Configuring the behavior of Aristotle-MDR

Environment variables

The default django settings file for Aristotle-MDR looks for a number of enviromnet variables for storing files or configuring your webapp. These are all prefixed with aristotlemdr:.

BASE_DIR
Defaults to the path of where Aristotle is installed. Its highly adviced this is changed.
SECRET_KEY

Defaults to a very insecure value - you MUST change this before going into production. From Django settings documentation:

A secret key for a particular Django installation. This is used to provide cryptographic signing, and should be set to a unique, unpredictable value.
STATIC_ROOT

Defaults to the value of BASE_DIR + "/static" From Django settings documentation:

A secret key for a particular Django installation. This is used to provide cryptographic signing, and should be set to a unique, unpredictable value.
MEDIA_ROOT

Defaults to the value of BASE_DIR + "/media" From Django settings documentation:

Absolute filesystem path to the directory that will hold user-uploaded files.
ARISTOTLE_DISABLE_ASYNC_SIGNALS
Default: False Disables asynchronous signal processing

ARISTOTLE_SETTINGS

The following are required within a dictionary in the settings for the configured Django project.

CONTENT_EXTENSIONS
A list of the namespaces used to add additional content types, these are used when discovering the available extensions for about pages - required format a list of strings.
BULK_ACTIONS
A list of fully-qualified python paths to the bulk action form classes that provide the action. More information on configuring bulk actions is available here.
PDF_PAGE_SIZE
The default page size to deliver PDF downloads if a page size is not specified in the URL
SEPARATORS
A key:value set that describes the separators to be used for name suggestions in the admin interface. These are set by specifying the key as the django model name for a given model, and the value as the separator. When a value for a model isn’t stated in this field it defaults to a hyphen -. The default settings in required_settings.py set additional defaults and specify the separator for “DataElements” as a comma with a single space , `` and the separator for "DataElementConcepts" as an em-dash ``–.
SITE_NAME
The main title for the site - required format string or unicode.
SITE_BRAND
A URL to the logo to use for the site, this can be relative or absolute.
SITE_INTRO
The introductory text use on the home page as a prompt for users - required format string or unicode.
WORKGROUP_CHANGES
An array that specified which classes of user can move items between workgroups. Possible options include 'admin', 'manager' or 'submitter'.
DOWNLOADERS
A list of download options - explained below:

ARISTOTLE_SETTINGS.DOWNLOADERS

This is a list of tuples that define the different download options that will be made available to users. This tuple defines in order:

  • filetype used in the URL to catch this download type - must match the regex [a-zA-Z0-9\-\.]+.
  • the name presented on the download menu
  • The Font-Awesome icon used in the download menu
  • the python module that includes the downloader.py file for handling this filetype

For example:

('pdf',"PDF","fa-file-pdf-o","aristotle_mdr")

Menu options are only given if a template for that download file type exists for a given object. The first (filetype) setting is used when catching URLs for downloads, so that when resolving URLs the filetype is used in the URL in the following way:

/download/<download-file-type>/<item-id>

This file type is also passed to the download manager for this filetype, so that multiple file types can be handled by the same extension.

For example, if an object class had a PDF template, based on the above configuration the menu below would be accessible:

An example download menu with one option for a PDF download link.

And clicking this would access the following relative URL:

/download/pdf/<object_class_id>

For more information on creating additional download extensions consult the guide on Adding new download formats.

Sample settings

Below is the ARISTOTLE_SETTINGS used on the hosted Aristotle example:

ARISTOTLE_SETTINGS = {
   # 'The main title for the site.'
    'SITE_NAME': 'Aristotle Metadata Registry',
   # URL for the Site-wide logo
    'SITE_BRAND': '/static/aristotle_mdr/images/aristotle_small.png',
   # 'Intro text use on the home page as a prompt for users.'
    'SITE_INTRO': 'Use Aristotle Metadata to search for metadata...',
   # Extensions that add additional object types for search/display.
    'CONTENT_EXTENSIONS' : [ 'comet' ],
   # Separators for auto-generating the names of constructed items.
    'SEPARATORS': { 'DataElement':',',
                'DataElementConcept':'–'},
    'DOWNLOADERS': [
        ('pdf','PDF','fa-file-pdf-o','aristotle_pdf'),
    ]
  }