Welcome

This project provides an [ASP.NET MVC 3] (http://www.asp.net/mvc/mvc3) front-end for a [CKAN] (http://wiki.ckan.net/Main_Page) repository. This project provides a fully functioning web-based data catalog based on a group in a shared CKAN respository.

In addition, this project provides a C# wrapper for the CKAN API Version 2 for developers that want to develop .NET applications against any CKAN repository.

About

This project was created in partnership with [Open Colorado] (http://www.opencolorado.org) and Colorado Smart Communities.

This .NET implementation was created for communities that want to leverage the Colorado CKAN repository (http://data.opencolorado.org) while hosting a local data catalog front-end on their organization's Windows/.NET platform. For organizations that prefer, there is also a [PHP front-end] (https://github.com/opencolorado/PHP-Wrapper-for-CKAN-API) available.

There is no specific implemention in this project related to data.opencolorado.org so this can be used with any CKAN instance.

Live sites

The catalog is fully themable using CSS/HTML and two live sites are available:

• [Denver Open Data Catalog] (http://data.denvergov.org)
• [Town of Castle Rock Town Mapping Catalog] (http://crgov.com/index.aspx?nid=1253)

Current Version

Version 1.11, released 4/24/2013. For details see the [Release Notes] (https://github.com/opencolorado/.NET-Wrapper-for-CKAN-API/blob/master/ReleaseNotes.markdown)

Features

• Customizable home page
• Show featured packages (packages tagged with 'featured')
• Show recently updated packages
• Show popular tags in a tag cloud
• Show total number of packages that are available
• Customizable text content and layout
• Search for data packages by query or by tag
• Paginated search results
• Filter results by tag
• Optionally show package ratings with search results
• Display results in list mode or table mode
• View package details
• Date posted and date last updated
• Package description with support for CKAN Markdown formatting
• Resources with customizable resource actions (ex. View KML in Google Maps)
• Additional package details
• Related items (apps & ideas)
• License details
• RSS feed for package revisions
• Themeable
• Supports custom themes with CSS/HTML (just copy an existing theme and customize from there)
• Designed to be integrated into an organizations web site with no code changes required
• Optimized for search engines
• Provides an auto-generated site map (sitemap.xml) for submitting to search engines
• Meta tag support on home page and package pages
• Supports [Google Analytics] (http://www.google.com/analytics) including event tracking for resource downloads, search terms etc. (optional)
• Supports [DISQUS] (http://www.disqus.com) commenting on packages. (optional)
• Supports [AddThis] (http://www.addthis.com) social medial sharing (optional)
• Includes support for 'print this page' and sending the page by email
• Supports [UserVoice] (http://www.uservoice.com) for suggesting new datasets (optional)
• Configurable CKAN request caching for performance optimization
• Supports automatic background caching
• A cache admin interface is provided to view cache contents and clear items from the cache if CKAN changes need to be reflected immediately
• Supports ASP.NET 4/IIS7.5 Application Auto-Start
• Maintenance mode
• Catalog can be taken offline with a custom notice if the CKAN repository needs maintenance
• Uses clean RESTful URLs
• Provides breadcrumbs
• Configurable logging for system monitoring and troubleshooting
• Provides a download proxy so that downloads from an external catalog can also be tracked in analytics
• Multiple download proxy locations can be configured
• If Google Analytics is enabled, the files and total bytes are tracked in the analytics

Getting Started

System Requirements

• Windows Server 2003 or greater
• Microsoft Internet Information Services 6 or greater

Installation

Install and Configure Prerequisites

• .NET Framework 4
• ASP.NET MVC 3

Install Web Application

• Download the latest stable build
• Unzip and install as a web application on your IIS web server
• Configure the settings in web.config
  • Set the Catalog.Group setting to the name of the CKAN group to use in the catalog
  • Set the page titles to reflect the name of your catalog (ex. City and County of Denver Open Data Catalog)
  • Configure page meta tags (see SEO.* settings)
  • Review the web.config comments for additional settings you may want to change
• Load the application URL in your browser to test the catalog
• Configuring ASP.NET 4.0 Auto-Start
  • See http://weblogs.asp.net/scottgu/archive/2009/09/15/auto-start-asp-net-applications-vs-2010-and-net-4-0-series.aspx for instructions
  • The autostart class type is "CkanDotNet.Web.Models.PreWarmCache, CkanDotNet.Web"

Want to Contribute?

Feel free to fork this repo and contribute your ideas.

This project was created using a mix of free tools and open source libraries. You will need the following to compile the project from source and run the unit tests:

• [Microsoft Visual Web Developer Express 2010] (http://www.microsoft.com/visualstudio/en-us/products/2010-editions/visual-web-developer-express)
• [xUnit] (http://xunit.codeplex.com)

C# CKAN API Wrapper

As mentioned above, this project includes a .NET wrapper for the CKAN REST API. This wrapper was created for the needs of this project but it can be used stand-alone if you just need a .NET library to communicate with CKAN.

The following CKAN features are supported at this time:

Model API

• Package Register
• Package Entity
• Group Register
• Group Entity
• Tag Register
• Tag Entity
• Package’s Revisions Entity
• Revision Register
• Revision Entity
• License List

Search API

• Package Search