TopicIndex / Blog: Recent posts

** HTTPS Login **

The login page now uses HTTPS. The certificate is not signed, so you will have to add the certificate in Firefox, or ignore the security warning in Chrome.

** Continued Work on Zanata Integration **

Work has continued on providing integration with Zanata. After a meeting with the Zanata guys I have had to expand Skynet's role to address the following decisions:

• Skynet will be responsible for maintaining the state of a translation at a point in time (equivalent to downloading a PO file and checking it into an SVN repo)
• Skynet will provide the interface used by translators to view, sort and compare topics that have been translated
• Zanata will provide a fixed URL for editing a specific topic, which will appear in Skynet to allow translators to do the actual translations.... read more

** Integration with Zanata **

This week has been all about integrating Skynet with Zanata.

First, the concept of a Snapshot has been added to Skynet. A Snapshot captures the state of a collection of topics that are returned by a filtered search. It is intended to be used to save significant milestones or releases, such as beta releases or GA releases.

To create a snapshot you first select the tags and field filter options that would return the topics that represent a significant release. You then select the Snapshots tab, enter a new for the new Snapshot, and click Save.... read more

** Grouped Topic Searches **

Search results can now be grouped. The main search screen has a new column next to the tags labelled Grp. Any tag with the Grp (or grouping) checkbox selected will be used to group the search result.

On the search screen each grouping tag is represented by a tab. These tabs list all the topics that match the filter AND include the grouping tag. This means that a topic might be listed more than once under different tabs.... read more

** New Search Fields **

You can now search for topics edited within a certain time period using the new Topic Edited After and Topic Edited Before fields. Or, if you want a relative period of time, use the Topic Edited In Last x Days field.

Topics with XML that does not conform to the Docbook DTD can be searched for using the Has XML Errors field.

The Has XML Errors field relies on XML errors being discovered when topics are saved, so until the database is rebuilt, this will only pull out topics edited from today that have invalid XML. I'll rebuild the database over the next few days.... read more

** REST Improvements **

Searching can now be done via the REST interface. This is done using a URL like the following:

http://localhost:8080/TopicIndex/seam/resource/rest/1/topics/get/json/query;tag19=1;tag119=1;catint5=And;tag133=1;tag132=1;tag14=0

The http://localhost:8080/TopicIndex/seam/resource/rest/1/topics/get/json/query; part is fixed. The remaining tag19=1;tag119=1;catint5=And;tag133=1;tag132=1;tag14=0 part is the same as the query parameters you see when doing a query from the main Skynet interface (with the & characters replaced with the ; character).... read more

** Additions to the REST Interface **

• http://localhost:8080/TopicIndex/seam/resource/rest/1/topic/get/xml/33 will return the topic details in XML format.
• http://localhost:8080/TopicIndex/seam/resource/rest/1/topic/get/xml/33/xml will return the XML held by the topic.
• http://localhost:8080/TopicIndex/seam/resource/rest/1/topic/get/xml/33/xmlContainedIn?container=chapter will return the XML contained in a new XML element, defined by the container query parameter.
• http://localhost:8080/TopicIndex/seam/resource/rest/1/topic/get/xml/33/xmlNoContainer will return the XML without the \<section> element.
• http://localhost:8080/TopicIndex/seam/resource/rest/1/topic/get/xml/33/xmlNoContainer?includeTitle=false does the same as the URL above, except it will strip out the title element as well.

** Extended REST Interface **

The REST API has been fleshed out with more of the features found in the Atlassian REST API Description, along with some changes to the URLs to support self documentation.

Note this means that the URL to download a Docbook ZIP file using a filter has changed to something like http://localhost:8080/TopicIndex/seam/resource/rest/1/filter/get/zip/50/docbookZip... read more

** Changes To Filters **

Filters now save the Docbook building options. As more options are added to accommodate the differences between projects, this will save the end user from having to set any non-default Docbook options when doing a build.

There is also a new option to specify the publican.cfg cvs_pkg option, as well as a number of options in the Makefile file, in the UI. This allows different projects to customise their docbook builds.... read more

** Live Topic Previews **

Topics are now rendered into HTML as they are saved, with the result available in the Rendered View tab. Custom and generic links are inserted just like the docbook output, and the links are clickable.

The conversion between Docbook and HTML is done with the standard Docbook XSL transforms, so the output is pretty bland at this point. It also includes some annoying features like tooltips on everything. I'll work on formatting the output to resemble what Publican produces.... read more

** New TOC Format **

The first implementation of the new TOC has been added to Skynet. It has a treeview that lists the common names / technologies at the top level, and concerns as a second level. The concerns link to landing pages, which then list the topics that are tagged with both the common name / technology tag and concern tag.

... read more

I have decided to move the Skynet project from Google Code to Sourceforge. There are several benefits to this move:

• Sourceforge includes a lot more functionality, including this blog, forums, project stats etc.
• The move will provide an opportunity to split the individual projects (like Skynet, the common utility classes, the Automation Portal etc) into separate online projects, as opposed to just being different subdirectories in a single SVN repo.
• Management of the projects can be transferred more easily to other developers, instead of being tied to my Google account.... read more