MKWS demo client

`s with well-known identifiers in any HTML page, the various components of an application can be embedded: search-boxes, results areas, target information, etc. Simple Example -------------- The following is a complete MKWS-based searching application: MKWS demo client

Go ahead, try it! You don't even need a web-server. Just copy and paste this HTML into a file on your computer -- `/tmp/magic.html`, say -- and point your web-browser at it: `file:///tmp/magic.html`. Just like that, you have working metasearching. How the example works --------------------- If you know any HTML, the structure of the file will be familar to you: the `` element at the top level contains a `` and a ``. In addition to whatever else you might want to put on your page, you can add MKWS elements. These fall into two categories. First, the prerequisites in the HTML header, which are loaded from the tool site mkws.indexdata.com: * `mkws-complete.js` contains all the JavaScript needed by the widget-set. * `mkwsStyle.css` provides the default CSS styling Second, within the HTML body, `

` elements with special IDs that begin `mkws` can be provided. These are filled in by the MKWS code, and provide the components of the searching UI. The very simple application above has only two such components: a search box and a results area. But more are supported. The main `

`s are: * `mkwsSearch` -- provides the search box and button. * `mkwsResults` -- provides the results area, including a list of brief records (which open out into full versions when clicked), paging for large results sets, facets for refining a search, sorting facilities, etc. * `mkwsLang` -- provides links to switch between one of several different UI languages. By default, English, Danish and German are provided. * `mkwsSwitch` -- provides links to switch between a view of the result records and of the targets that provide them. Only meaningful when `mkwsTargets` is also provided. * `mkwsTargets` -- the area where per-target information will appear when selected by the link in the `mkwsSwitch` area. Of interest mostly for fault diagnosis rather than for end-users. * `mkwsStat` --provides a status line summarising the statistics of the various targets. To see all of these working together, just put them all into the HTML `` like so:

Configuration ------------- Many aspects of the behaviour of MKWS can be modified by setting parameters into the `mkws_config` hash. **This must be done *before* including the MKWS JavaScript** so that when that code is executed it can refer to the configuration values. So the HTML header looks like this: This configuration sets the UI language to Danish (rather than the default of English), initially sorts search results by title rather than relevance (though as always this can be changed in the UI) and makes the search box a bit wider than the default. The full set of supported configuration items is described in the reference guide below. Control over HTML and CSS ------------------------- More sophisticated applications will not simply place the `

`s together, but position them carefully within an existing page framework -- such as a Drupal template, an OPAC or a SharePoint page. While it's convenient for simple applications to use a monolithic `mkwsResults` area which contains record, facets, sorting options, etc., customised layouts may wish to treat each of these components separately. In this case, `mkwsResults` can be omitted, and the following lower-level components provided instead: * `mkwsTermlists` -- provides the facets * `mkwsRanking` -- provides the options for how records are sorted and how many are included on each page of results. * `mkwsPager` -- provides the links for navigating back and forth through the pages of records. * `mkwsNavi` -- when a search result has been narrowed by one or more facets, this area shows the names of those facets, and allows the selected values to be clicked in order to remove them. * `mkwsRecords` -- lists the actual result records. Customisation of MKWS searching widgets can also be achieved by overriding the styles set in the toolkit's CSS stylesheet. The default styles can be inspected in `mkwsStyle.css` and overridden in any styles that appears later in the HTML than that file. At the simplest level, this might just mean changing fonts, sizes and colours, but more fundamental changes are also possible. To properly apply styles, it's necessary to understand how the HTML is structured, e.g. which elements are nested within which containers. The structures used by the widget-set are described in the reference guide below. Refinements ----------- ### Message of the day Some applications might like to open with content in the area that will subsequently be filled with result-records -- a message of the day, a welcome message or a help page. This can be done by placing an `mkwsMOTDContainer` division on the page next to `mkwsResults` or `mkwsRecords`. The contents of this element are initially displayed, but will be hidden when a search is made. ### Responsive design Metasearching applications may need to appear differently on small-screened mobile devices, or change their appearance when screen-width changes (as when a small device is rotated). To achieve this, MKWS supports responsive design which will move the termlists to the bottom on narrow screens and to the sidebar on wide screens. To turn on this behaviour, set the `responsive_design` configuration element to `true`, and `responsive_design_width` to the desired threshhold width in pixels. For example: If individual result-related components are in use in place of the all-in-one mkwsResults, then the redesigned application needs to specify the locations where the termlists should appear in both cases. In this case, wrap the wide-screen `mkwsTermlists` element in a `mkwsTermlistContainer1` element; and provide an `mkwsTermlistContainer2` element in the place where the narrow-screen termlists should appear. ### Popup results with jQuery UI The [jQuery UI library](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JQuery_UI) can be used to construct MKWS applications in which the only component generally visible on the page is a search box, and the results appear in a popup. The key part of such an application is this invocation of the MKWS jQuery plugin: The necessary scaffolding can be seen in an example application, http://example.indexdata.com/index-popup.html ### Authentication and target configuration By default, MKWS configures itself to use a demo account on a service hosted by mkws.indexdata.com. This demo account provides access to about a dozen free data sources. Authentication onto this service is via an authentication URL on the same server, which MKWS uses by default so no configuration is needed. Access to a customised set of resources (including resources that require authentication) can be provided. In this case, a customer-specific authentication URL is used to gain access to these rather than the default set. Contact Index Data on info@indexdata.com for details. Reference Guide --------------- ### Configuration object The configuration object `mkws_config` may be created before including the MKWS JavaScript code to modify default behaviour. This structure is a hash, whose entries are described in the table below. All entries are options, but if specified must be given values of the specified type. If ommitted, each setting takes the indicated default value; long default values are in footnotes to keep the table reasonably narrow. --- Element Type Default Description -------- ----- --------- ------------ debug int 1 Level of debugging output to emit. 0 = none, 1 = messages, 2 = messages with datestamps, 3 = messages with datestamps and stack-traces. facets array *Note 1* Ordered list of names of facets to display. Supported facet names are `sources`, `subjects` and `authors`. lang string en Code of the default language to display the UI in. Supported language codes are `en` = English, `de` = German, `da` = Danish, and whatever additional languages are configured using `language_*` entries (see below). lang_display array [] A list of the languages to offer as options. If empty (the default), then all configured languages are listed. lang_menu bool true Indicates whether or not to display the language menu. ### We should get rid of this setting, and simply display the menu if there's an `mkwsLang` element. language_* hash Support for any number of languages can be added by providing entries whose name is `language_` followed by the code of the language. See the separate section below for details. pazpar2_url string *Note 2* The URL used to access the metasearch middleware if `use_service_proxy` is false. ### It's silly that you have to provide a different setting depending on whether `use_service_proxy` is set. Should just use pazpar2_url in all cases. perpage array *Note 3* A list of candidate page sizes. Users can choose between these to determine how many records are displayed on each page of results. perpage_default string 20 The initial value for the number of records to show on each page. ### The `perpage` and `perpage_default` entries should be renamed `perpage_display` and `perpage` respectively for consistency with the language-related settings. perpage_menu bool true Indicates whether or not to display the perpage menu. ### We should get rid of this setting, and simply display the menu if an appropriate container is provided. query_width int 50 The width of the query box, in characters. responsive_design bool false If true, then the facets display moves between two locations as the screen-width varies, as described above. ### This entry should not exist: the design should be responsive whenever `responsive_design_width` has a defined value. responsive_design_width int 980 If `responsive_design` is true, this is the threshhold width, in pixels, at which the facets move between their two locations. service_proxy_auth url *Note 4* A URL which, when `use_service_proxy` is true, is fetched once at the beginning of each session to authenticate the user and establish a session that encompasses a defined set of targets to search in. service_proxy_url string *Note 5* The URL on which the service proxy is accessed if `use_service_proxy` is true. This service must be configured to provide search results, facets, etc. sort array *Note 6* List of supported sort criteria. Each element of the list is itself a two-element list: the first element of each sublist is a pazpar2 sort-expression such as `data:0` and the second is a human-readable label such as `newest`. sort_default string relevance The label of the default sort criterion to use. Must be one of those in the `sort` array. sort_menu bool true Indicates whether or not to display the sort menu. ### We should get rid of this setting, and simply display the menu if an appropriate container is provided. use_service_proxy bool true If true, then a Service Proxy is used to deliver searching services rather than raw Pazpar2. ### Do we even need this? Can't we just assume that the Service Proxy is in use when and only when `service_proxy_auth` is defined? Alternatively, retain this, but use the same entry to specify the URL in either case. --- #### Notes 1. ["sources", "subjects", "authors"] 2. /pazpar2/search.pz2 3. [10, 20, 30, 50] 4. http://mkws.indexdata.com/service-proxy-auth 5. http://mkws.indexdata.com/service-proxy/ 6. [["relevance"], ["title:1", "title"], ["date:0", "newest"], ["date:1", "oldest"]] ### Language specification TODO ### jQuery plugin invocation TODO ### The structure of the HTML generated by the MKWS widgets TODO - - - Copyright (C) 2013 by IndexData ApS,