AARLINK - Persistent linker for SFX

Tags: sfx-menu , mysql , persistentlinks , sfx-target-displayer , sfx-plugin , intermediate , sfx , plugin

Last Updated: Oct 30, 2009 02:00

Description
AARLINK is a persistent link plugin for SFX. It integrates into the SFX Menu as a TargetDisplayer, and uses a one button AJAX interface.

Author: Daniel Tosello
Institution:
AARLIN Consortium, Australia
Year: 2009

- Skill required for using this code:
intermediate - Unix and MySQL knowledge required for installation and any troubleshooting

State
Programming language
Software requirements
Author(s) homepage
Download
Changes

Version 0.6

Release notes
Installation Instructions

Alterations to the MySQL database
File Locations
Modifications to aarlink_post.cgi
Additions to sfxmenu.tmpl
TargetDisplayer Setup

TO DO list
Known issues
Comments

State

In development - functional, but requiring some systems knowledge to implement.

Programming language

Perl cgi, Javascript

Software requirements

SFX, Perl 4, DBI (all included in the standard Metalib4 install).

Author(s) homepage

http://www.aarlin.edu.au

Download

Please see the Attachments page

Changes

Version 0.6

functional release, tested only on AARLIN Systems.
still requires OS & database experience to implement.

Release notes

Installation Instructions

Alterations to the MySQL database

From the command prompt, log into your MySQL instance as root (>>mysql -u root -p) and run the following commands:

Note: This requires the MySQL root password. You may need to consult with Exlibris for this step.

File Locations

The appropriate files must be placed (or symlinked into) the appropriate directories
(where <ins> is your SFX install directory.. eg. /exlibris/sfx_ver/sfx_version_3/sfxglb3):

<ins>/templates/js/<sfxmenu>
o aarlink.js
<ins>/templates/<sfxmenu>/services/
o aarlink_control.tmpl
<ins>/lib/Parsers/TargetDisplayer/AARLINK/
o AARLINK.pm
<ins>/cgi/public/
o aarlink_post.cgi
o aarlink_get.cgi

Note: this step is rolled into the enabler.pl script, attached to this page. These file locations are included for those administrators who wish to install the plugin manually, or those who run into issues with the enabler script.

In order to use the enabler.pl script, place all the files into the same directory on the SFX server. Run the script with the name of the institution you wish to enable it for as a parameter (eg. >>./enabler.pl sfxlcl3)

Modifications to aarlink_post.cgi

AARLINK prevents external links being added to the database (to avoid malicious links) by testing submitted URLs against the local hostname. In some cases it may be necessary to alter the hostname, and this can be done by altering the $mydomain variable in aarlink_post.cgi

Additions to sfxmenu.tmpl

The following lines must be added to sfxmenu.tmpl, ideally near the end of the <head> section.

TargetDisplayer Setup

Final setup takes place in the SFX admin menu.

To do this, create a new Target, with the desired display text as the Public Name. For example, something like <b>Permalink</b> to this item could be used.

Set up a new GetWebService or GetWebSearch service under this target. Set the Displayer to AARLINK::AARLINK, and set Object Lookup to off.

At this point, you may wish to set up display logic for the AARLINK TargetDisplayer, eg. making it visible only when fulltext is available.

TO DO list

major modifications to the enabler.pl script to set up the plugin without user & Exlibris intervention

Known issues

The plugin currently doesn't work (won't store or redirect) with internet explorer when the base URL length plus the OpenURL length are greater than 2048 characters. This is an inbulit limitation of internet explorer and cannot be changed. A resolution to the problem is planned, but requires deconstruction of the OpenURL so that non-essential data can be discarded.

Comments

This plugin is still in development, but should be stable provided the hash functions are not changed. The code is a bit raw, and implements a few things that could have been done with external libs. This was partially due to a desire to reduce the amount of additional perl libs required (it uses only those libs included in the standard SFX install) and partially as a learning experience.