Concepts for EPiServer Demo site available
Along with the release of our new Concepts for EPiServer 1.0 product which uses our Web3 Platform, we have made available a demo site that you can install on an existing EPiServer site that has Concepts for EPiServer installed. The site demonstrates some of the powerful features that are available in Concepts for EPiServer.
The demo package is available from our Downloads page and can be installed using the EPiServer Deployment Centre. Included is a step-by-step installation and walkthrough guide.
Web3 1.3 Javascript Patch
This notice applies to all editions of Web3 version 1.3.20317
A couple of Javascript issues with the new Topic Map Editor in Web3 have been brought to our attention.
- The Types list in the topic editor does not list topic types which are subtypes of an abstract type. This problem prevents the user from adding a subtype of an abstract type to the list of topic types and it also means that when editing a topic which is an instance of a type that inherits from an abstract type, the editing process actually deletes the topic type.
- The Date/Time field validation doesn't work correctly with the JSON date/time values generated by the Web3 server. This problem shows up when the user enters a valid date/time string into a date/time field and saves the value. The value is correctly stored on Web3, but when the user reloads the topic into the topic editor the field shows the date/time as "NaN-NaN-NaN NaN:NaN:NaN" and displays a validation error.
These issues are addressed in a JS file patch which can be downloaded from here. To install the patch, unzip the file to a temporary directory and then copy the two Javascript files inside it to the directory Server\js under your Web3 installation directory (typically c:\Program Files\NetworkedPlanet\Web3) - these files will replace the two existing Javascript files that contained the errors described above.
Please note: after the update, your browser may still use a locally cached version of these scripts. To ensure that you are using the updated version of the scripts it may be necessary to clear your browser cache.
If you have any problems with this update or other issues with Web3 please do not hesitate to contact us.
Concepts for SharePoint 1.3 released
Version 1.3 of Concepts for SharePoint is now available. This package introduces a number of features and enhancements. The full change list and upgrade instructions can be found below.
The Concepts for SharePoint package can be downloaded from the NetworkedPlanet download page.
Upgrading instructions
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Unzip the download package and run the STSADM -upgradesolution command. The exact command-line you use will depend on how you want to schedule the upgrade, but will be similar to:
stsadm -o upgradesolution -name ConceptsForSharePoint.wsp -filename ConceptsForSharePoint.wsp -allowgacdeployment -local
Restart IIS and the SharePoint 2010 Timer Service
If running CfS on a separate server to that of the Web3 Platform, you will also need to upgrade the additional web3.wsp file contained in the upgrade package and restart the services.
For full upgrade and usage instructions, please refer to the documentation contained in the downloaded package
Change Log
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FEATURE: Setting a Site Page to be about a particular topic : by adding a column to the Site Pages library columns collection (and adding the internal name of the field to the CfsServerConfig file, that Site Page can then be set to a particular term in the CfS Term Store. Web Parts placed on that page will then use the topic for that term as their starting topic, unless specifically overridden.
FEATURE: New Abstract Xml SPARQL Web Part class for use by developers to do server side processing of SPARQL queries.
FEATURE: New Abstract Xml One Hop Web Part class for use by developers to do server side processing of the results of a one hop query.
FEATURE: New Abstract Xml Two Hop Web Part class for use by developers to do server side processing of the results of a two hop query.
FEATURE: New Ajax SPARQL Web Part to display the results of a SPARQL query with all processing done client-side and no server-side processing of the query.
FEATURE: New Ajax One Hop Web Part to display the results of a one hop query with all processing done client-side and no server-side processing of the query.
FEATURE: New Ajax Two Hop Web Part to display the results of a two hop query with all processing done client-side and no server-side processing of the query.
FEATURE - New Topic Connector Web Part which loads the full topic representation of a topic (includes all associations)
FEATURE: New daily synchronisation timer job that performs a full synchronisation between the topic map and the SharePoint Managed Metadata Store.
ENHANCEMENT - Changed the profile scraper so that different user topic types can be used for different topic maps that may be in use on SharePoint Site Collections
ENHANCEMENT: External content types can now be created for multiple topic maps in SharePoint Search.
data.networkedplanet.com
The Web3 Platform is a great way to publish data sets online or within the enterprise. We have setup a new service at http://data.networkedplanet.com that exposes publically available data sets using Linked Open Data principles.
These data sets along with the Web3 Platform act as examples of how to best publish data so that others can make use of it.
Some of the key things that the Web3 Platform offers in this regard is:
1) The ability to address the concepts being published by a persistent, robust URI.
2) Full text concept searching for humans to find published concepts.
3) Human and Machine readable versions of every published concept.
4) SPARQL query endpoints for each data set allowing machines and people to formulate and execute queries over the data.
If you have a data set that you would like to see on data.networkedplanet.com please let us know, if you would like to know more about how the Web3 Platform can be used to publish Linked Open Data then please drop us an email.
LOS on data.networkedplanet.com
The service at data.norge.no provides metadata about data sets that are published by a variety of organisations and aims to facilitate the sharing and reuse of data and vocabularies. The service at data.norge.no is very well put together allowing developers and organisations to find out about data sets that may be of use to them. However, the quality and way in which the organisations listed expose the actual data sets could be better and doesn’t make it easy for third parties to utilise the data.
Consider the LOS hierarchy for example. This simple hierarchy of concepts and topics is described at data.norge.no and the actual data set resides at difi.org. The LOS hierarchy is category scheme and suggested navigation structure for local government in Norway. The data, sadly, is published as an open document format spreadsheet file.
So, with data.networkedplanet.com and the Web3 Platform we have tried to demonstrate how organisations should publish data for it to be useful and easy for others to work with. To accompany the service we describe the key principles that have guided us.
1) Give unique persistent identifiers in the form or URLs to the terms in a vocabulary or ontology. E.g. http://data.networkedplanet.com/difi/los/themes/Arbeid. Is the immutable URI we have assigned to the concept for ‘work’ in the theme hierarchy.
2) Have human and machine representations for all the ‘things’ being published. Again consider the Arbied concept in Los. If developers creating mashups want to make use of the term in an application why would they want to create and store and manage a static copy when it is intended to be a common data set? At data.networkedplanet.com using the Web3 Platform we expose both human and machine representations of all concepts. See http://data.networkedplanet.com/difi/los/themes/Arbeid?format=rdf for the data representation of the Arbied/Work concept.
3) Make the data searchable. Developers and other users (CMS editors perhaps) want to know if certain terms exist. Exposing a full text concept search allows them to find the concepts that are interesting to them.
4) Make the data queryable. Full text search is useful for looking up, or checking that a given term is there. But structured data queries are what developers need to be able to best make use of the data. The Web3 Platform allows SPARQL queries to be run to explore and query the data. To see a list of all themes in LOS the follow URL encoded query can be used …
data.norge.no provides a great hub to discover data sets published by different organisations, but the value of the data they publish is only as good as the tools they offer to users to make use of that data. Networked Planet’s Web3 Platform allows organisations to quickly and easily publishing Linked Open Data in a way that is robust, long lasting and provides developers with data the way they want it.
Networked Planet Linked Data Article
A recent article about Linked Data has been published at Business Computing World.
Web3 Platform LOS Kommune Demo
To show how Linked Data and Semantic Technologies can help organisations publish richer information services we have created a small demonstrator at http://demo.networkedplanet.com/los. This demo uses the LOS theme hierarchy as a way to organise the access to services provided by local government. All the services, contacts and themes are accessible as Linked Data and there is a Linked Data SPARQL endpoint.
The following video provides a quick introduction to the features in the demo.
Concepts for SharePoint 1.2 released
Version 1.2 of Concepts for SharePoint is now available. This package introduces a number of features and enhancements. The full change list and upgrade instructions can be found below.
The Concepts for SharePoint package can be downloaded from the NetworkedPlanet download page.
Upgrading instructions
------------------
Unzip the download package and run the STSADM -upgradesolution command. The exact command-line you use will depend on how you want to schedule the upgrade, but will be similar to:
stsadm -o upgradesolution -name ConceptsForSharePoint.wsp -filename ConceptsForSharePoint.wsp -allowgacdeployment -local
Restart IIS and the SharePoint 2010 Timer Service
If running CfS on a separate server to that of the Web3 Platform, you will also need to upgrade the additional web3.wsp file contained in the upgrade package and restart the services.
For full upgrade and usage instructions, please refer to the documentation contained in the downloaded package
Change Log
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FEATURE: Added Concepts for SharePoint License Manager
FEATURE: User Profile Scraper SharePoint timer job added to pull SharePoint site collection users into the Web3 Platform
FEATURE: New Topic Web Part - adds a new topic from within the SharePointenvironment and redirects to the concept pahe for that topic.
ENHANCEMENT: Changes to the way the topic map is synchronized with the ManagedMetadata Service to speed up the overall synchronization process
ENHANCEMENT: Template mappings can now be configured to load up custom templatesfor concept pages for specific topics based on a topic's PSI
ENHANCEMENT: Related concepts added as a refinement to SharePoint Search
ENHANCEMENT: Additional language strings for Web Parts added to language resource file
ENHANCEMENT: Web Parts that use a starting topic can now be set to "Current User"
ENHANCEMENT: Base topic type concept page allows a new instance of that type to be added from within the SharePoint environment
New Releases of Web3 Platform and Concepts For SharePoint
NetworkedPlanet is pleased to announce the release of new versions of the Web3 Platform and Concepts for SharePoint products.
Web3 1.2
Web3 Platform 1.2 provides a number of bug fixes and performance enhancements over the previous 1.1 release and is a recommended download for all users. Links to the installation packages can be found on the NetworkedPlanet download page.
Upgrading from Web3 1.1
To upgrade from 1.1, unzip the installation package and run the installer application in Web3/setup.exe. During installation you will be prompted for database and service configuration information as you were during the initial installation. After installing Web3, you should also upgrade the Web3Admin package on any client machines that use the Powershell administration snap-in. Full installation and upgrade information can be found in the installation package.
Change Log
ENHANCEMENT: SPARQL query implementation now features partial query caching and query execution plan caching for significant performance improvements when processing repeated queries.
ENHANCEMENT: Major performance improvements for XTM import.
ENHANCEMENT: It is no longer necessary to specify the syntax of the uploaded data to the import job processor. The processor will probe the received data to determine the syntax of the content. As a result, the -Xtm20 flag has been removed from the Import-TopicMap cmdlet.
ENHANCEMENT: TopicRef representations now include a link to the referenced topic's type(s).
ENHANCEMENT: TMSPARQL queries now support the DISTINCT keyword.
BUGFIX: Fixed an issue with round-tripping XTM files through a Web3 export/import cycle
BUGFIX: Fixed the deletion of associations to ensure that all child roles are deleted from the database.
BUGFIX: Fixed rendering of RDF/XML topic representation when an item has a subject identifier that uses a fragment identifier.
BUGFIX: Fixed an issue with the License Manager that resulted in the registration form not displaying on some machines.
BUGFIX: Fixed problem with processing SPARQL queries with literal strings that contain special characters escaped by a backslash.
BUGFIX: Fixed jobs list to include failed jobs and to display jobs in descending order of last updated date/time.
Concepts for SharePoint 1.2
Concepts for SharePoint 1.2 provides a number of bug fixes and performance enhancements over the previous 1.1 release and is a recommended download for all users. Links to the installation packages can be found on the NetworkedPlanet download page.
Upgrading from CfS 1.1
The following steps must be completed to successfully upgrade from Concepts for SharePoint 1.1 to 1.2.
Further information about how to perform these steps is provided elsewhere in the Installation
documentation.
1.Install the License Manager found at <InstallDir>/ConceptsForSharePointLicenseManager.msi
2.Enter your license serial number and activate your license (or run in trial mode)
3.Upgrade the Concepts for SharePoint solution found at <InstallDir>/ConceptsForSharePoint.wsp
4.[OPTIONAL] If Concepts for SharePoint is not installed on the same server as the Web3 Platform, you
must also upgrade the web3.wsp solution (<InstallDir>/web3.wsp) to deploy the updated Web3
Platform assembly files to the local GAC
5.Add the assembly redirection configuration to the SharePoint Web Application's web.config file
(details of which are provided in the "Configuration" section of this document)
6.Restart IIS
7.Reactivate the NPConceptsForSharePoint feature on all site collections that use Concepts for
SharePoint using the force command where appropriate
8.Restart IIS
9.Restart the SharePoint 2010 Timer Service
Change Log
FEATURE: Added Concepts for SharePoint License Manager
FEATURE: User Profile Scraper SharePoint timer job added to pull SharePoint site collection users into the Web3 Platform
FEATURE: New Topic Web Part - adds a new topic from within the SharePoint environment and redirects to the concept pahe for that topic.
ENHANCEMENT: Changes to the way the topic map is synchronized with the Managed Metadata Service to speed up the overall synchronization process
ENHANCEMENT: Template mappings can now be configured to load up custom templates for concept pages for specific topics based on a topic's PSI
ENHANCEMENT: Related concepts added as a refinement to SharePoint Search
ENHANCEMENT: Additional language strings for Web Parts added to language resource file
ENHANCEMENT: Web Parts that use a starting topic can now be set to "Current User"
ENHANCEMENT: Base topic type concept page allows a new instance of that type to be added from within the SharePoint environment
TMCore EPiServer Module v6.0.1 Released
TMCore EPiServer Module v6.0.1 is now available for EPiServer CMS 6. This version of the module includes a minor compatibility fix when using Internet Explorer 8. The update also includes a redundant topic removal tool that removes topics in the topic map that point to pages that are no longer valid in the site which can occur if the TMCore service is disabled.
The minimum requirements for TMCore EPiServer Module v6.0.1 are;
- TMCore07 SP4
- EPiServer CMS 6
Customers with a current maintenance contract should contact support@networkedplanet.com to obtain the latest version module.
