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README.ACEBROWSER  view on Meta::CPAN

  a. Site-specific configuration file directory

	Acebrowser needs access to one or more configuration files.
	Each file describes a data source and how information from
	the data source is to be rendered.  All configuration files
	are stored in a directory at the location indicated here.

	The default is /usr/local/apache/conf/ace/.

  b. Acebrowser CGI script directory

        The core of Acebrowser is a set of CGI scripts.  This is the
	directory that will contain them.  Choose a directory that will
	be recognized by the web server as containing CGI script.  If
	you are using Apache/mod_perl, select a directory under the 
	control of Apache::Registry.

        The default is /usr/local/apache/cgi-bin/ace/

  c. Acebrowser HTML files and images

	Acebrowser uses a small number of static HTML files and images.
	This is the directory that will contain them.  Choose a directory
	that is located under the web server's document root.

	The default is /usr/local/apache/htdocs/ace/

Depending on the permissions of your web server directories, you may
have to be root in order to create some of these directories.

4. Run "make", "make test" and "make install" as described in the main
README.  If this is successful, run "make install-browser".  This will
copy the acebrowser files into the directories chosen in step (3).
Depending on the permissions of your web server directories, you may
have to be root in order to complete this step.

5. If you installed the CGI scripts in their default location, you
should now be able to search the C. elegans database by fetching the
following URL:

	http://your.host/cgi-bin/ace/searches/text

You can then follow the links to browse the database.  A slightly more 
sophisticated search allows you to search a subset of object classes:

        http://your.host/cgi-bin/ace/searches/basic

or the entire list of object classes:

        http://your.host/cgi-bin/ace/searches/browser

There is also a default Acebrowser "home page" installed at the URL:

	http://your.host/ace/index.html

You may have to adjust these URLs for the locations of the directories
chosen in step (3).

CONFIGURATION

Acebrowser is configured to allow access to multiple ACEDB databases.
You can customize each database extensively by changing the appearance
of pages, adding new search capabilities, and adding new displays for
particular Ace object classes.

Each database has a symbolic name, and each symbolic name corresponds
to a configuration file located in the site-specific configuration
directory.  There are three databases defined in a new Acebrowser
installation: 

  simple   An acedb database running on port 2005 of the 
	   local host

  moviedb  An example database of movies running on port 200008 
	   of stein.cshl.org

  default  An oldish snapshot of the C. elegans database running
	   on port 2005 of stein.cshl.org

To select among the data sources, append the symbolic name to the end
of the URL of the desired CGI script.  For example, to do a text
search on the "moviedb" database, fetch this URL:

  http://your.site/cgi-bin/ace/searches/text/moviedb

If no symbolic name is specified, the default database is assumed.
  http://your.site/cgi-bin/ace/searches/text 

is equivalent to

  http://your.site/cgi-bin/ace/searches/text/default

As described in EXTENDING ACEBROWSER, another way to select among
databases is to place the CGI script itself in a directory with the
same name as the database.  For example, if you have written a
specialized CGI script called screenplay that is designed to work with 
the "moviedb" database, you could place it in a subdirectory named
moviedb, and refer to it this way:

  http://your.site/cgi-bin/ace/moviedb/screenplay

The symbolic name can actually appear anywhere in the path, so this
would work as well:

  http://your.site/cgi-bin/ace/moviedb/custom/screenplay

THE CONFIGURATION FILES

The configuration files are located in the directory selected for
acebrowser configuration.  Their names are formed by appending ".pm"
to the symbolic name of the database.  For example, the configuration
file "simple.pm" corresponds to the database "simple".

Each of the configuration files is actually an executable Perl script.
As such it can use any Perl constructions you wish, including variable
interpolation.  The purpose of the configuration file is to set a
series of configuration variables, which by convention are all
uppercase.  For example, here is an excerpt from the default.pm
configuration file:

 $HOST = 'stein.cshl.org';