Webinar - Part 2 - Site Map Administration

Site Map Administration

 ( notes from part 2 of webinar series by Tracy Adams )

1. Packages - Applications vs Services
2. Package .info Files - xml about the package
3. Package Manager - parameters, xml file creation, package installation and upgrade
4. Site Map - subsites, permissions, groups, users, registration
5. Request Processor - package_id, permissions for an instance
6. Site Map API - mount, instantiate_and_mount

Packages - Applications vs Services

Most of the OpenACS code is divided into packages. There are application packages and service packages. Applications are packages like "Room Reservation" or "Photo Album" - something that people, who come to the site can see and use. Services are the parts of the OACS that are not used by users directly, but rather provide functions or data for applications to use.

There is a package repository OpenACS community site divided into channels for each major version of OpenACS.

To use a package on the site, first - install it, then mount it into the Site Map. Consider the example of forums. Assume we have 3 groups of users that will post on different topics. We install forums package, then we mount fhe package in following urls:

/group-1/forum 
/group-2/forum
/group-3/forum

Every forum will have its own "package_id", its own users and its own set of permissions. There will be separate data for each forum but the same TCL and ADP files.

Administration pages are at the url:  http://yourserver/acs-admin/. Links presented there let admin perform miscellaneous tasks.

To install packages from local filesystem or from OpenACS repository follow "Install software" link.

To mount packages follow the link "Site Map".