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Greenstone2 FAQ

General Information

What is Greenstone?
How is Greenstone licensed?
What platforms will Greenstone run on?
Are there any mailing lists concerned with Greenstone?
Are the mailing lists archived anywhere?
How do I contribute to Greenstone?

Obtaining Greenstone

Where do I get Greenstone from?
Are there binary distributions of Greenstone available?
Is Greenstone available on CD-ROM?
Is the Greenstone source code available through a Version Control System?

Installing Greenstone

How do I compile Greenstone from a source or SVN distribution?
What is the difference between Greenstone's local library and web library?
How do I use Greenstone's web library with IIS?
How do I install the Greenstone Librarian Interface as an applet?
How do I enable the remote building facility?
I have a binary release of Greenstone installed. Now I want to recompile it. What should I do?
I have installed the linux binary on FreeBSD, but cgi-bin/library is not working.
How do I get my Greenstone server accessible from the Internet?
How do I put my Greenstone Digital Library on the web?

Running Greenstone

OK, I've installed Greenstone. Now how do I make it go?
What web browser do I need to view Greenstone collections?
When I start the Windows local library there are two buttons in the dialog box, "Enter Library" and "Restricted Version". They both seem to do the same thing, what's the difference?
So when should I use the "Restricted Version" of the local library?
When I start the Windows local library my computer asks me to dial up my Internet Service Provider. Do I really need to be online to run Greenstone?
I'm trying to use the Windows local library. My web browser is starting up as expected but the Greenstone home page never gets loaded or gives an error message. What's wrong?
Where can I get more Greenstone collections?
When I attempt to access certain parts of Greenstone I'm asked for a username and password. What do I enter?
When I use the large query box function I occassionally get a Not Found error.
How do I get usage information for my library?
How do I get Greenstone going on Windows Vista?
How do I get rid of a WSASYSNOTREADY error?
GLI's Preview Button can't successfully launch a web page in Firefox (or another web browser)
I've lost my username and password, what can I do?

Building Greenstone Collections

What is the "Greenstone Librarian Interface"?
What is "the Collector"?
How do I build a collection from the command line or DOS prompt?
I built a new Greenstone collection on my Windows machine. Everything appeared to work fine while building, however when I tried to view the collection some of the documents contained no text. Sometimes Greenstone appeared to crash completely. What have I done wrong?
Why won't the Collector's "export to CD-ROM" function work?
I'm trying to use the Collector on Windows 2000 but it's running extremely slowly. Is this normal?
What is "the Organizer"?
Where do I get the Organizer?
I'm attempting to build a collection with the collector but it keeps failing with an error. What am I doing wrong?
What options are available for the collect.cfg file?
Where can I find some example collect.cfg configuration files?
How can I build my collection using MGPP?
How do I fix XML::Parser errors during import.pl?
Are there any limits to the size of collections?
How do I enter non-English metadata in GLI?
How do I change the search results order?
What's the difference between MG, MGPP and Lucene?
How do I build my collection incrementally?
Can I build collections using the Librarian Interface on a remote server?
What is the depositor?
Can I get any information about the metadata coverage in my collection?
How to manually specify filenames in metadata.xml?
What is the Windows Key and where is it located?
How do I open a terminal (called DOS console) in Windows?
How do I copy text (such as error messages) that are printed on the DOS console?
How do I open Windows Explorer to navigate and browse through folders on Windows?
How do I manually (re)build a collection?
Running GLI in debug mode: GLI failed to start up properly, how do I find out what just happened?
Getting better error reporting in GLI (the Greenstone Librarian Interface)
Are there really multiple copies of my resource documents stored in my Greenstone installation?

More about indexing and searching

Can Greenstone search Arabic OCR text?

More About Plugins

Does Greenstone have a plugin for my data format?
What metadata is available for each plugin?
I'm having problems with my PDF files! What's wrong?
How do I use UnknownPlugin to handle my new format?
How do I get my CDS/ISIS database into Greenstone?
How do I get my PMB database into Greenstone?
How do I get my XML files into Greenstone?
How do I use DatabasePlugin?
How do I build collections of documents with images and OCR text (PagedImagePlugin)?

More About Classifiers

I've added a new type of classification to my collection.
- How do I create and add the navigation bar images (2.62 and earlier)?
- How do I translate the navigation bar labels (2.71 and later)?
How can I do Unicode collation for my classifier?
How do I use dynamic classifiers (2.81 and later)?

Customizing your Collection

How can I customize the appearance of my Greenstone collection?
What are the formatting options available for my collection?
How can I hyperlink individual metadata elements?
How can I hide the dummy text "This document has no text"?
How do I suppress the link to the Greenstone text version of a document?
How do I add cover images for my documents?
How do I link to other sections of my document?
How do I link to the next or previous search result in a document page?
How do I search multiple collections at the same time?
How do I handle diacritics?
Can I customise the Date format?
How do I use Realistic Books in my collection?
The internal links between my HTML pages don't work in the built collection
My HTML page links to an MP3 file, but the link doesn't work in the built collection
My MP3 files are being truncated by the browser
A free HTML Editor
How do I add a new button to the navigation bar?

Customizing Your Greenstone Library

How do I change the logo on the front page of my library ("greenstone digital library software")?
Where can I get more information about customizing my Greenstone library?
How can I add a new page to my Greenstone library?
What do the cgi arguments used by library stand for?
How do I change the default settings of the cgi arguments?
How do I get rid of the external link page?
How do I add a language selection box to every page?
How can I link documents in different collections together?

Security

How can I prevent my users database from being publicly accessible?

Authentication in Greenstone

Can I password protect a collection?
Can I password protect just certain documents in a collection?
Is there a demo collection that uses authentication?
How do I create a new user?

Greenstone interoperability

Does Greenstone support z3950?
Does Greenstone support OAI?
- How are the OAI datestamps generated?
How do I use DSpace with Greenstone?
How do I use the Greenstone Corba interface?
How do I use METS with Greenstone?
Integrating workflows and Greenstone

User Contributed Information

Registered users may enter their own FAQ entries in this section. This page is not monitored or edited by Greenstone staff.

How to use the filter_text() function to handle diacritics
How to build CD/DVD-ROMs from collections for redistribution
How to integrate Greenstone collections into LOCKSS systems
Moving data into and out of METS formated data
Documentation for creating media streaming video library in Greenstone
E-commerce and Greenstone, monetizing library and archive collections
Lucene configuration - the Lucene command interface to access proximity search, fuzzy search, and soundex search]].
Installing Imagemagick on OS X
Explaining Plugins
Collection specific plugins
MetadataCSVPlug notes
Converting very large CDS/ISIS databases to Greenstone Collections
Changing the prefix for incremental OIDs a quick hack that is occasionally useful.
Title, ex.Title and dc.Title notes some helpful details.
customising export
Installing Greenstone3 for OS X users
Useful searching methods in Greenstone2 (in French)
A "step-by-step" for importing some non-standard Excel files to Greenstone

Miscellaneous Questions

How do I copy from and paste into GLI on a Macintosh (why don't Apple-C and Apple-V work)?
What is the Windows Key and where is it located?
How do I open a terminal (called DOS console) in Windows?
How do I copy text (such as error messages) that are printed on the DOS console?
How do I open Windows Explorer to navigate and browse through folders on Windows?
How do I enable user comments?

Advanced Tasks

How can I obtain a list of all subject headings in my database?
Diego Spano's excellent presentation on Greenstone and OAI. This gives a good background about OAI, as well as a very useful overview of Greenstone's OAI support.