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Data category headings


Question:

How can I group my data sets into categories meaningful to my users?

Example:

[Output Graphic]

Explanation:

The blue category headings are added by the script which generates the web interface from the las.xml file. This feature enables an interface to display 'sister servers' but can also be used to create data categories on a single server. Normally, after creating the las.xml file, you simply type 'make' to generate the web interface. The 'make' command reads the Makefile in lasxml/server/ and results in the following command being issued:

../xml/perl/genLas2.pl -d ../ui las.xml

The headings appear when you supply more than one .xml file to the genLas2.pl script as in:

../xml/perl/genLas2.pl -d ../ui las1.xml las2.xml

The text for the headings is obtained from the <institution> tags in las1.xml and las2.xml.

Note: The las.xml file must exist and must contain all of the datasets specified in the individual las#.xml files.

Solution:

You can create data categories easily if you use dataset specific xml includes. If your las.xml file includes 10 datasets that you want broken up into 3 categories you can simply copy las.xml to las1.xml, las2.xml and las3.xml. In each of these las#Xml files you should modify the name attribute of the institution element to reflect the category and then remove all the dataset specific includes that are not part of this category. Then generate the new, categorized interface with:

../xml/perl/genLas2.pl -d ../ui las1.xml las2.xml ...


Jonathan Callahan: Jonathan.S.Callahan@noaa.gov
Last modified: August 8, 2000