Talis Developer Network - Setting up Silkworm to point at different Prism interfaces - Comments

Setting up Silkworm to point at different Prism interfaces

David Healy — Thu, 24 May 2007 11:43:00 +0100

Hi Amanda

You're correct, pointing the form action directly to "http://146.191.33.6/TalisPrism/doOpenURLSearch.do?", removing the "api_key" and "newsession" variables and leaving the "interface" variable as is submits the query but returns results from the wrong catalogue.

I'll advise my library colleagues that this functionality can't currently be provided via the Talis API due to the way we're set up with a single Prism instance in front of multiple OPACs.

Thanks for the explanation (frustrating though it is!)

David Healy
Web Designer
SAC - Scottish Agricultural College
King's Buildings, West Mains Road
Edinburgh EH9 3JG

T: +44 (0)131 535 4101
http://www.sac.ac.uk
davhealy@gmail.com

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Setting up Silkworm to point at different Prism interfaces

Amanda — Thu, 24 May 2007 10:18:14 +0100

Hi David

As regards the form that you are creating, the newsession parameter is designed to reset your session, thus deleting any parameters that you may have currently, and to take you to the top level search interface. So to link to search results you could try the form without the hidden "newsession" field. However, this highlights an issue when running Prism with 2 interfaces, whereby if session information is cached that belongs to Paisley, rather than SACOpac, then you will be linked into the Paisley catalogue.

The parameters "newsession" and "interface" will be ignored if appended to http://146.191.33.6/TalisPrism/index.jsp?
They need to be appended to http://146.191.33.6/TalisPrism/doOpenURLSearch.do?
which is how the deep linking url for University of Paisley is built up. However, to do this for SAC would deep link into Paisley instead.

So it seems that both of the issues that you are facing are due to running Prism with 2 interfaces, i.e., you have one instance of Prism that interfaces into two different OPACs (Paisley and Scottish Agricultural College). These multiple interface issues will be dealt with in our next generation OPAC but for the moment this is how our current Prism works.

I hope this reply helps in providing you with an explanation even though it may not solve some of the current issues that you are facing.

Best regards
Amanda

Amanda Gaynor
Talis Information Ltd
+44(0)121 471 1179
Amanda.Gaynor@talis.com

Setting up Silkworm to point at different Prism interfaces

David Healy — Tue, 22 May 2007 17:33:20 +0100

Hi Amanda

I am the originator of this query - as web designer for http://www.sac.ac.uk I hoped to add simple library search functionality http://www.talis.com/tdn/node/1429 to our Library pages, returning results from our OPAC which is hosted by the University of Paisley.

First I tracked down our collection information here http://snipurl.com/1lk2v (not sure about all the different identifiers)

It transpired that SAC's Silkworm Directory Listing http://snipurl.com/1lk68 contained the wrong base URL, so we updated it to http://146.191.33.6/TalisPrism/index.jsp?newsession=true&interface=SACOpac

I understand your query string suggestion but as it appears our Base URL info contains these parameters already I'm puzzled as to why a "try this interaction" search shows the search interface rather than a results page.

Anyhow, back to my simple library search form, which looks like this (tag brackets trimmed to post the code but you'll see what I'm trying)

form method="get" action="http://api.talis.com/1/node/items/2194.inst/bib"
input type="hidden" name="api_key" value="a58844a85630"
input type="hidden" name="newsession" value="true"
input type="hidden" name="interface" value="SACOpac"
input type="text" name="title" size="25"
input type="submit" value="Search"
/form

I've tried each identifier (2194.inst, td-1869715642.swauto, uw-2194.swdefault and 2093.inst) in turn, passing it via the form action. Each time the result is the same; we are taken to the search interface rather than a results page.

Can you advise as to where I'm going wrong?

Best Regards
David Healy
Web Designer
SAC - Scottish Agricultural College
King's Buildings, West Mains Road
Edinburgh EH9 3JG

T: +44 (0)131 535 4101
http://www.sac.ac.uk
davhealy@gmail.com

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Setting up Silkworm to point at different Prism interfaces

Amanda — Fri, 18 May 2007 15:17:29 +0100

If there is a single instance of prism running, but with different interfaces, to get to the right interface you need an "interface" parameter on the querystring, e.g., &interface=SACOpac. The parameter newsession=true is also needed to refresh the session, e.g., if you do a search on University of Paisley OPAC but then link to Scottish Agricultural OPAC, which is on the same instance of prism, you may get University of Paisley OPAC instead. There is no easy way via the current silkworm directory interface to add these parameters to the interaction. This limitation has been logged for future reference when developing future versions of the silkworm directory.

The work around at the moment is to manually add the newsession and interface parameters to the querystring of the url.

Amanda Gaynor
Talis Information Ltd
+44(0)121 471 1179
Amanda.Gaynor@talis.com

Setting up Silkworm to point at different Prism interfaces

Brian Crampton — Fri, 18 May 2007 09:54:50 +0100

When setting up links to different prism interfaces in Silkworm for different sites eg. where there are hosted databases but a single Prism service the searching does not always serach the correct interface.