Greenstone 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?
 * Building Issues and Suggested Solutions

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.