[ckan-dev] Questions about future domain model and dataset relationships

Sat Sep 24 22:33:33 UTC 2011

On 23 September 2011 12:23, Max Ludwig <maxe.ludwig at googlemail.com> wrote:
> Hi again,

:-)

> so after successfully installing CKAN I want to start developing for
> our project here ... or rather start building a concept first. I read
> the articles in the wiki about CKAN's architecture and domain model
> and noticed that the current domain ("v1")model as described here (
> http://wiki.ckan.net/Domain_Model ) does not really fit our needs
> whereas the "v2" seems do be way more suitable for our project.
> So my questions are: what is the current state? When can I expect "v2"
> in CKAN? Maybe I can help developing?

So to answer the 2 questions:

a) In v1.5 we have got a lot of the way to v2 of the domain model.
e.g. Package has been renamed to Dataset, Resource has been thoroughly
overhauled (also in v1.4 Resource was setup to be able to stand alone
from Package/Dataset). We also have planned (but not yet begun) the
refactor to make "Groups" into something more like
Publisher/Organization and integrate with users as "owners" of
Datasets. Thus, I would say ~ 50% of the change from v1 to v2 is done.

b) Re help on developing: we'd welcome it :-). The first thing here
would be clarify what had and hadn't been done and then to get down a
ticket with some analysis. Then start work!

> Another question concerns relationships between datasets. We really
> need them for our project. I read some tickets and almost all are
> marked as "fixed" except the one about editing relationships in the
> WUI ( http://trac.ckan.org/ticket/256 ). There are also 2 wiki
> articles ( http://wiki.ckan.net/Package_relationships and
> http://wiki.ckan.net/Package_Relationships ). But I'm a bit confused:

Those articles are now merged into one definitive article:

<http://wiki.ckan.org/Domain_Model/Package_Relationship>

> can I use relationships in the current release? And how? And if not,

Yes you can, but you have to create them via the API at the moment.
There is also a question of displaying them (the current new default
theme for next release v1.5 does not display them but current v1.4
theme does ...).

> could an extension possibly add such a feature (also editing in WUI)?

Simple answer: relationships are there (but they could move to an
extension). Editing the WUI would not be hard (we could even do it in
an ajax-y manner!).

More general point: There has been a lot of debate about relationships
recently, see e.g.

<http://lists.okfn.org/pipermail/ckan-discuss/2011-August/001605.html>

The issue is that a) people seem to have somewhat different use cases
b) this feature never got used a great deal (though in part because of
lack of WUI!).

We'd really welcome more input here (and the pressure of someone
really wanting this feature to push a decision through :-) ).

Rufus

> Thanks in advance!
>
> Max
>
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