Basic Information

A directory which describes a publication consists of:

The publication.properties file


The publication.properties file is the publication properties file. It consists of key–value pairs. A key, that is, the name of a property, is separated from the value with the equal sign (=). Each such pair is in a separate row. The file should be saved as UTF-8 encoded.

The permitted properties and their values are presented below.

A sample publication.properties file:

publication.actorsRights.publicGroup=pr
publication.collections=2,7,12
publication.destination.directoryId=1
publication.mainFile=index.htm
publication.metadataFile=metadata.rdf
publication.name=Sample Publication
publication.notes=Created by Jan Kowalski
publication.published=true

In this example, the publicGroup will have the permission to review all publications (the assigned pr permission implies the pv permission). The publication will be assigned to collections with identifiers 2, 7, and 12. The publication will be put in the directory with identifier 1. The main file of the publication will be the index.htm file, and the metadata will be in the metadata.rdf file. The publication will be named Sample Publication, and the administrative notes – Created by Jan Kowalski. The first edition of the newly created publication will be published, and the publication will not be protected.

Group Publications

In order to make a newly created publication a group publication, the main file of the publication (the publication.mainFile key) cannot be defined. If the directory which describes the publication contains subdirectories, they will also be analyzed, and the publications described in them will be added as the subordinate directories of the group publication. The subordinate publications can also be group publications (if no main file is defined for them), so the user can create a hierarchy with any number of levels.

Note: if the added publication is not a group publication, then the main file must be determined.

Planned Publications

The created publication can be a planned publication. For that to be the case, the publication directory can only contain two files: publication.properties and description.rdf. Additionally, file publication.properties can contain the publication.publishingDatekey, the value of which should be the planned date of publication. The allowed date format is: yyyy-MM-dd, where yyyy means the year, MM – month, and dd – day.

Defining the Location of a Publication

In order to create a publication, the user must decide where to put it in the directory structure and the structure of the group publications of the dLibra system. That can be done with the use of property publication.destination.directoryId (the target directory) or publication.destination.parentPublicationId (the superordinate group publication). The priority of the second property is higher, so if both are defined, the target directory will be ignored (the publication will be added to the directory which contains the superordinate group publication).

When a group publication is added, the subordinate publications added with it do not require a direct definition of the target location. Since the superordinate group publication is known at once, the publication.destination.directoryId and publication.destination.parentPublicationId will be ignored.

Defining the Name of a Publication

An added publication must have a name. The name can be specified in one of two ways:

Inheriting properties in publication.properties files

The inheritance mechanism has been introduced to facilitate defining the properties of an object when many added publications have the same values. The properties do not have to be defined directly in every directory which describes a publication – they can be placed in the publication.properties file in the parent directory (indicated in the mass object upload creator). They are inherited by all added publications. In particular publications, the user can define the selected properties again – in such a case, the inherited values will be overwritten.

Properties are also inherited in the hierarchy of embedded group publications. Thus, if a group publication is created, the properties of all subordinate publications created with it are inherited from that group publication – unless they are overwritten. However, there are exceptions to that rule:

Inheriting Metadata

That mechanism is similar to the mechanism of inheriting publication.properties files, except that the metadata file in the parent directory should be named publication.rdf. Thus, if the directory which contains directories whcih describe publications contains a publication.rdf file, the metadata from that file will be ascribed to all the created publications. That inheritance mechanism only operates on the first level of directories – it does not pertain to publications grouped in newly created publications. Metadata from group publications are inherited through the publication grouping mechanism.

Generating a Sample Property File

With the use of the “Save property file” option from the “Tools” menu, the user can save the information about a publication selected on the element list to a file. The file can become a model for files which should be placed in directories which describe publications during mass object upload.