Getting Data In

Importing data from static sources

CSV import

Writing your own import script

Offline client

How to set the off-line filling up?

The offline filling currently works only in IE with Java support (there are some problems with Netscape and file manipulation permissions).

All files used for off-line filling are stored in /mics/offline2slice directory. All of them should be copied to local computer, where you want to use offline filling. There are a few steps to do for sucessfull installation.

Create directory on your local computer (default is c:java).
Copy files from /mics/offline2slice directory of apc-aa installation to created directory.
Add row "set classpath=c:java" to your autoexec.bat file, in order java finds the class definitions.
Restart computer in order the changes in autoexec.bat tekes efect.
Open the delete_file.html file and change the location of main filling form
row 11: document.location='c:\java\fillform.html';
Change the location of the file, where form data are stored
row 19: <PARAM NAME="filename" VALUE="C:\offlinedata.txt">
Open the file fillform.html and modify it in order to have the same fields as your slice have. The fields are identified by its ids (like 'headline........'), known from AA.
Change the parameter to OffLine2Slice applet to point to the file, where the content of filled forms will be locally stored
row 240 <PARAM NAME="filename" VALUE="C:\offlinedata.txt">
Change the URL in ACTION atribut of second form at fillform.html page to point to your server with ActionApps
row 356: <FORM NAME="hidden_form" ACTION="http://aa.ecn.cz/aaa/offline.php3" METHOD="post">
Change slice_id in hidden form input to match your slice, where you want to store item
row 358: <INPUT NAME="slice_id" TYPE="hidden" value="45636f6d6f6e69746f72427942455a4c">
Change the path to delete_file.html to point to your install directory, where the file is stored
row 361: <INPUT NAME="del_url" TYPE="hidden" VALUE="C:/java/delete_file.html">

The offline filling is now installed on your computer and you can try it (open your local fillform.html file in your browser). There you can fill as many items as you want and after all send it to the server.

Before sending the filled forms to server make you sure, that the slice you want import to, permit this operation (see 'Admin' - 'Slice' - 'Allow off-line item filling').

After the sucesfull sneding the items to server, your browser should be redirected to the page, where you can delete the file (offlinedata.txt). In this file the filled data are locally stored. The deletion is not necessary - the offline filling script offline.php3 will recignize, if the data for each item is already stored in database or not (the CRC for each item is computed). However, the better practice is to delete the file. This saves the capacity of line, because the data will not be transfered to server for second time.

Email To ActionApps

ToDo: Write thoughts abot email to slice feature

RSS Import

How do I set mapping on RSS import

For most feeds you won't need to map them, unless you want the feed to go to Active rather than Hold bin.

To set the mapping, first create the feed in AA->RSS Feeds, then click on the feed and click Map. (or go to it directly from the AA->Mapping page.

If all you want to do is send it to the Active bin, then go to the bottom and change "Status" to "Value" and "1" (hold is "Value" and "2")

You can set quite complex feeding behavior by setting any field to "RSS field or expression" and then entering an RSS field name, or more complex expression.

Fields have a prefix and a value e.g. DC:TITLE, the allowed fields are:

Prefix	Allowed Values	Where found in RSS
CHANNEL/	title, description, language, timestamp (AA only), link	From the corresponding CHANNEL elements at the top of the feed except slice_id is from dc/identifier
ITEM/	title,description,link,id, guid, pubdate	From the corresponding ITEM elements except id is from dc/identitifier)
DC/	title,creator,subject,description,date,source,language,relation,coverage	From the corresponding DC elements within the ITEM

In addition, the following syntax is supported:

ITEM/DESCRIPTION\|ITEM/TITLE	Will look for the Description, and if that is not present use the title
DATE(ITEM/pubdate)	Converts the specified field to a unix date
NOW	Uses the current date and time
CONTENT	Hard coded to find the content and determine if its HTML, given that the RSS standard makers keep moving things! Currently it looks in Item/encoded and and Item/items/bag/li/item/value
headline........	Will look for an APC-AA field, this only works if the sending RSS feed is from APC site, in which case Inter-node feeding would be better anyway.

Notes to Developers

It is relatively straightforward to modify RSS import as the standards mutate

The parsing of the mapping syntax is defined in xml_fetch.php3:map1field
The default mapping, used by new feeds, or where mapping has not defined, is in csn_util.php3:default_rss_map
The conversion between XML path and field names is in xml_rssparse.php3:charD, endElement and startElement
The hard coded search for content is in xml_fetch.php3:contentvalue and xml_rssparse.php3/charD

Internal Content Pooling

How do feed items from one slice to another

There are two feeding methods - authomatical and manual. Automatical feeding works only for new/updated item. By manual feeding it is possible to feed any selected item to another slice (if you have permission to do so).

Manual feeding
In Item Manager select the items you want to send to another slice. Select "Export" on the toolbar just below the itemlist. After clicking on "GO" a new window is shown where you can select destination slices. (You must have a permission in the destination slice - at least Author. If you are Editor or more in the destination slice, you can set the "Active" checkbox, which means to copy the items in the destination slice into the Active Bin. If the checkbox stays unchecked, the item is copied to the Holding bin).

The feeding is error-safe, it is impossible to feed one item to the same destination slice more than once.

Automatical feeding

Each Feed needs to be configured in both the slice where the items are entered and which will export items, and for the slice where the items are imported.

Select the slice where the items are entered. Select Admin->Content Pooling -> Inner Node Feeding. If you are willing for items to go to any other slice on the same host then check "Enable export to any slice". Otherwise uncheck this box, and move slices that you want to receive items to the Export Enable box.

Select the slice where items will be received. Make sure the slice you want to recieve from is in the Import box. As a courtesy send an email to the administrator of the slices you want to receive from.

The import process can be fine tuned in two ways.

In Admin->Content Pooling->Filters you can select which of the exporting slice's categories items come from, and to which categories of the importing slice they are delivered. Select the Active box if you want items in this category to be made Active, otherwise they will go in the Holding Bin for manual approval. There is currently no way to control which items are fed, only which category they go to.

In Admin->Content Pooling->Mapping you can control which fields of the source slice end up in which fields of the destination slice.

If you want to export items already in the slice, then go to the Item Manager, check the items to export, and choose "Export" and Go. This will give a choice of destination slices, which you can check along with whether they should be Active, or go to the Holding Bin for manual approval.

Internal content pooling example

I want to feed highlighted items from several slices to the front page.

There is solution for 'Internal feeding':

It could be done using field 'Mapping' ('Slice Admin -> Mapping').
One of the possibilities there is to select '-- Value --' for a field. The 'Value' is not ony static text, but you can use any AA alias construct there (just like: <a href="{source_href.....}">{source..........}</a>).

The solution is to specify such expression for 'status_code' field (which controls, in which bin resulting items appear:
1 - Approved
2 - Holding bin
3 - Trash
4 - Item is not fed

So, if you specify something like:

{switch({highlight.......})1:1:4}

for status_code field, only highlighted fields are fed (into Approved).

There is no way to do it for external (Inter Node or RSS) feeds. The only solution there is to feed all the items into one slice
and then show only highlighted items in destination slice (the
highlighted flag will be copied too, so there is no need for manual setting "highlighted" in destination slice)

Cross Server Content Exchange

How to setup Cross server networking (CSN)

CSN is a feature which allows item exchange between two servers.

Developers note: The implementation is based on Moritz Both's specification:
http://plus.aldebaran.de/apc-aa/csn.html
http://plus.aldebaran.de/apc-aa/csnspec.html

--------------------------------------------------
A. Installation

Node = one installation of ActionApps.

Assume there are two nodes, which want to exchange items

Step 1 Set up the node details,
- must be done by sysdadmins, with shell access on both nodes, but they only have to be done once, no matter how many slices and how many nodes are configured, normally it will have be done when ActionApps was installed.

Set the ORG_NAME in config.php3 file to the name of your organization, e.g.:
define ("ORG_NAME","Econnect");

Step 2 Set the information about the collaborating nodes.
- must be done by a Superadmin on both nodes, once for each node that it imports or exports to.

Slice Admin -> Content Pooling -> Nodes
Set the Node name to the ORG_NAME of the remote node. (You can ask the superadmin of the other node to get their ORG_NAME by looking at their "Nodes" page).
Set the "URL of getxml.php3" to the url of the script on the remote host. For example if the other nodes admin pages are at http://foo.com/apc-aa/admin then their getxml.php3 is http://foo.com/apc-aa/admion/getxml.php3. (You can ask the other superadmin to look at their Nodes page and tell you their value).
Agree a password with the other superadmin, and fill it in on both nodes.
'Submit' the form.

Step 3 Setting import and export
- this can be done by the Slice Admin

3.1 On the exporting node,

There you can set the permissions for remote users, who will have the rights to get items from the current slice.

Go to the slice which you want to export,
Go to 'Slie Admin-> Content Pooling -> 'Inter Node Export'
Select the node from the list of remote nodes. If you do not select any node, the item exchange is permitted to all nodes!
Fill the user id of the user who has admin permissions on the slice where the input is happening and will set this up. This id you will get from remote node administrator. It can be an LDAP id (like uid=peter,ou=People,ou=AA), or the SQL user number of the user (like 31) (well, it is not easy to get it - you can look into database, or you can display the edited_by....... field in Item Manager). If you do not fill the user, then item exchange can be setup by any remote node slice admin.
'Submit' the form.

3.2 On the importing node,

There you can set, from which remote nodes and slices will items be fed.

Go to the slice where you want the import
Go to 'Slice Admin->Content Pooling -> 'Inter Node Import'.
Select the node from list and click on 'Create new feed from node'.
This will get the list of slices available for you from the remote server.
On this page select the slice and click 'Select slice'

3.3. Set the filters and mapping on the importing node

Filters and mapping you can set exactly the same way as for local feeding. See 'Slice Admin -> Filters' and 'Admin -> Mapping'

Step 4. Set the cron
ActionApps adds the task for CSN to the AA Cron on its setup. If you are superadmin, you can check it on AA -> Misc - Cron page. There should be task defined as:

 * 8,23,38,53 * * * admin/xmlclient.php3

In order the task from cron are started regulary, the cron must be well configured by the system administrator. If the cron is configured, the column 'last_run' on 'AA -> Misc - Cron' page is not empty and the value is time to time changed. Please read section: Getting Data Out

Creating RSS feeds

How do I create an RSS feed from a slice

Setup your slice as normal, got to Slice Admin -> Views -> type:RSS News.

You can edit the feed to more precisely pick what you want for each item. Use the _#RSS_* aliases to refine it.

The URL of the RSS feed should be at /apc-aa/view.php3?vid=xx

Including remote ActionApps content via javascript

How do I use a Javascript view to see pages on a site where AA is not installed

Javascript item exchange View is a type of View. It works exactly the same as a standard view, but the primary usage for this type is to show items on any page around the Internet. For a simpler way of doing this, see "How do I use jsview.php3 to view pages on a site where AA is not installed."

The destination page should contain a HTML tag like:

This tag includes the output of view to any page on Internet (there is no restriction to one server).

Because such tag requires javascript as output of view.php3, the format strings for the view (Admin -> View) should look like:

Top HTML

document.write("<TABLE WIDTH='100%' BORDER='0' CELLPADDING='2' BGCOLOR='#FFFFFF'>")

Odd Rows:

document.write("<TR><TD VALIGN='TOP'>12/05/2001</TD><TD><a href='?x=1735'>How do I use a Javascript view to see pages on a site where AA is not installed</a></TD></TR>")

Bottom HTML:

document.write("</TABLE>")

Note that there is (or was) a bug where if the item would generate no items then you'll get an error rather than empty Javascript.

How do I use jsview.php3 to view pages on a site where AA is not installed

If you want to display some view on page, which is stored on site where is not installed AAs, you have three possibilities.

use remote, remotec or remotec.php
create javascript view - this is good if you want to do something complex with the Javascript.
use the jsview.php3 to display existing view.

This answer covers point 3) - jsview.php3

The usage is easy. Just replace SSI include in original shtml age with the javascript one. The jsview.php3 takes exactly the same parameters as view.php3.

For example, if the old SSI code in page.shtml was:

the new javascript code in page.shtml would be:

Content Import, Export, Exchange and Syndication

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