This page is under construction.

Background

Tools Catalog is the main web application that the tool contributors of Brown Dog will interact with. Current version of Tools Catalog (0.4.0) needs to be simplified and made more user friendly, in order for that to happen. Tools Catalog 0.4.0 is written in Scala using the Play framework, which is less popular than languages like Python, JavaScript, etc. There are also many features in Tools Catalog 0.4.0, which are either not needed or not clearly understood by the users. This will be an opportunity to re-design and re-implement Tools Catalog with only the required set of functionalities, which are user friendly as well.

Definitions

This section will define the main concepts that will need to be clearly understood for easily interacting with the Tools Catalog. An example can be Tool vs Script or any new terminology that will be used in Tools Catalog.

Converter: Software that does data format conversion.

Extractor: Software that process and extract metadata from data.

Transformation: Any converter or extractor.

Tool: Software / library that is used by an extractor or converter to do data transformation.

converters_info.json: A JSON file that describes a converter. 

extractors_info.json: A JSON file that describes an extractor.

User Roles

The user roles in the Tool Catalog 2.0 will be:

1. Administrator
   1. Update / Delete transformations created by contributors
   2. Update / Delete tools added by contributors?
   3. All Viewer permissions
2. Contributor
   
   1. Create new transformation and link it to one or more existing tools or libraries.
      1. Add a new tool or library during the process?
   2. Update created transformations [adding the word "created" to make it clear that a contributor can only manage the transformations they contributed]
   3. Delete created transformations
   4. View created transformations
   5. All Viewer permissions
3. Viewer (can be any user who does not login)
   1. View all transformations
   2. View all tools
   3. View all transformations that are linked to a tool
   4. View a single transformation and the tools that it uses.

Features

• Contributors will be able to add a transformation through the Tools Catalog interface. This will be made available through a form that the contributor can fill and submit.
• Contributors will also be able to import a new transformation into the catalog by uploading an extractors_info.json or converters_info.json file. Any missing piece of information can be filled in by the contributor.
• Contributors will be able to link their transformation with one more existing tools in the Tools Catalog. They will be able to add a new tool if it doesn't already exist.
• There won't be any formal approval process for the submitted transformations. All transformations that get submitted will be available to the public.
• Administrators can update or delete any transformation as they feel appropriate.

• Ability to include icon
• Ability to include link to software web page (e.g. Image J)
• A link to the "tool" - something ideally fairly usable (code repo?, endpoint?, both?, ...)

Wireframes