MDweb 2010.07 Release 2.2.1 ---------------------------- The MDweb team is pleased to announce the 2010.07 release of MDweb (version 2.2.1), a minor bug fix release of the 2.2 branch. MDweb is distributed as a web archive file which can be downloaded from the project web site: http://www.mdweb-project.org/ along with useful documentation for server administrators, for application users, and for authors of metadata records. The web archive file, mdweb-2010.07-2.2.1.war, can be deployed directly into a JEE application server such as Glassfish or Tomcat. The JEE application server requires a JDBC driver installed into the library directory, either the Derby driver or the PostgreSQL driver. Documentation on the installation and use of MDweb can be found in two documents, the Quick Start Guide and the Users' Manual. The documents are avaliable in both French and English. This is a minor release of the 2.2 branch of MDweb, bringing minor bug fixes to the web applications and to the database schema. Because the 2.2 branch is the first branch released after the complete re-write of MDweb in Java, users are warned that there are likely a number of remaining bugs. See the public bug tracker: http://jira.codehaus.org/browse/MDWEB to review the known issues, to report new issues, or to track progress made while addressing these issues. Highlights of this release: -------------------------- * Improved Search app user interface so all search fields now launch a CSW query when the key is pressed. * Fixed a concurrency issue in the search app internals. * Fixed a minor bug in the Edit app dashboard record filtering. * Fixed bugs in the JSP pages. * Improved Edit app import to handle XML files returned by a CSW. * Fixed a hidden mandatory flag in the profiles [MDWEB-61]. * Refined the profiles for hard copy resources [MDWEB-62]. Known issues in this release: ---------------------------- Due to lack of developer time, none of the major issues reported during the June 2010 release (version 2.2.0) have yet been resolved; therefore, this list is unchanged from that release. Metadata Schemas and Profiles: ----------------------------- * XML: Empty fields are created in the XML document for certain elements rather than merely omitting the element. => This is mostly innocuous but could be improved; we need to examine the situation. * ISO_19115: Dates are reported as milliseconds rather than the way they were defined by the user. => we are in discussion with our partner projects and at the Open Geospatial Consortium, possibly also within ISO during the revision of the 19115 standard, for a way to resolve our handling of dates. * INSPIRE: We fail to correctly handle the field declaring conformance with a published data standard. The technical guidelines for mapping INSPIRE records onto ISO are attempting to use an XML boolean field to indicate three different states: untested, tested and passed, or tested and failed. This causes great difficulty for us since the XML parsing tools are not built for that case. => we plan to seek guidance from the editors of the technical guide at the European Joint Research Centre. Platform: -------- * The referencing subsystem does not correctly use the created database. This is a bug in the extension mechanism of the Geotoolkit.org referencing system. The Geotoolkit.org referencing system automatically generates its own embedded Derby database in the geotoolkit.org/ configuration directory. However, the situation does not work when running multiple deployments of MDweb on the same machine or runnning mixed deployments of MDweb and other programs that use the Geotoolkit.org referencing system. Such systems will require manually placing a 'DataSource.properties' in the EPSG/ subdirectory of the Geotoolkit.org configuration directory to point the referencing system to a shared EPSG database running on a PostgreSQL server. => While awaiting the fix from the upstream project, we are considering providing a way to generate the required file automatically. Unfortunately, doing this by default could break the installation of certain users so the situation must be examined further. Web Applications: ---------------- * Search app does not correctly handle real projections. Currently the only 'projection' correctly supported is the Platte-carre. This needs extensive testing in the upstream MapFaces project to understand the issues, their causes, and possible resolutions. * Search app occasionally fails to display the correct map. This is often encountered on the initial zoom because the map pane fires off two WMS requests and displays the last one returned not the last request made. This may need to wait for a switch to JSF2. * Search app: The vocabulary offered by the Thesuarus is not optimal since the concepts offered are an unstructured, haphazard set of concepts from the vocabulary. => We need to migrate to a more dynamic system for getting words from the thesaurus service. * Edit app: import of INSPIRE records adds an empty keyword field to otherwise complete records, turning them into elementary complete only. => minor bug for which all fixes are complex. * Edit app: Cannot yet link metadata records to a series parent record. => We need to fully design around the possible workflows involved in creating metadata records for resources in series. * Edit app: Cannot yet add file attachments to a metadata record, such as a thumbnail (aka 'quicklook'). => We need to add the ability to upload the file, tie the reference to the metadata record, and provide the file to clients through the web service. Documentation: ------------- * Usage Guide: We plan to add a guide explaining core ideas of resource management and metadata authoring for new users of MDweb. => this work is already underway but the document has not yet reached a usable state. * Authors' Guide: we plan to compose a guide explaining the general design of Dublin Core, ISO 19115, and INSPIRE metadata records. Security: -------- * HTTPS login: login currently occurs over HTTP and is therefore inherently unsecure. => We plan to move towards a more robust, secure, and modern security system, possibly leveraging the access control mechanisms of the JEE platform, and possibly tying into broadly shared systems such as OpenID. * User authentication and authorization: this currently happens internally to the application against a database of users stored in the chosen database management system (DBMS). => We plan to make this more flexible, leveraging the access control mechanisms of the JEE platform, to enable alternative sources of authentication and authorization systems such as LDAP databases. Web Services: ------------ * Thesaurus: The thesaurus service has not yet undergone any formal evaluation in its design. Future iterations will undoubtedly change its methods and improve its operation. * MDweb service: The MDweb service for remote operation has been disabled for now due to lack of time to fully implement and test it. --The MDweb Project Team. July 27th 2010, Montpellier, France.