[midgard-user] Midhoo re-implementation mini spec

[Philipp Rotmann, Linksystem Muenchen]

     Hi there,

for those who are already wondering:  I'm writing this mini-spec
for two audiences at once, one being our (Link-M-)internal
development team for the project where our re-implementation of
Emile's and Ron's Midhoo code will be put to its first use. The
second one is the Midgard User Mailing List, in order to gather
additional feedback from the source(tm) itself ;-)

In this document I will simply use the name Midhoo for that
mini-application, the approval of the original authors implied.
If you're not okay with that, please contact me and I'll change
it.


Midhoo re-implementation mini spec

Version: 0.1, 2000-12-27, Philipp Rotmann <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>


Project Background

Our client runs a newspaper-like website for the region of
Munich, Germany, and wants to offer his visitors the additional
opportunity to register their websites in his local web
directory (another one... ;-)). His one is called 'NetLinks'.


Requirements

1. Links can be structured in Categories with short 
   descriptions. At first, only one level depth is required.
2. Every link record includes the elements Title, URL, Short
   Description, Category, Keywords, Email Address (why that?
   don't ask...)
3. The directory can be browsed by Category or directly searched
   by Title/Keywords/Short Description through one full-text
   input field; results will be displayed page by page with a
   definable number of hits per page.
4. For a future version, we shall provide for the possibility to
   structure links additionally by geographical means (zip code
   mapping to localized editions of those newspapers).
5. And of course, Midhoo has to offer a link submission form
   that collects not only the above mentioned elements of a link
   records but also name and address of the submitter and 'logs'
   the new entry via email.

Another requirement would be to make the application as modular
and customizable as possible, mostly with regard to layout and
language on the one hand and packaging as an easily
distributable Midgard Application on the other.


Data structures

For the storage of those link records, we will use our own topic
tree consisting of a 'Midhoo Root Topic' (which could still be
part of the sitewide root topic) and the categories as needed.
Thus, we provide already for several levels of depth and the
mixture of links and subtopics in a topic.

Midhoo links are mapped to Midgard article records as follows:

  Midhoo record element  Midgard article field
  ---------------------  ---------------------
  Title                  title
  URL                    url
  Short Description      abstract
  Category               topic
  Keywords               name
  Email Address          extra1

The future element District could then be mapped to an article's
'type'.


Logic

The code for Midhoo shall reside in one page only and make use
of code snippets as much as appropriate. We will not use any
kind of templating system as the HTML code needed will be quite
simple and could easily be 'styled' by CSS, whereas language
independence will be achieved by means of snippetized string
libraries.

For the first revision, localization as well as other
configuration options are simply realized as global constants.
Later we may find a more convenient and flexible way.


Any feedback and suggestions are much appreciated :-)

     Best regards,
     phr
--   
Linksystem Muenchen GmbH                          [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Schloerstrasse 10                           http://www.link-m.de
80634 Muenchen                              Tel. 089 / 890 518-0
We make the Net work.                       Fax 089 / 890 518-77

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