Hi All,
Fred is a good companion re. ODS customization since he is working on
this as part of Zitgist :-)
Will do my best.
2. I have checked the excellent (but some dated, and most geared to
the commercial version) Virtuoso documentation and can find no
documentation on ods_dav.vad. Would I be correct that *after* making
any UI code changes that is advisable to re-build this package?
Not really, you are better off putting your modifications into a
separate VAD.
I would say not at all.
In fact, you have to see VADs for what they are: installation packages.
So, once a VAD package is installed in Virtuoso, it will likely reside
in a folder somewhere in a DAV repository.
Do all the modifications you want from the DAV repository. Once the
modifications are saved in there, you will see the effects in the UI.
(just a quick note here: you should always replace the related vspx file
before taking a look at the modifications, because the cache system will
only be refreshed is the data of the vspx file changed, otherwise
changes wont appear).
Once you finished all the changes, and that you want to save the
modifications and being able to install this new and updated package on
another virtuoso instance, then re-package it and distribute it (there
are better people to tell you how, since I never done it and I lack doc
too vis-a-vis this issue).
3. Are there any utilities to access and modify either .vsp or .vspx
files? Working with the XML directly is pretty hairy
Various Editors will work (in some cases you tell them to recognize
the vsp and vsp extensions e.g DreamWeaver and others). I use
TextMate on Mac OS X.
The best I know: notepad++ under windows
Unfortunately, there are no efforts to develop such IDE for VSP and
VSPX. However, some simpler things could be done like: creating syntax
enlightmen in dreamweaver, notepad++ and other text editors.
6. Is there documentation for how best to include OAT with ODS, and
does it add anything at present out of the box?
Well, if you consider OAT as a javascript framework (what it is), and
ODS as an web application suite; and that you need to use OAT
functionnalities into ODS, then you only have to include OAT in ODS's
web pages via a <script> HTML element, and use what you want.
There is nothing special here, you have to see ODS as a web application,
like any other application built using PHP, JSP, ASP, etc.
The difference is that it is binded more tightly with the DBMS (that is
virtuoso). One example is that a saved SQL Procedure can authomatically
be used by a vsp or vspx script. What is different than creating a PHP
function you will ask me? Well, if we consider that a SQL Procedure can
be easily be exposed as a web service, it is at least one thing that
can't be done by other solutions available :)
Forgive me for the number of questions; there will certainly be more
to come.
We will be there to answer them all :)
Take care,
Fred
