>
>Actually, the thing about using Omnigator was supposed to be a joke on my
>part. :-) Not that I don't like it -- in fact I love it and I think the
>Ontopians have put together an awesome piece of work -- but there are two main
>reasons why I don't think it would be too good an idea to use it for the 
>TM4J web
>site. Feel free to correct me if any of these happen to be based on false
>assumptions.
>
>1. TM4J is free, Omnigator isn't.
>2. Omnigator is JSP-centered, rather than XSLT-centered.
>
>While the latter isn't a problem in and of itself, I do believe it would be
>a good idea to keep TM4J as deeply rooted in standards or de facto standards
>as possible. We already use Xerces, Jakarta-regexp, Xalan etc. ... wouldn't
>it be a better idea to use XSLT (which is a W3C recommendation), XHTML (which
>is a W3C recommendation), and XTM (which should be a W3C recommendation :-) )
>along with the corresponding Apache project packages, which everyone uses,
>rather than using a from-scratch JSP implementation? I think the former is
>more in line with the open-source nature of TM4J.

Firstly, thanks for raising this Florian. This is definitely a discussion 
worth having!

I don't think that using JSP is necessarily against open-source principals. 
After all, the (IMHO) best servlet container is Tomcat, and thats open 
source... I would be interested to see how far an XSLT-only implementation 
could get. I know that at least one consultant has successfully used XSLT 
as a means of publishing topic maps. Perhaps we should look at developing 
some basic stylesheets with useful "utility" templates (e.g. templates to 
extract names from topics or to determine if a topic is of a particular 
type or class).

But I also know that Ontopia use JSP because it gives more flexibility - at 
the expense of requiring Java code. Perhaps there is a 'middle way' here - 
and that was one of my reasons for looking at Velocity - which gives a 
scripting language with tight integration to Java code - so the TM4J 
offering could be the script components that allows people to quickly build 
websites from XTM files.

There are lots of options here:

XSLT only - good for static websites. May be restricted in functionality
JSP only  -  good for dynamic websites. Full access to API functionality 
but requires Java coding skills
JSP with XSLT - good for dynamic websites Full access to API. Styling could 
be provided through XSLT without requiring Java coding.
JSP with Velocity - good for dynamic and static websistes. Potentially full 
access to API (may require an interface layer between the Java API and 
Velocity - though that should be quite thin). Site developers can work 
without needing to know any Java - although some functionality might 
require quite a lot of scripting
JSP with Velocity and XSLT - Dynamic and static websites. Site developers 
don't need to know any Java. Velocity could be used to generate XML which 
is styled with XSLT.

I like the last of these options best because it divides responsibility 3 ways:

1) Java coder - provides library functions for complex operations which are 
then exposed as simple scripting functions
2) Site content coder - generates XML documents using parameters received 
from the web request. This is all done in Velocity scripting language
3) Site designer - creates XSLT stylesheets to render the XML documents as 
(X)HTML with or without CSS.

Best of all, all of this can be built with open-source software and all we 
are really missing from this jigsaw is the Velocity integration!

Comments welcome!

Cheers,

Kal

Re: [TM4J-users] TM4J project web site & XTM (was RE: new member)

[Florian H. <f.g...@gm...>]

[me]
> >Actually generating the site from XTM exclusively is, I think, beyond our
> >possibilities at the moment. For now, we don't even have a set of XSLT
> >stylesheets we can use in order to transform everything into HTML. Thomas
> >and I are thinking about taking care of that eventually, but for now we
> have
> >to acknowledge that what we've got is quite little. Unless of course you,
> >Kal, talk to your friends at Ontopia and they give away the Omnigator for
> >free! :-)

[Kal]
> That would be an idea - though we would need somewhere to host it too - 
> Sourceforge don't support JSP on their hosts :-( As we reach the point of 
> needing a dynamically generated site from XTM, it would be nice to do it 
> with TM4J tools anyway - and I think that within that time frame some 
> alternative hosting solution may come up...Especially if my consulting 
> takes off ;-)

Actually, the thing about using Omnigator was supposed to be a joke on my
part. :-) Not that I don't like it -- in fact I love it and I think the
Ontopians have put together an awesome piece of work -- but there are two main
reasons why I don't think it would be too good an idea to use it for the TM4J web
site. Feel free to correct me if any of these happen to be based on false
assumptions.

1. TM4J is free, Omnigator isn't.
2. Omnigator is JSP-centered, rather than XSLT-centered.

While the latter isn't a problem in and of itself, I do believe it would be
a good idea to keep TM4J as deeply rooted in standards or de facto standards
as possible. We already use Xerces, Jakarta-regexp, Xalan etc. ... wouldn't
it be a better idea to use XSLT (which is a W3C recommendation), XHTML (which
is a W3C recommendation), and XTM (which should be a W3C recommendation :-) )
along with the corresponding Apache project packages, which everyone uses,
rather than using a from-scratch JSP implementation? I think the former is
more in line with the open-source nature of TM4J.

Comments? Thoughts? Flames? :-)
-- Florian

-- 
GMX - Die Kommunikationsplattform im Internet.
http://www.gmx.net

Re: [TM4J-users] TM4J project web site & XTM (was RE: new member)

[Kal A. <ka...@te...>]

At 10:10 21/11/2001 +0100, Florian wrote:
>Hello.
>
>[Kal]
>| In terms of the website. I would really like the website to be designed
>| with the concepts of topic maps in mind. I think it would be
>| great to make
>| use of topic maps to generate the site - even if it is initially static
>| HTML pages, it would be good if the sources for those pages are linked
>| together not only with normal <href> links, but also are
>| organised within a
>| topic map which could then be used to automatically insert extra
>| navigation
>| links into the HTML. However, that is getting a little to advanced too
>| quickly.
>
>Agreed. :-) I have suggested similar ideas to Thomas, and as far as I recall
>I also once had a conversation with you about eventually using XTM as
>something like a CMS for the web site, and bringing everything alive with
>Tomcat, Velocity etc.

That should definitely be the long-term goal. I had also thought that in 
the medium-term, Velocity could be used because (as I understand it) it can 
also be used for scripted generation of static HTML sites (by running it in 
a 'batch' mode). However, I do agree with you about the short term goal 
being to improve the design and content of the existing site. "First we 
crawl....then we crawl on broken glass" (lovely quote from "Effective STL" ;-)

>Nonetheless, I think what we need on the site for now is some useful
>information about the project at hand, what its goals and who the people
>involved are, and all that preferably in some sort of half-way spiffy
>design. What might be a good starting point is the documentation already
>available (dev guide etc.) -- I guess reinventing the wheel is always a bad
>idea.

Yep. I think these are the pieces that we need (some of which we already 
have, although most will need updating for the next release):

Download, Build & Installation - should be fairly short, step-by-step 
guide, listing requirements and installation procedure as well as links to 
software on Sourceforge and CVS tree for the brave.

Developer's Guide - similar to the existing guide. I think the things to 
concentrate on are the "non-topic-map" parts of the toolkit. Things like 
the tm4j.net and tm4j.topicmap.utils packages (loading and saving) as well 
as TopicMapFactory, TopicMapProvider, and TopicMapProviderFactory.

Command-line App Documentation - we only have a couple of command-line apps 
in the distribution at the moment, but it would be good to develop a 
template for documenting such applications.

FAQ
         TM4J FAQ
         Topicmap FAQ (or a link to one)
         Topicmap Deesign FAQ (or a link to one)

Project Information -
         who does what
         To do list
         Plans for 0.6
         Links to related projects (e.g. other projects using TM4J or other 
topic-map related opensource projects)
         Links to TMAPI.

>Actually generating the site from XTM exclusively is, I think, beyond our
>possibilities at the moment. For now, we don't even have a set of XSLT
>stylesheets we can use in order to transform everything into HTML. Thomas
>and I are thinking about taking care of that eventually, but for now we have
>to acknowledge that what we've got is quite little. Unless of course you,
>Kal, talk to your friends at Ontopia and they give away the Omnigator for
>free! :-)

That would be an idea - though we would need somewhere to host it too - 
Sourceforge don't support JSP on their hosts :-( As we reach the point of 
needing a dynamically generated site from XTM, it would be nice to do it 
with TM4J tools anyway - and I think that within that time frame some 
alternative hosting solution may come up...Especially if my consulting 
takes off ;-)


>So, perhaps it would be best if we concentrated on a standard-issue, static
>HTML site for now, and take a more relaxed approach for developing The TM4J
>Topic  Map (which we certainly need, but not just as a basis for a project
>web site). The brainstorm idea is great for that. How about if we set aside
>a directory in the CVS tree for that purpose? I guess it would make more
>sense to actually present one's views and ideas as Topic Maps, rather than
>having to use prose and e-mail.

That's a really good idea! I'll create a "sandbox" project in CVS that we 
can play in. Anyone who wants to post ideas who does not have CVS access 
should feel free to email them to me and I can upload them.

>And by the way, is this thread really where it's supposed to be? :-) I think
>that since we are discussing things pertaining primarily to development
>issues (OK, not Java code, but things that, for the most part, concern the
>project developers), wouldn't it be a better idea to move this over to
>tm4j-developers?

I debated that (with myself ;-) and thought that it might be nice to hear 
from any lurkers on this list as to what kinds of information you would 
like to see on the site. Otherwise we end up with "what the developers want 
to say" rather than "what the users want to know". So, lurkers, speak up!

Cheers,

Kal

[TM4J-users] TM4J project web site & XTM (was RE: new member)

[Florian G. H. <f.g...@gm...>]

Hello.

[Kal]
| In terms of the website. I would really like the website to be designed
| with the concepts of topic maps in mind. I think it would be
| great to make
| use of topic maps to generate the site - even if it is initially static
| HTML pages, it would be good if the sources for those pages are linked
| together not only with normal <href> links, but also are
| organised within a
| topic map which could then be used to automatically insert extra
| navigation
| links into the HTML. However, that is getting a little to advanced too
| quickly.

Agreed. :-) I have suggested similar ideas to Thomas, and as far as I recall
I also once had a conversation with you about eventually using XTM as
something like a CMS for the web site, and bringing everything alive with
Tomcat, Velocity etc.

Nonetheless, I think what we need on the site for now is some useful
information about the project at hand, what its goals and who the people
involved are, and all that preferably in some sort of half-way spiffy
design. What might be a good starting point is the documentation already
available (dev guide etc.) -- I guess reinventing the wheel is always a bad
idea.

Actually generating the site from XTM exclusively is, I think, beyond our
possibilities at the moment. For now, we don't even have a set of XSLT
stylesheets we can use in order to transform everything into HTML. Thomas
and I are thinking about taking care of that eventually, but for now we have
to acknowledge that what we've got is quite little. Unless of course you,
Kal, talk to your friends at Ontopia and they give away the Omnigator for
free! :-)

So, perhaps it would be best if we concentrated on a standard-issue, static
HTML site for now, and take a more relaxed approach for developing The TM4J
Topic  Map (which we certainly need, but not just as a basis for a project
web site). The brainstorm idea is great for that. How about if we set aside
a directory in the CVS tree for that purpose? I guess it would make more
sense to actually present one's views and ideas as Topic Maps, rather than
having to use prose and e-mail.

And by the way, is this thread really where it's supposed to be? :-) I think
that since we are discussing things pertaining primarily to development
issues (OK, not Java code, but things that, for the most part, concern the
project developers), wouldn't it be a better idea to move this over to
tm4j-developers?

So much for my thoughts for the moment. :-)
-- Florian

[TM4J-users] Re: new member

[Kal A. <ka...@te...>]

Hi Thomas,

Firstly, about the project. The eventual goal of the project is to develop=
=20
a complete set of tools for creating, updating, storing and publishing=20
topic maps in a variety of forms. The core of this project is the TM4J=20
engine and programming library. We also currently have storage mechanisms=20
based on the DOM, and on an open-source XML database, Ozone. These are=20
"back-ends" for TM4J (the default "back-end" is to store all of the topic=20
map in memory as a set of Java objects). TM4J also includes a number of=20
"front-end" applications - a few simple command-line applications, and a=20
"Navigator" application which uses TheBrain (www.thebrain.com) to display a=
=20
topic map. Unfortunately, the Java library required to develop applications=
=20
using TheBrain is no longer freely available, so that will have to be=20
replaced at some point soon.

In terms of the website. I would really like the website to be designed=20
with the concepts of topic maps in mind. I think it would be great to make=
=20
use of topic maps to generate the site - even if it is initially static=20
HTML pages, it would be good if the sources for those pages are linked=20
together not only with normal <href> links, but also are organised within a=
=20
topic map which could then be used to automatically insert extra navigation=
=20
links into the HTML. However, that is getting a little to advanced too=20
quickly. The first thing to do is to try and think about the contents of=20
the site in terms of the kinds of topics that will be presented and what=20
relationships they have.

I find that the best way to work this out as a group is to "brainstorm".=20
Just generate a list of topics, or types of topics, the information related=
=20
to those topics (occurrences) and types of relationships that might occur=20
on the site. Then we can narrow it down and try to build a topic map from=20
that. Then we can develop sources that reflect that topic map. That way we=
=20
will be in a good position to integrate the topic map at a later stage. For=
=20
that reason, I'm copying this to the TM4J users list to throw the debate=20
open wider. The more ideas we get, the better!

Here are my initial topics (I have put examples in brackets):

Project Participant (Thomas Bauer, Florian Haas)
Release (0.5.0, 0.6.0)
Project (TM4J)
Backend (memory, ozone, DOM)
Application (TMNav, command line apps)
Third Party Library (Xerces, JUnit, Ozone)

Some initial occurrences (with the topics which they would be occurrence of=
=20
in brackets)

Email (Project Participant)
Binary Distribution (Release)
Source Distribution (Release)
Installation Instructions (Project, Application, Backend)
Usage Instructions (Application)
Configuration Instructions (Project, Application, Backend)
Short Description (almost any topic)

Some associations (with the topics which would be associated in brackets)

Responsible For (Person, Project/Application/Backend)
Contributed To (Person, Project/Application/Backend)
Requires (Application, Third Party Library)

That is just a few initial ideas.

Of course, if you think visually, this probably doesn't help much. However,=
=20
take a look at www.itu.no. That site is almost entirely topic map based.=20
There are topics for people, reports, projects and so on and each topic has=
=20
its own page with links to the other topics that it is related to. Most of=
=20
the topic page is constructed from different occurrences of the topic. This=
=20
is the kind of navigation style which I think would be good to aim for, but=
=20
I'm open to any other suggestions you may have!

Cheers,

Kal

At 19:25 19/11/2001 +0100, BauerT wrote:
>Hallo,
>
>I=B4m the new one.
>
>My name is Thomas Bauer and I study the same as Florian Haas.
>I=B4m interested in Webdesign, XML and topicmaps.
>In webdesign I have much experience, but I=B4m a nobody in XML and=
 topicmaps.
>Nevertheless I=B4m very interested in XML, topicmaps and databases. I hope=
=20
>to learn a lot in XML and topicmaps in this project.
>It is fascinates me. - That=B4s why I have chosen this project.
>
>My function in this project is to develope a homepage for the TM4J project.
>At first I have to paint me a picture of the project structure. Then I can=
=20
>edit the content for the homepage.
>
>I need your help. - You can tell me - if you want - the things you wanna=20
>have on this homepage.
>You can also tell me some ideas of the design you want to have. Tell me if=
=20
>there are some homepages I should see to get ideas.
>
>
>
>For questions I=B4m gladly availlable,
>
>I=B4m lucky to be on board,
>
>Thomas Bauer
>
>
>ps: I hope to learn a lot in XML and topicmaps besides my webdesign-work
>
>---------------------------------------------------------------------------=
-
>Thomas Bauer
>
>Student der Fachhochschule Informationsberufe
>
>=D6denburger Stra=DFe 25
>A - 7064 Oslip
>
>0699 / 109 46 321
>mailto: tho...@gm...

Re: [TM4J-users] TM4J Tools seem to be missing

[Kal A. <ka...@te...>]

Hi Chuck,

You can download the files from CVS (tm4j/docs/tools), but I'll send them 
to you in a separate email to save you the hassle!

Cheers,

Kal

At 11:22 11/11/2001 -0600, Chuck Irvine wrote:
>Hi
>
>I just downloaded and instaled both the TM4J source and binary tar files. On
>the .../docs/install.html page there is a link named "run the TM4J tools"
>with points to ...docs/tools/indes.html. This directory wasn't present in my
>download. Is this available somewhere else? Please help me understand.
>Thanks
>
>Chuck
>
>
>_______________________________________________
>Tm4j-users mailing list
>Tm4...@li...
>https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/tm4j-users

[TM4J-users] TM4J Tools seem to be missing

[Chuck I. <cri...@sw...>]

Hi

I just downloaded and instaled both the TM4J source and binary tar files. On
the .../docs/install.html page there is a link named "run the TM4J tools"
with points to ...docs/tools/indes.html. This directory wasn't present in my
download. Is this available somewhere else? Please help me understand.
Thanks

Chuck

[TM4J-users] Missing log4j.jar

[Gerd M. <ge...@sm...>]

Hi,

It seems that log4j.jar isn't part of the CVS.

Best Regards,
gerd

--
________________________________________________________________
Gerd Mueller                                    ge...@sm...     
SMB GmbH                                  http://www.smb-tec.com

[TM4J-users] Re: TM4J-Ozone

[Gerd M. <ge...@sm...>]

Hi,

> I' just wanted to use tm4J with ozone and I had some problems to access 
> my imported xtm-TopicMaps.... 
> 
> // Import XTM  Version I
>   db = ExternalDatabase.openDatabase( dbURL );
>   db.reloadClasses();
>   try {
>     OzoneXTMBuilder builder= new OzoneXTMBuilder (db);
>     builder.buildTopicMap (
>         new InputSource(
>                 new FileInputStream(tmFileName)));
>     ....
>   } finally {
>     db.close();
>   }
> 
> But HOW can I access it???? 2nd try:

buildTopicMap() returns a TopicMap, which is a OzoneObject. Now you
could do: db.nameObject( topicmap, "aname" ); and retrieve the
topicmap later with: topicmap = (TopicMap)db.objectForName( "aname" );

> // Import XTM Version II
> try {
>   File f= new File ("sampleMap/music-xtm.xml");
>   java.io.InputStream inStream=new java.io.FileInputStream (f);
>               
>   OzoneTopicMapProviderFactoryImpl 
>         provider=new OzoneTopicMapProviderFactoryImpl();
>   if ( provider==null) {
>         System.err.println ("provider is null");
>   } // end of if ()
>   else {
>         Properties props=new Properties();
>         props.setProperty ("dburl",dbURL);
>         TopicMapProvider p =provider.createTopicMapProvider (props);
>         p.addTopicMap (inStream,new 
> java.net.URL("http://tqms.org/sample"),null);
>   } // end of else
> } catch (Exception e) {
>             System.out.println ("ErrMsg: "+e.getMessage());
> }
> 
> //access TopicMap
> try {
>   OzoneTopicMapProviderFactoryImpl 
>         provider=new OzoneTopicMapProviderFactoryImpl();
>   if ( provider==null) {
>         System.err.println ("provider is null");
>   } // end of if ()
>   else {
>         Properties props=new Properties();
>         props.setProperty ("dburl",dbURL);
>         TopicMapProvider p =provider.createTopicMapProvider (props);
>               TopicMap topicMap =p.getTopicMap ("http://tqms.org/sample");
>   } // end of else
> } catch (Exception e) {
>             System.out.println ("ErrMsg: "+e.getMessage());
> }
> 
> After I tried to access the topicMap I found the following errMsg in the log 
> of ozoneDB:
> 
> [info] (685) InvokeServer: connection established...
> [info] (317) InvokeServer: user logged in: ai114
> [warn] (317) InvokeServer: handleClientException(): java.io.EOFException: 
> Expecting code
>     java.io.EOFException: Expecting code
>         at java.lang.Throwable.<init>(Throwable.java:96)
>         at java.lang.Exception.<init>(Exception.java:44)
>         at java.io.IOException.<init>(IOException.java:49)
>         at java.io.EOFException.<init>(EOFException.java:57)
>         at java.io.ObjectInputStream.peekCode(ObjectInputStream.java:1557)
>         at java.io.ObjectInputStream.readObject(ObjectInputStream.java:298)
>         at java.io.ObjectInputStream.readObject(ObjectInputStream.java:242)
>         at org.ozoneDB.DxLib.net.DxClient.receive(DxClient.java:107)
>         at org.ozoneDB.DxLib.net.DxMultiServerClient.run(DxMultiServerClient.
>             java:44)
>         at java.lang.Thread.run(Thread.java:498)
> [info] (317) InvokeServer: connection closed (user: ai114)
> 
> Do you have any idea? 

The exception only says that you didn't close the db connection correct and
the client application simply exists. But I saw a bug in OzoneTopicMapProviderImpl
which I'm going to fix asap.

> Btw: I run IBM Jdk 1.3 with Linux, because neither j2sdk1.4.0 nor jdk1.3.1_01 
> are working properly with ozone classes. (2561 Segmentation fault)

Best Regards,
Gerd

--
________________________________________________________________
Gerd Mueller                                    ge...@sm...     
SMB GmbH                                  http://www.smb-tec.com

Re: [TM4J-users] tm4j starter help

[Kal A. <ka...@te...>]

Hi David,

At 17:10 01/10/2001 +0200, geo...@hu... wrote:
>Hi, could anybody please post some lines of code how to write a XTM-file 
>from scratch?
>
>TIA, david
>
>Got no success with the following...
>
>
>       File file = new File("xtmtest01.xml");
>       TopicMapFactory tmf = new TopicMapFactoryImpl();
>
>       TopicMap tm = tmf.createTopicMap();
>       URL xtmurl = new URL("http://topicmap.techquila.com/default");
>       tm.setBase(xtmurl);
>       tm.setName("firststopicmap");
>       tm.setID("tmId");
>
>       Topic topic = tmf.createTopic("justAnId");
>       tm.addTopic(topic);

You didn't say what error you are getting but I guess it is probably a 
DuplicateTopicException. This is because TopicMapFactory.createTopic() also 
adds the topic to the topic map. So if you remove the last line above 
(tm.addTopic(...)) then it should work!

Cheers,

Kal

[TM4J-users] tm4j starter help

[<geo...@hu...>]

Hi, could anybody please post some lines of code how to write a XTM-file from scratch?

TIA, david

Got no success with the following...


      File file = new File("xtmtest01.xml");
      TopicMapFactory tmf = new TopicMapFactoryImpl();

      TopicMap tm = tmf.createTopicMap();
      URL xtmurl = new URL("http://topicmap.techquila.com/default");
      tm.setBase(xtmurl);
      tm.setName("firststopicmap");
      tm.setID("tmId");

      Topic topic = tmf.createTopic("justAnId");
      tm.addTopic(topic);

      writeTopicMap(tm, file);

Re: [TM4J-users] Topic id after import XTM wrong

[Kal A. <ka...@te...>]

Hi Jesper,

At 10:36 30/09/2001 +0200, Jesper Rasmussen wrote:
>I dont know if this is known of if im doing something wrong.
>I'm making a (restricted, domain specific) XTM editor.
>
>I can create the tm, and export it to xtm and the file is as it should.
>When i read the topicmap back in all the topic id's is wrong and looks like:
>x1fo7pot2k-XX where XX chneges.
>I have browsed the archives but couldent seem to find anything about it.
>thanks!

Were you hoping to see the value of the ID attribute from your XTM file 
instead ? If so, then you need to use getResourceID() rather than getID(). 
The ID property is a back-end assigned object identifier. The resourceID 
property is the normalized value of the ID attribute in the source file 
that was parsed to produce the topic map. If you use XTMBuilder to create 
the topic map, then this should be the normalized value of the ID attribute 
(it is normalized by combining it with the baseURL of the topic map document).

Hope this helps,

Kal

[TM4J-users] Topic id after import XTM wrong

[Jesper R. <ge...@cs...>]

I dont know if this is known of if im doing something wrong.
I'm making a (restricted, domain specific) XTM editor.

I can create the tm, and export it to xtm and the file is as it should.
When i read the topicmap back in all the topic id's is wrong and looks like:
x1fo7pot2k-XX where XX chneges.
I have browsed the archives but couldent seem to find anything about it.
thanks!

-- 
Cheers
Jesper Rasmussen
-----------------

My never outdated contact information:
http://xns.org/=JesperRasmussen

Re: [TM4J-users] reference to TopicMap from Topic

[Kal A. <ka...@te...>]

At 09:06 25/09/2001 +0200, Gerd Mueller wrote:
>On Mon, 24 Sep 2001 14:40:40 +0100
>"Murray Woodman" <mwo...@ho...> wrote:
>
> >
> > Problem:
> > I am working on a simple web application which requires the creation of a
> > link to a topic. As far as I can see I need the base URL of the parent
> > TopicMap and the id of the Topic to make the link. Getting a reference to
> > the parent topic map is proving difficult given that the method making the
> > link only has access to the topic itself, ie no references available to the
> > parent topic map or to a topic map manager. It would be cleaner if I could
> > avoid passing the parent TopicMap to the method as well as the Topic.
> >
> > Question:
> > Given a Topic instance is it possible to gain a reference to the parent
> > TopicMap without searching for the topic in the various topicmaps listed in
> > the manager?
>
>Each topic has a member m_parent that points to the parent
>topicmap. Unfortunatly there is no getParent() method. Perhaps
>we should add it ?

+1

And we should add the same method to the Association interface too.

Cheers,

Kal

Re: [TM4J-users] reference to TopicMap from Topic

[Gerd M. <ge...@sm...>]

On Mon, 24 Sep 2001 14:40:40 +0100
"Murray Woodman" <mwo...@ho...> wrote:

> 
> Problem:
> I am working on a simple web application which requires the creation of a
> link to a topic. As far as I can see I need the base URL of the parent
> TopicMap and the id of the Topic to make the link. Getting a reference to
> the parent topic map is proving difficult given that the method making the
> link only has access to the topic itself, ie no references available to the
> parent topic map or to a topic map manager. It would be cleaner if I could
> avoid passing the parent TopicMap to the method as well as the Topic.
> 
> Question:
> Given a Topic instance is it possible to gain a reference to the parent
> TopicMap without searching for the topic in the various topicmaps listed in
> the manager?

Each topic has a member m_parent that points to the parent
topicmap. Unfortunatly there is no getParent() method. Perhaps
we should add it ?

Best Regards,
Gerd

--
________________________________________________________________
Gerd Mueller                                    ge...@sm...     
SMB GmbH                                  http://www.smb-tec.com

[TM4J-users] reference to TopicMap from Topic

[Murray W. <mwo...@ho...>]

Problem:
I am working on a simple web application which requires the creation of a
link to a topic. As far as I can see I need the base URL of the parent
TopicMap and the id of the Topic to make the link. Getting a reference to
the parent topic map is proving difficult given that the method making the
link only has access to the topic itself, ie no references available to the
parent topic map or to a topic map manager. It would be cleaner if I could
avoid passing the parent TopicMap to the method as well as the Topic.

Question:
Given a Topic instance is it possible to gain a reference to the parent
TopicMap without searching for the topic in the various topicmaps listed in
the manager?

cheers

Murray

[TM4J-users] Introductiion

[Murray W. <mwo...@ho...>]

Hello TM4J users.

I have just downloaded the 0.5 binaries and have just started to play around
with the code. One of these days I hope to put together a client/server
multimedia mixer based on topic maps but for starters I am aiming much lower
and am just trying to come to grips with the basics of TM4J. So, you'll no
doubt be hearing from me in the near future.

Thanks to Kal for getting the project off the ground and to all the
developers working on the source.

cheers

Murray Woodman
http://www.topicmap.com/