Improvements to Islandora’s Sandbox and ISLE Infrastructure

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Kirsta Stapelfeldt

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Apr 4, 2023, 9:27:43 AM4/4/23

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Dear Islandorians,

For those of you not attending weekly or monthly community meetings, I wanted to summarize recent projects designed to improve how people install and contribute to the Islandora project:

The 'modularization' of Islandora through the creation of the Starter Site (and subsequent replacement of the current sandbox with Starter Site).

Key improvements to the Docker-based ISLE tools used by many production installations of Islandora.

The Modularization of Islandora

In our 2022 Roadmap, the Islandora Foundation indicated a desire to modularize Islandora to reduce its complexity and make it easier for contributors to use and participate in the development of the software [1].

This project was jump started in a Foundation-funded project awarded to discoverygarden, with Rosie LeFaive acting as product owner, and taking on the responsibility of community consultation and consensus building [2]. The result of this project was the Starter Site [3]. Rosie LeFaive has generously been acting as maintainer of the GitHub repository and continuing to communicate regularly with the community as well as collaborating closely with contributors to the project.

At a high level, the Starter Site supports the modularization of Islandora by allowing code to live in individual modules (rather than a single, large and complex module) while also being brought together by the Drupal composer project that forms the backbone of the Starter Site. For those customizing Islandora heavily, this modular approach makes it easier to contribute back your fixes and improvements. For those using Islandora in a more turnkey fashion, the Starter Site allows you to utilize improvements and new features from contributing modules by updating your modules and configuration (via the documentation provided) when the Starter Site upgrades its version. If the latest Starter Site release has a feature you want, you will install any new modules or update your configuration by utilizing the documentation provided in the version upgrade. This is geared at people who administer Drupal sites.

In our recent virtual Islandora Camp [4] we launched a new downloadable demo of Starter Site that includes sample content, and introduced the features and set up for this demo [5]. In order to complete the process of rolling out the Starter Site, we would like to also move this demo to sandbox.islandora.ca, replacing the current installation profile. You can see what the Starter Site will look like by visiting https://test.islandora.ca/ . The login credentials are identical to those for the current sandbox [6].

In addition to moving to the Starter Site as our default ‘demo’ of Islandora, long-time community contributor and Islandora Foundation contractor Nigel Banks has developed an automated update and rebuilding workflow that will allow us to more easily update the demo content (using a workbench-driven workflow) as well as update the Sandbox alongside the Starter Site as new versions are developed. This makes the sandbox much easier to maintain and evolve over time, and will position us to better engage librarians and other information professionals in the development of key features and functions for Islandora.

We plan to replace the current sandbox with the Starter Site no later than mid-April. Please provide any feedback on this thread or to me directly. Please note that if you have specific technical questions, I may need to bring in Nigel, as Rosie’s UPEI Faculty association remains on strike.

ISLE Docker Tools

The Islandora Foundation received a donation from the Islandora Collaborators Group in 2022 that was designated for the improvement of the ISLE ecosystem. ISLE is a docker-driven solution for installing and maintaining the many dependencies of Islandora in a production environment. The Foundation has matched these funds and Nigel Banks has made the following key improvements to the ISLE tools:

Major upgrades to the ISLE Buildkit, including updating versions of software dependencies and developing more easily maintained workflows for upgrading and testing software updates. [7]

A new “ISLE Template” that allows those embarking on an Islandora installation to bring together the Starter Site and ISLE Buildkit for production instances of Islandora. [8]

Nigel attended the March 29, 2023 tech call to discuss and promote the Template repository [9]. We welcome new users of Islandora or anybody assessing the system to come and review the work and provide any feedback.

My thanks to long-time community contributor and Islandora contractor Nigel for his creative and committed work on this project.

While we have further to go, I believe that Nigel and Rosie’s work (alongside many contributors from the community) represents a new era in a more modular and transparently developed Islandora.

Best,

Kirsta (p/t Director of Strategic Operations, Board Secretary, and Head of the UTSC Library Digital Scholarship Unit)

[1] Update on Islandora Roadmap Project “Modularizing Islandora Defaults”

[2] Call for Proposals - Modularizing Islandora

[3] Hello “Islandora Starter Site!" Later, "Defaults"!

[4] https://github.com/Islandora/islandora-community/wiki/IslandoraCamp-2023

[5] https://islandora.github.io/documentation/installation/install-a-demo/

[6] https://github.com/Islandora/documentation/wiki/Sandbox.Islandora.ca-online-credentials

[7] https://github.com/Islandora-Devops/isle-buildkit

[8] https://github.com/Islandora-Devops/isle-site-template

[9] https://github.com/Islandora/islandora-community/wiki/March-29%2C-2023

Kirsta Stapelfeldt (How I pronounce it)