XWiki Watch

Version 77.2 by Thomas Mortagne on 2011/12/09 16:20

cogFeed Aggregator for Collaborative Watching
TypeOther
Category
Developed by

XWiki Development Team

Rating
0 Votes
LicenseGNU Lesser General Public License 2.1

Description

This project has been retired since it was no longer maintained actively. There's a new similar extension called Reader Application.

XWiki Watch (XWatch) is a collaborative RSS reader. It is designed to provide teams with a competitive intelligence tool  they can use together in real-time. The principle is simple:

  • First you add RSS feeds from sources you want to watch to the reader
  • You read the articles and enrich them using comments and tags.
  • Then you can deliver relevant information to other people based on their center of interest.

xwatch-overview.png

Features

Main Interface

XWiki Watch's standard view:

  • Articles received by the reader are displayed on the central panel
  • RSS feeds are sorted by groups on the left
  • Filters and tags can be seen on the right panel
  • The text analysis and press review features are at the top of the reader

XWikiWatchMainBis.png

An Article in XWiki Watch

The article is shown with a link to its original location, attached comments, tags, and the flag and article deletion features.

XWikiWatchArticleTer.png

Adding new Articles

The feed wizard allows for new RSS feeds to be added to the reader easily.

XWikiWatchFeedWizardMain.png

Organizing, Enriching & Filtering Information

Tags

In order to organize articles, you can use tags to classify information.

XWikiWatchAddTag.png

Comments

Comments can be added to any article to start a discussion within the feed reader itself.

XWikiWatchAddComment.png

Feeds

Once added, the feeds are displayed using groups in the feeds tab on the left side of the screen. You can add feeds into groups during the feed selection process. New groups can be created easily.

XWikiWatchGroupAndFeeds.png

Filters

Filters can be applied to feeds in order to narrow results by specific information. Keywords can be defined and used to display only the articles containing them.

XWikiWatchFiltersAndKeyword.png

Text Analysis

Text analysis posts the words that appear most frequently in the articles saved in the reader, provides a fast outline of recurring content.

XWikiWatchTextAnalysis.png

Press Review

The press review feature allows the creation of a list of articles. These articles correspond to the filters selected at the time when the press review is generated. The comments assigned to each article are also posted in the press review. The press review can then be sent by email to third party recipients or downloaded in PDF format.

XWikiWatchPressReview.png

Downloads

Due to bug XWATCH-233 the installers (generic .jar and windows .exe) for version 1.1 milestone 1 are unavailable. Please use the standalone zip version instead of these two.

PlatformDownloadDescription
AllStable: xwiki-watch-1.0.xar
Latest: xwiki-watch-1.1-milestone-1.xar
XWiki Watch XAR
WindowsStable: xwiki-watch-installer-windows-1.0.exe
Latest: xwiki-watch-installer-windows-1.1-milestone-1.exe
Graphical Windows native installer. Standalone installation including a Jetty container and an HSQLDB database all set up, embedding XWiki Enterprise. Should be used by first-time users.
AllStable: xwiki-watch-installer-generic-1.0.jar
Latest: xwiki-watch-installer-generic-1.1-milestone-1.jar
Graphical platform-independent installer (requires Java to execute). Standalone installation including a Jetty container and an HSQLDB database all set up, embedding XWiki Enterprise. Should be used by first-time users.
AllStable: xwiki-watch-distribution-hsqldb-1.0.zip
Latest: xwiki-watch-distribution-hsqldb-1.1-milestone-1.zip
Standalone installation including a Jetty container and an HSQLDB database all set up, embedding XWiki Enterprise. Should be used by first-time users that do not need/want to use any of the installers above.
AllLatest: xwiki-watch-web-1.1-milestone-1.warWAR file that needs to be installed in a Container. A database also needs to be set up and configured. This is for more advanced users wanting to choose their container and their database.
AllLatest: xwiki-watch-gwt-client-1.1-milestone-1.jar
AllLatest: xwiki-watch-gwt-server-1.1-milestone-1.jar

Roadmaps

XWiki Watch 1.1

Since this project has now been retired, the roadmap for XWiki Watch 1.1 isn't valid any longer. We're leaving it here so that you can see what was planned! Maybe some contributor will want to take over! emoticon_smile

  • improved user interface (user experience and skin)
  • improved watch data manipulation (allowing the user to take more control of the data)
  • adding tests (unit testing and functional testing)
  • add documentation, both in Javadoc form and tutorials, descriptions, user manuals, FAQs
  • improved code architecture and performance
  • enhance data collecting (better feed reading, provide model for adding any article to the watch)

XWiki Watch 1.0

See what was done in the release notes of XWiki Watch 1.0 .

Work done (from milestone 1):

  • provide access to data from standard wiki (portal view)
  • improve user manipulation on data (provide edit / delete access or feeds, groups, keywords)
  • fixed interface issues (full Toucan compliance and UI bugs, better browser compatibility)
  • improved usage coherence
  • upgraded to GWT 1.4
  • implemented missing features

Design & Development Notes

Since this project has now been retired, most of the information below is outdated. We're keeping it here for posterity and maybe some contributor will want to take over one day...

Prerequisites & Installation Instructions

Installing XWiki Watch 1.1 Milestone 1

Note that the 1.1 M1 release of XWatch is based on a XWiki Enterprise 1.5 version. You can test XWiki Watch on a higher XWiki Enterprise version (1.8.4 (recommended) or higher) using a snapshot build. For that, follow the instructions about building and installing an XWiki Watch Snapshot below.

Installing

Note that starting with version 1.1 milestone 1 XWiki Watch the .xar file is no longer sufficient for installing Watch. See below how to install the XWiki Watch 1.1 Milestone 1 on an existing wiki.

Using the standalone package

  • Download the XWiki Watch ZIP file.
  • Unzip it and start the wiki (using start_xwiki.bat on windows systems and start_xwiki.sh on unix systems).

Your XWiki Watch installation is now ready, just access the Watch space and enjoy the collaborative experience!

Using the Windows installer for standalone package

Your XWiki Watch installation is now ready, just access the Watch space and enjoy the collaborative experience!

Using the platform independent installer (the .jar installer) for standalone package

  • Download the XWiki Watch .jar file.
  • Run the .jar file (You need to have Java to be able to run it), and follow the instructions: depending on your system settings you can do this either by double-clicking it or by explicitly invoking java -jar xwiki-watch-installer-generic-1.0.jar in a command line.

Your XWiki Watch installation is now ready, just access the Watch space and enjoy the collaborative experience!

Installing the .war

Your XWiki Watch installation is now ready, just access the Watch space and enjoy the collaborative experience!

XWiki Watch over an existing wiki

Note that the latest released version of XWiki Watch is compatible only with the 1.5 release of XWiki Enterprise and not higher. To test XWiki Watch on a higher version (1.8.4 (recommended) or higher), follow the instructions about building and installing an XWiki Watch Snapshot below.

  • You need to have XWiki Enterprise 1.5 (or one of the 1.5 releases) installed (you can download it from the download page).
  • Download the XWiki Watch XAR file.
  • Download the XWiki Watch GWT client and GWT server jars.
  • In your server installation, copy the GWT client and GWT server jar files in the WEB-INF/lib folder.
  • Change the web.xml file of your server installation (in the WEB-INF folder) to contain:
    <servlet>
        <servlet-name>XWatchService</servlet-name>
        <servlet-class>com.xpn.xwiki.watch.server.XWatchServiceImpl</servlet-class>
      </servlet>
      <servlet-mapping>
        <servlet-name>XWatchService</servlet-name>
        <url-pattern>/XWatchService</url-pattern>
      </servlet-mapping>
  • (Re)Start the wiki and import the downloaded XAR in the wiki.
  • In "Administration > Preferences > Advanced", add WatchCode.Translations as an Internationalization Document Bundle.

Your XWiki Watch installation is now ready, just access the Watch space and enjoy the collaborative experience!

If you do not have XWiki Enterprise 1.5 nor can/wish to install it but still want to enjoy XWiki Watch 1.1 milestone 1, check out Installing XWiki Watch 1.1 milestone 1 on XE 1.4 for details on how you can do that.

Installing XWiki Watch 1.1 Milestone 1 xar on XWiki Enterprise 1.4

XWiki Enterprise 1.4.1 or 1.4.2

Installation is identical with installation for XWiki Enterprise 1.5.

XWiki Enterprise 1.4

If you are using a lower version of XWiki Enterprise (1.4 final or a 1.4 rc or one of the 1.4 milestones) but still want to run XWiki Watch 1.1 Milestone 1, you need to replace a couple of libraries in the XWiki Enterprise you are running. To enjoy the experience of XWiki Watch 1.1 M1 in XWiki enterprise 1.4, follow the next steps:

  • get xwiki-web-gwt-1.5.1.jar from our maven repository
  • go to webapps/xwiki/WEB-INF/lib folder in your XWiki Enterprise installation
  • replace the xwiki-web-gwt-1.5-.jar library (1.5- corresponding to the version of enterprise you are running) with the jar you just downloaded
  • restart your wiki
  • install the XWiki Watch xar into your wiki following the instructions above, if you haven't already. If you are upgrading from an older version of XWiki Watch and you are using an XWiki Enterprise version lower than XWiki 1.4 milestone 2, because of this attachment import bug you will get an error while importing the XWiki Watch .xar. Delete the document Watch.GWT before importing the XWatch .xar. Don't forget to refresh the RSS Reader page after the import.

Your XWiki Watch installation is now ready, just access the Watch space and enjoy the collaborative experience!

Building and installing an XWiki Watch Snapshot over an existing XWiki Enterprise

Current XWiki Watch trunk is compatible with version 1.8.4 of XWiki Enterprise. It will work though with higher versions, including also 2.1.1, if configured and built properly. Please come to our mailing lists for help about how to do this.

  • Follow the general XWiki Building instructions about general guides & tools for getting and building XWiki sources (e.g. installing and configuring maven)
  • Download XWatch sources from https://github.com/xwiki-contrib/xwiki-watch##
  • Build the sources. You have two options here:
    • type mvn clean install in the parent project
    • go to gwt-client, gwt-server, wikis modules (in this order) and type mvn clean install in each of them
  • Copy the jar files gwt-client/target and gwt-server/target in the WEB-INF/lib folder in your server installation
  • Change the web.xml file of your server installation (in the WEB-INF folder) to contain:
    <servlet>
        <servlet-name>XWatchService</servlet-name>
        <servlet-class>com.xpn.xwiki.watch.server.XWatchServiceImpl</servlet-class>
      </servlet>
      <servlet-mapping>
        <servlet-name>XWatchService</servlet-name>
        <url-pattern>/XWatchService</url-pattern>
      </servlet-mapping>
  • (Re)Start the wiki and import the .xar file in wikis/watch/target in the wiki.
  • In the Administration page, under Programming add WatchCode.Translations as an Internationalization Document Bundle (comma separated if there is already something in there).

Your XWiki Watch installation is now ready, just access the Watch space and enjoy the collaborative experience!

Setting up

You can log in using the default Admin user (first letter is capitalized). The default password is 'admin' (lowercase).

  • For the Press Review email feature, set the SMTP server and admin email preferences in "Administration > Preferences > Registration".

Setting up the database

The following indexes should be created on the XWatch tables (besides the indexes set on the XWiki regular tables -- see Database Administration), to optimize performance:

alter table feeds_feedentry add key (fee_feedurl(255)), add key (fee_flag), add key (fee_feedname(255)), add key (fee_date), add key (fee_read);
alter table feeds_feedentry add index (fee_title(255)), add index (fee_author(255)), add index (fee_category(255)), add index (fee_content(1024)), add index (fee_fullcontent(1024));
alter table feeds_aggregatorurl add key (agg_url(255)), add key (agg_name(255));
alter table feeds_aggregatorgroup add key (agg_name (255));
alter table feeds_aggregatorurlgroups add key (agl_value);
alter table feeds_feedentrytags add key (fet_value);
alter table feeds_keyword add key (key_name (255)), add key (key_group (255));

Installing XWiki Watch 1.0

You can find the installation instructions for the 1.0 version here.

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