Overview

Introduction

XIMS is an Open Source Information/Content Management System that primarily provides facilities to create and manage web sites. For a project-description, -history and features of XIMS consult http://xims.info/about.html

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Linking Objects

Linking Containers

For linking containers use a trailing slash in the URL to avoid redirects. If you want to link to a possibly existing directory index, do not include a reference to the index itself, for example index.html in the URL

  • Wrong: /zid/services

  • Wrong /zid/services/index.html

  • Correct: /zid/services/

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Field Reference

The following will provide brief descriptions of the most common fields you will encounter in XIMS.

Location

Roughly spoken, the location is the filename for your object. Once it gets published, expect it to show up in the URL for your Object, so choose a telling and rememberable name for it.

However, depending on which kind of object you are working on, XIMS handles the location differently. This will be discussed below.

Giving a location is always mandatory.

Location for document-like objects

  • Document (XHTML documents)

  • XML, XSLStylesheet, sDocBookXML, AxPointPresentation (XML documents)

  • Text, CSS, JavaScript (Text documents)

The suffix will be automatically added according to the type of object you are working on.

If you are in folder /xims/foo/, give your brand new Document the location ' bar ' to get /xims/foo/bar.html .

Location for file and image objects

In case you are uploading/changing a file, the name of your file will be the location , so there is no extra ' Location ' field. Instead you will see an upload-widget in the dialog, which allows you to choose a file from your local filesystem. XIMS trusts your browser to send the correct mime-type. The filename will be used unmodified as the location .

Location for URLLink objects

URLLinks are different kind of animal: they don't get published into the filesystem. The location behaves a bit differently with URLLinks: The location is used as the target of the link. Any valid URL is valid, be it local or external.

Title

Give a 'title' (displayname) for your object

The title will be displayed in:

  • the list of folder children while browsing folders

  • the HTML -document-title your browser presents

SiteRoot URL/Path

The value of the SiteRoot URL should be the location where the published content inside the SiteRoot will be available after its publication. It will be used by the user interface for linking to the location of the published objects. For example, let us assume we have an object with the XIMS path /xims/documentation/xims-user's-reference.xml. If the Siteroot with the location /xims has a SiteRoot URL of http://xims.info, users will be directed to http://xims.info/documentation/xims-user's-reference.xml if $resolvereltositeroots in www/ximsroot/stylesheets/config.xsl is '1', to http://xims.info/xims/documentation/xims-user's-reference.xml if it is '0'. Note that per default, $resolvereltositeroots is set to '1'. The SiteRoot URL can also be a relative URI, like /ximspubroot for example. Most users who use absolute SiteRoot URLs and do virtual hosts will want $resolvereltositeroots to be '1'. During site development they can use a relative SiteRoot URL like /ximspubroot/xims for example and later change it to the absolute one with going online. SiteRoot URLs must not have a trailing slash.

Body

Appears in document-related input masks only - and contains their actual 'content'.

Body in Document objects

Depending on your XIMS configuration platform, your browser and a configuration cookie, you will be presented a selection of of body editor interfaces:

  • WYSIWYG-Editing using HTMLArea

  • WYSIWYG-Editing using eWebeditPro

  • Using other browsers on other platforms, you are currently tied to using a plain textfield for content input. You are expected to enter your content as a well-balanced X(HT)ML (strict) document fragment! That means, that you have to convert your existing HTML -files into XHTML. If you are typing or pasting non-well-balanced HTML-content, XIMS uses tidy to "form" your your input "well", which should be succesful in most cases. In case you receive a failure notice, you will have to "form" your content "well" manually. Note that tidy will change the whitespace in the content body!

Body in simpleDocBookXML and AxPointPresentation objects

Same as above, but you can't use the WYSYWIG editor in either case. You might want to write your article in an external editor, like xmlmind.com's XXE for example, and paste it in.

Note that:

  • Your article must be well-formed XML .

  • You have to omit the declarations and PI 's. Required are the document-node's start and ending tags -- and everything between them of course :)

Body in XML- and XSLStylesheets objects

The full XML file should be entered into the body field. Note that the encoding of the document must the compatible to the XIMS database encoding. If you get error messages, ask your system administrator about the correct database encoding to use.

Keywords

Give a ';'-separated list of keywords . These will appear as meta-information of the published document (META-tags) and can be explicitly searched for using the XIMS search engine.

Abstract

A short summary describing your object's content. XHTML-Tags can be used, the content must be well-balanced however.

Privilege grant options

With the default setting Copy privilege-grants of parent, the privileges of the parent object get copied to the newly created object. Selecting Additionally, grant view privileges to default roles adds view privileges to the "default roles". With Grant to myself only, no one else but the creator gets granted privileges on the newly created object. For other users it will be invisible until the creator changes the object's privileges later.

Omit autoindex for this container during publishing

Per default, XIMS generates a simple index document for you. (That practically means: if the public webserver gets a request for the container you published, it will serve a short summary of the published objects in this folder) This index is generated during the publishing-process of the container.

In some cases (having hand-maintained, multilingual indexfiles in example) this is not desirable. Check this option to avoid the creation, or to remove an existing autoindex.

Mark object as new

Sets a flag to mark objects as new to emphase changes made. If set, a NEW! icon is shown in the folderlistings. The N:xx search command lists objects flagged as new only.

Publish / Republish / Unpublish

Per default, your objects exist in the XIMS database only. The filesystem-like view presented to you is only virtual.

If you "(Re)Publish" an object it will copied to the web server's filesystem for public delivery.

Search Field

The Search field takes search queries and some special search macros. The query term is limited to maximum 55 characters.

Keyword Search

Give one or more keywords. If you enter more than one word, the search will be ANDed - returning documents containing both of the words you gave.

Valid operators at the time are:

  • AND

  • OR

  • ( )

This way one can issue more complex queries like: "foo AND ( bar OR b0rk )".

M:<days>

Returns objects that have been modified in the last <days>.

If the number of days is ommited, 1 is assumed.

m:<days>

Returns objects marked new that have been modified in the last <days>.

If the number of days is ommited, 1 is assumed.

N:<days>

Lookup objects by creation time.

If the number of days is ommited, 1 is assumed.

n:<days>

Lookup objects marked new by creation time.

If the number of days is ommited, 1 is assumed.

I:[DocumentID]

Lookup objects per Document ID.

i:[ID]

Lookup objects per ID.

!U:[ID | /path/to/object]

Unlock objects; The ID or the object's path must be given.

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Objecttypes Reference

Document-likes

XML

Use this object-type together with XSLStylesheet. Create first a schema as XML-object-type and publish it. Then create the XML-file and link it to the schema. The XML-file has to be linked to the XSLStylesheet by your local XIMS-Support.

The SimpleFormEdit Howto describes these steps. If you do not want to use XML together with SimpleFormEdit, you may omit the restrictions.

SimpleFormEdit

See the SimpleFormEdit Howto for an example usage.

AxPointPresentation

See the AxPointPresentation Howto for an example usage.

XSLStylesheet

There are different applications for this object-type:

  • Layout of the department.
  • Layout of a published SimpleDB or ReferenceLibrary: See the SimpleDB Howto for an example usage.
  • Combined with the XML-object-type: See the SimpleFormEdit Howto for an example usage.

Text

Dynamic content

Questionnaire

There is Questionnaire-Howto in German.

VLibrary

Vlibraries are basic Digital Library repositories.

SQLReport

SQLReports allow to integrate data from remote RDBMS into XIMS systems.

Reference Library

Reference Libraries store bibliographic data. Reference Library items can be imported and exported using BibTex, MODS, Endnote and other formats.

Searching Reference Libraries

Regular search terms will be used searched for in the lastname field of reference items. If you enter more than one term, the terms will be ANDed - returning reference entries from both authors. Using a field:value syntax, it is possible to look for content in Reference Library property fields. Boolean operators "AND" and "OR" as well as grouping expressions using parentheses can be used for complex queries. Per default, search terms will be used using an inexact match algorithms which can potentially lead to ambigous results for authors who share parts of their lastnames. To find authors using an exact match algorithm, use the lastname:value, firstname:value, and/or author_id:value lookup keys.

  • workgroup:1234 (date:2005 OR preprint_submitdate:2005) project:googol

  • Zweistein serial:"Phys. Rev. Letters" date:1999

SimpleDB

The SimpleDB object can be used to manage simple two-dimensional data structures. Using the web-interface, it is possible to set up a simple database using "String", "String options", "Textarea", "Boolean", "Integer", "Float", and "Datetime" datatypes.

See the SimpleDB Howto for an example usage.

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ACL-Reference

Privileges

Basic Privileges

  • View

    A user or role may view the object.

  • Copy

    A user or role may copy the object.

  • Write

    A user or role may write into the object, i.e. change its location, content, title or other metadata.

  • Create

    A user or Role has the right to create a new object in this container.

  • Delete

    A user or Role has the right to delete the object from the xims database.

  • Move

    A user or Role has the right to move the object into another container.

Publishing Privileges

  • Publish

    A user or role has the right to publish, republish and unpublish the object

Grant Rights

  • Grant

    A user or role has the right to grant another user or role rights on this object.

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User-Interface-Reference

Symbols

Option-Icons

 Edit
Copy
Move
(Un/Re)-Publish
Edit ACL
Delete

Status-Icons

 Object is marked as new
Object is published. Onclick-Action: Go to published version
Object is locked. Onclick-Action: Unlock if user owns lock

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