Two questions about AtoM trial

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Tom Steman

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Feb 13, 2023, 12:21:13 PM2/13/23
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Hi all,

I've been testing a demo version of AtoM.  Right now, I'm experimenting with linking external digital objects.  I read the documentation and said that the URL for the digital object had to end in jpg, png, or something else that indicates that it is a digital object.

I did create an external link from our Archon portal and certainly does not end in jpg, png, or something else.  So, I thought I'd give it a try with our bepress Digital Commons instance.  We do have thousands of objects there that I'd like to like to - but not put the PDF or images that already live there directly into AtoM, but to link them.  The Digital Commons link did not work.  Is there way to put a link to a digital object without the jpg, png, or something else indicating that it is a digital object into AtoM?  I was surprised our Archon portal link worked.

Speaking of external links, I tried to delete the external object links in our test demo.  The object are still there but there is no option to delete them.  I had accidently overwritten them when importing something else (testing right?) and it overwrote those records.  But the objects still show up but when I click on them, I get the error screen.  Any ideas?

Thank you for your help ahead of time - much appreciated,

Tom Steman

Dan Gillean

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Feb 13, 2023, 3:29:16 PM2/13/23
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Hi Tom, 

I should clarify: you can make links that "work" to just about anything on the public web. However, if it's not a path directly to an object that ends in an extension then there are two consequences: 
  1. You won't get a derivate generated (since AtoM can't make a derivative without a specific file as an input)
  2. The media type will likely be wrong (marked as "Other") which can affect other page display elements
Either 1, 2, or both tend to make these not great options for most cases. 

So, for example:
  • I could if I wanted add a YouTube link, but won't have a thumbnail for it or the right media type
  • I could then edit the digital object and manually set the media type to "Video" - but then AtoM tries to load the video player for the access derivs, so you end up with an empty video player and no way to access the YouTube link
  • Instead, I could set the media type to "Image", then after saving, go back into the edits and manually upload my own custom images to use for the display copy and the thumbnail. In this case, if a user clicks on the access derivative shown on the description view page (i.e. my manually uploaded screen grab of the video), it will properly take them to the YouTube link... so this almost works! However.... now AtoM thinks this digital object is an image, not a video, meaning search and browse facets and filters won't work as expected, etc. If I change it to video again, we go back to the problems above
Now, in your case, if you are:
  1. unable to get links that meet the recommended requirements but want to proceed anyway; AND
  2. are linking to images; AND
  3. are willing to manually make and upload your derivatives, AND
  4. understand the risks that you may need to redo all this work again in the future (see below)...
THEN you probably can use this approach for adding your links to whatever external DAMS or CMS your objects are held in. 

Regarding 4: 

The risk here is in re-running the "generate derivatives" command line task (described here). If rerun without any other parameters, then all derivatives are thrown away, and AtoM will attempt to fetch new ones from the source  - i.e. the original object, or from the provided URL if linking to a remote digital object. Obviously if you had to manually create and upload your own, then this would fail... so you would need to reapply all the changes manually again yourself. 

Regenerating derivatives isn't something you should need to do all the time, but can be useful during troubleshooting, and is sometimes part of the recommended upgrade process. You can use the task options to only generate derivatives where they are missing, or only for a specific media type, for example - but what if someone else runs the task without knowing what you've done? What if the knowledge about this is not properly passed to your successor? etc? So it's up to you to consider the risks and how best to mitigate them if you decide to proceed. 

Finally, if you are deleting things but they are still displaying in the user interface, then it may be that you need to clear the caches, or rebuild the search index. 

For rebuilding the search index, see: 
In terms of cache clearing, there are a few to consider. First, the application cache:
PHP-FPM also has its own cache, and if you installed the additional optional caching engine memcached, then it also needs to be cleared: 
Finally, don't forget that your web browser also has its own cache! You can either clear this, use a different browser (that you haven't visited AtoM with recently), or try testing in an incognito or private browser window where the cache is typically disabled by default. 

Let us know how it goes!

Dan Gillean, MAS, MLIS
AtoM Program Manager
Artefactual Systems, Inc.
604-527-2056
@accesstomemory
he / him


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Tom Steman

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Feb 14, 2023, 12:31:41 PM2/14/23
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Hi Dan,

I do appreciate it, thanks.  I'll give your suggestions a go to remove the objects that were overwritten.  

As for the links to the external objects, I'm following but the demo doesn't show that...  When linking an digital object to a level in an archival finding aid, I go to the "More" button and select the "Link digital object" option.  I then place the URL in the appropriate box - there isn't a place to put the media type.  It then goes to an error screen that says (with other text) "The server returned a 500 Internal Server Error".

I do understand what you are saying with the workaround and how it can affect searching, creating derivatives, and risk redoing this work in the future.  I'm just testing to see what is possible.

Sorry to keep asking and hope others don't mind a basic question.  I'm just trying to learn and understand if AtoM will be a good fit for my institution.  I appreciate your time, too, Dan!

Tom

Dan Gillean

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Feb 14, 2023, 3:55:51 PM2/14/23
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Hi Tom, 

It sounds like you might need to take a look at the details of that 500 error. I have just tested this on our public demo site (still running 2.6) and an internal 2.7 test site, using the new Bootstrap 5 templates. In both cases, I used a page from our Artefactual website (i.e. a URL that does not end in a file extension), and it worked as expected. There is no reference image or thumbnail created as expected, but the linking works as expected without error. 

If you have access to the command-line, you can access the webserver error logs following these instructions here: 
Feel free to share any error message you find with us. Hopefully we can figure out what's going on! 

Cheers, 

Dan Gillean, MAS, MLIS
AtoM Program Manager
Artefactual Systems, Inc.
604-527-2056
@accesstomemory
he / him

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