Metadata

How to

1. Access Metadata Admin
   • Understand Metadata Admin
2. Edit/Apply Individual Object's Metadata
3. Understand and Use Metadata Filtering
4. Add or Edit a Metadata Dictionary
5. Edit Metadata Forms

Accessing Metadata Admin

To use Metadata Admin you must be logged in with the administrator toolbar visible across the top of your screen. Select the  button and then Metadata Admin from the drop down menu on the left of your screen.

The Metadata Admin Manager will look similar to the one below, showing each of the dictionaries currently linked to your website.

The Manager Options menu appears on the left side of the screen.

Up to ten objects will appear on each page of the Manager. When more than ten dictionaries exist in a folder the top of the Manager will change. Forward and back arrows allow movement through the pages. The drop down list shows the ID numbers for the objects on each page.

Metadata Admin

The Metadata Admin Manager makes it easy to change how metadata is entered into the Netagi Aplinx System. Metadata can effictively have virtually any amount and type of information about an object as is feasilbly possible.

As an example: books can have information about their Category, Publisher and Availability. An online nursery might have metadata information about a products seed type and plant family. Articles, in the Aplinx system, generally have information about the author, date, subject and language.

The metadata entered for your objects can either be free text, date chooser, or a selection from a dictionary.

A metadata field such as availability may only have two possible answers, so a dictionary with 'Now' and 'Coming Soon' will be all that is required. On the other hand the language metadata field requires the 'RFC 1766 Language' Dictionary (listing all languages available).

Applying Metadata to Objects

If you have used the Metadata Admin tools to customise your metadata, then you are ready to add metadata information to your objects. Most managers have the ablity to access the Metadata Form at the default manager screen, by (a) selecting the radio button next to the ID number of the object you wish to change and then (b) clicking 'Edit Metadata' in the Manager Options Menu. Alternatively, via the 'Click to Edit' button on each object once they have been inserted onto a page or Masterpage. Selecting the 'Edit Metadata' button from either of these locations takes you to the Metadata Form for the selected object.

Using the various tabs at the top of this screen you are able to specify various attributes about the object. Please note the areas labled '(No Values Defined in Dictionary)'. This occurs where a dictionary may have been selected to define the values available for this attribute, but is not functioning propperly (in this example the dictionary had been removed). If this situation presents itself, you may need to redefine the dictionary in order to set the objects attributes. Once a dictionary has been successfully defined, a dropdown list will be made available for that attribute. In the case of 'Creator' the dictionary may simply consist of registered users or administrator users of your website.

Selecting the small black arrow next to the 'Remove' button will open a list of sub-data associated with the main attributes.

If one piece of Metadata requires multiple values, select 'Duplicate' after entering the initial attribute. For example: within the 'Content' tab is metadata called 'source'. For an article, you may wish to make note of the source of the text and have a seperate note for the source of an image. A duplicated attribute will by default have the same value entered as the one you have copied. You may edit the text of the new attribute (which can be identified when newly created by green highlighting).

Click 'Save' when complete.

Metadata Filter

Most managers have the ability to use Metadata to filter and sort objects within them. Filtering is a relatively easy process. To filter/sort objects in a Manager, go to the 'Metadata Filter' tab at the top of the Manager.

• The dropdown list contains each of the attributes that are available to you when applying Metadata to individual objects. Select from the drop down list the attribute you wish to search/filter by and then click 'Add New Filter'.

  

Please Note: If you are attempting to filter in the 'Articles' folder, you may notice an additional item in this dropdown list - HTML. Selecting this option allows you to search the text and background html code of your articles. If for example you wish to show in the manager all articles containing one or more image, you would select 'html' from the dropdown list and click 'Add New Filter'. A new text box will load on your screen. In that text box, you would enter the html code for image (  img ). When completing the search, only articles containing the img code would appear in the Manager tab.

• In the new text box, enter a value to filter by.
  • You may for example have multiple copyright articles in your Article Manager. Entering 'Copyright' in the text box will find all articles with this word in the title.
• Additional filters may be added in the same manner:
  • First select from the dropdown list which Metadata attribute you wish to search by.
  • An additional filter text box will appear. Enter the next search term to continue.
• When you click 'Search Now', the 'Managers' tab will be refreshed and only those fields that match your query wil be shown. You may further refine your list by applying additional filters, removing or editing filters you have previously added, or selecting the 'exact match' option. You must click 'Search Now' before returning to the Managers tab for changes to take effect. The filtering is performed entirely by the database, so it is relatively quick to generate your results.
• If you no longer wish to view only filtered objects in the Managers tab, select the 'Clear Search' button. The Managers tab will reload showing all objects in their original order.

Please note: When selecting one of the core fields such as 'Title', refinements such as 'alternate title' will be searched automatically to help simplify your filtering experience.

Adding/Editing a dictionary

Upon entering the Metadata Admin Manager you are immediately confronted with a list of dictionaries that have been preconfigured for your site, each is able to be viewed, edited, or deleted. There are also buttons which allow you to add new dictionaries and to edit the metadata editing form.

By selecting the radio button next to the 'RFC 1766 Language' dictionary and clicking 'View Dictionary' from the Manager Options Menu, you will be presented with a listing similar to the one below . All of the terms that are stored in the dictionary are shown in the list. A scroll bar on the right hand side allows you to move through the list items.

By choosing the 'Edit Dictionary' option, you may insert new text into the dictionary using either the text-area OR the 'upload file' section. Any CSV file may be uploaded. Only new data will be added - that is, a dictionary may contain duplicate items but duplicates will be removed upon re-entry.

Data already in a dictionary cannot be removed. If you require a dictionary without certain items, you may need to create a new dictionary object.

Editing Metadata Forms

The fields of the Metadata Form (shown when Applying Metadata to Objects) can be edited here. There is only one Metadata Form for all objects within the Aplinx system, so any alterations you make to the form will affect all instances where it appears or is edited.

Editing the Metadata Form is made easy by utilising drop-down lists of the available input types:

Free Text	This input type refers to a text box, whereby the user may enter any text they desire. It is the most flexible but will no doubt lead to data consistency problems - for example: 'Admin' and 'Administrator' could both be used to identify an object's creator. When placed in a filter 'Administrator' would not show any of the 'Admin' files
Free Text w/ History	This input type will allow the users the same flexibility as Free Text, however, will include a drop-down list of all the values previously entered in the system for that metadata-field. This can be a handy method to avoid spelling inconsistencies.
User Selection Popup	Instead of a text box, a 'Pick' option will be displayed allowing a user to choose a relevant term from their user's database. A popup-window gives them acess to this database.
Dictionary	A user is forced to choose one of the available dictionary items, or none at all. This forces data-consistency and is the most ideal method of entering metadata. When selecting the dictionary, a 'Choose' button will become visable next to that attribute. Click on this button to show a popup, in which you will see all of the available dictionaries. You can create more dictionaries if you need at this time. You must select at least one dictionary in order to have the dictionary populated with values for the user. Multiple dictionaries may also be selected, these will be displayed to the user as groups in the drop-down list.
Date	A single button will be shown next to the input field which the user must click in order to have data placed in these field types. Dates are selected using a calendar and free-text input is not allowed.
Text Area	Exactly the same as Free Text, however, the input area is increased in size so that the user may enter and view larger quantities of text. This is ideal for larger fields that differ for each object such as Description.

Do not forget to edit the Metadata Form elements for sub-attributes by clicking on each of the small black triangles.

You will notice that most have been set with a default value and may not need changing, but this is entirely dependant on your website and its particular needs.