ezCatalog

A customizable data catalog for users of the EDI Data Repository

Live demo

ezCatalog is based on the PASTA-JavaScript-Search-Client developed by Tim Whiteaker for the Long-Term Ecological Research Network (LTER).

Motivation

Researchers and organizations publishing data in the EDI Repository may wish to create a searchable data catalog on their website. This project includes code supporting such functionality.

Usage for Your Site

1. Fork this GitHub repository.
2. Once the repository is forked, go to Actions and enable GitHub Actions for your repository. This is a security requirement imposed by GitHub on forked repositories that include GitHub Action workflows.
3. Initialize GitHub Pages for your fork. Go to Settings > Pages and select Source to be "Deploy from a branch" and Branch to be /root of the main branch.
4. Construct a filter query to identify your data in the EDI Repository and to be listed in your catalog using one of the following options:
   • Unique Keyword - A unique keyword identifying your research group and published in the metadata of each of your EDI data packages can be used as a filter. For example, the research lab of Cayelan Carey publishes data with the keyword "Carey Lab" and the filter query '&fq=keyword:"Carey Lab"' returns all their data.
   • Data Package Identifiers - A list of data package identifiers in the form id:scope.identifier. For example, '&q=id:edi.23+id:edi.101+id:edi.845'returns the newest versions of data packages: edi.23, edi.101, and edi.845.
   • Scope - For LTER only. The scope identifying your LTER site. For example, '&fq=scope:knb-lter-cap' returns all data of the Central Arizona-Phoenix LTER.
5. Add the filter query to config.txt and commit the changes.
6. Use GitHub Actions to build your catalog with the build_catalog workflow. Go to Actions and under Workflows select Build catalog, then Run workflow. Wait for the workflow to complete, then click the Live demo page to see your catalog (it may take a few minutes to update). Subsequent pushes to your fork will automatically rerun the build_catalog workflow.
7. Copy the HTML snippet below and paste it into the body of your webpage. This will reference the catalog hosted on GitHub Pages from within your website.

<iframe loading="lazy" src="https://EDIorg.github.io/ezCatalog/public/demo.html" scrolling="no" allow="fullscreen" width="100%" height="2700px"></iframe>

8. If you would like your catalog to reference data packages in the EDI staging environment, search for the string pasta.lternet and replace with pasta-s.lternet in the files:

   • /harvester/pasta_harvester.mjs
   • /public/pasta.js

   Additionally, in /public/pasta.js replace the line var uri = baseUri + pid; with var uri = baseUri + pid + "?env=staging";.

   Finally, in /public/pasta.js replace the line var link = (citation["doi"]) ? citation["doi"].slice(0, -1) : "https://portal.edirepository.org/nis/mapbrowse?packageid=" + citation["pid"];, with the line var link = "https://portal-s.edirepository.org/nis/mapbrowse?packageid=" + citation["pid"];

9. Additional configuration can be done in /public/pasta.js. For example the abstract visibility can be toggled by changing the value of showAbstracts, and the length of the abstract can be set by changing the value of abstractLimit.

To see an example of how to embed the catalog in a web page <iframe>, view the page source code of the Jornada Basin LTER Data Catalog or experiment using the W3Schools HTML Tryit editor.

Features

Autocomplete

Autocomplete is currently supported for the creator, taxonomy, and project input fields. Try typing a couple of characters into the creator box of the demo page and see what happens.

Autocomplete requires creating a list of possible choices, which is automatically generated each time the GitHub Actions workflow build_catalog runs.

Pagination

ezCatalog allows you to limit the number of results returned per page. If you do not wish to use pagination, set the limit parameter in config.txt to a number higher than the number of datasets available for your group.

Caveats

The success of search queries depends upon the metadata provided when submitting data to the EDI Data Repository.

Support

Please contact [email protected] for help setting up your catalog or resolving issues.

Scope

ezCatalog is a basic data catalog. If interested in developing a more feature rich catalog, we recommend checking out the video on Using the PASTA+ Search API to Create a Local Data Catalog.

Acknowledgments

CSV export uses uselesscode's JS CSV serializer (MIT Licensed): http://www.uselesscode.org/javascript/csv/

We use Pixabay's autocomplete plugin. Thanks Pixabay!