OpenACS Handbook

I OpenACS For Everyone
- I.1 High level information: What is OpenACS?
  - I.1.1 Overview
  - I.1.2 OpenACS Release Notes
- I.2 OpenACS: robust web development framework
  - I.2.1 Introduction
  - I.2.2 Basic infrastructure
  - I.2.3 Advanced infrastructure
  - I.2.4 Domain level tools
II Administrator's Guide
- II.2 Installation Overview
  - II.2.1 Basic Steps
  - II.2.2 Prerequisite Software
- II.3 Complete Installation
  - II.3.1 Install a Unix-like system and supporting software
  - II.3.2 Install Oracle 10g XE on debian
    - II.3.2.1 Install Oracle 8.1.7
  - II.3.3 Install PostgreSQL
  - II.3.4 Install AOLserver 4
  - II.3.5 Quick Install of OpenACS
    - II.3.5.1 Complex Install OpenACS 5.3
  - II.3.6 OpenACS Installation Guide for Windows2000
  - II.3.7 OpenACS Installation Guide for Mac OS X
- II.4 Configuring a new OpenACS Site
  - II.4.1 Installing OpenACS packages
  - II.4.2 Mounting OpenACS packages
  - II.4.3 Configuring an OpenACS package
  - II.4.4 Setting Permissions on an OpenACS package
  - II.4.5 How Do I?
  - II.4.6 Configure OpenACS look and feel with templates
- II.5 Upgrading
  - II.5.1 Overview
  - II.5.2 Upgrading 4.5 or higher to 4.6.3
  - II.5.3 Upgrading OpenACS 4.6.3 to 5.0
  - II.5.4 Upgrading an OpenACS 5.0.0 or greater installation
  - II.5.5 Upgrading the OpenACS files
  - II.5.6 Upgrading Platform components
- II.6 Production Environments
  - II.6.1 Starting and Stopping an OpenACS instance.
  - II.6.2 AOLserver keepalive with inittab
  - II.6.3 Running multiple services on one machine
  - II.6.4 High Availability/High Performance Configurations
  - II.6.5 Staged Deployment for Production Networks
  - II.6.6 Installing SSL Support for an OpenACS service
  - II.6.7 Set up Log Analysis Reports
  - II.6.8 External uptime validation
  - II.6.9 Diagnosing Performance Problems
- II.7 Database Management
  - II.7.1 Running a PostgreSQL database on another server
  - II.7.2 Deleting a tablespace
  - II.7.3 Vacuum Postgres nightly
- II.8 Backup and Recovery
  - II.8.1 Backup Strategy
  - II.8.2 Manual backup and recovery
  - II.8.3 Automated Backup
  - II.8.4 Using CVS for backup-recovery
- II.A Install Red Hat 8/9
- II.B Install additional supporting software
  - II.B.1 Unpack the OpenACS tarball
  - II.B.2 Initialize CVS (OPTIONAL)
  - II.B.3 Add PSGML commands to emacs init file (OPTIONAL)
  - II.B.4 Install Daemontools (OPTIONAL)
  - II.B.5 Install qmail (OPTIONAL)
  - II.B.6 Install Analog web file analyzer
  - II.B.7 Install nspam
  - II.B.8 Install Full Text Search
  - II.B.9 Install Full Text Search using Tsearch2
  - II.B.10 Install Full Text Search using OpenFTS (deprecated see tsearch2)
  - II.B.11 Install nsopenssl
  - II.B.12 Install tclwebtest.
  - II.B.13 Install PHP for use in AOLserver
  - II.B.14 Install Squirrelmail for use as a webmail system for OpenACS
  - II.B.15 Install PAM Radius for use as external authentication
  - II.B.16 Install LDAP for use as external authentication
  - II.B.17 Install AOLserver 3.3oacs1
- II.C Credits
  - II.C.1 Where did this document come from?
  - II.C.2 Linux Install Guides
  - II.C.3 Security Information
  - II.C.4 Resources
III For OpenACS Package Developers
- III.9 Development Tutorial
  - III.9.1 Creating an Application Package
  - III.9.2 Setting Up Database Objects
  - III.9.3 Creating Web Pages
  - III.9.4 Debugging and Automated Testing
- III.10 Advanced Topics
  - III.10.1 Write the Requirements and Design Specs
  - III.10.2 Add the new package to CVS
  - III.10.3 OpenACS Edit This Page Templates
  - III.10.4 Adding Comments
  - III.10.5 Admin Pages
  - III.10.6 Categories
  - III.10.7 Profile your code
  - III.10.8 Prepare the package for distribution.
  - III.10.9 Distributing upgrades of your package
  - III.10.10 Notifications
  - III.10.11 Hierarchical data
  - III.10.12 Using .vuh files for pretty urls
  - III.10.13 Laying out a page with CSS instead of tables
  - III.10.14 Sending HTML email from your application
  - III.10.15 Basic Caching
  - III.10.16 Scheduled Procedures
  - III.10.17 Enabling WYSIWYG
  - III.10.18 Adding in parameters for your package
  - III.10.19 Writing upgrade scripts
  - III.10.20 Connect to a second database
  - III.10.21 Future Topics
- III.11 Development Reference
  - III.11.1 OpenACS Packages
  - III.11.2 OpenACS Data Models and the Object System
  - III.11.3 The Request Processor
  - III.11.4 The OpenACS Database Access API
  - III.11.5 Using Templates in OpenACS
  - III.11.6 Groups, Context, Permissions
  - III.11.7 Writing OpenACS Application Pages
  - III.11.8 Parties in OpenACS
  - III.11.9 OpenACS Permissions Tediously Explained
  - III.11.10 Object Identity
  - III.11.11 Programming with AOLserver
  - III.11.12 Using Form Builder: building html forms dynamically
- III.12 Engineering Standards
  - III.12.1 OpenACS Style Guide
  - III.12.2 Release Version Numbering
  - III.12.3 Constraint naming standard
  - III.12.4 ACS File Naming and Formatting Standards
  - III.12.5 PL/SQL Standards
  - III.12.6 Variables
  - III.12.7 Automated Testing
- III.13 CVS Guidelines
  - III.13.1 Using CVS with OpenACS
  - III.13.2 OpenACS CVS Concepts
  - III.13.3 Contributing code back to OpenACS
  - III.13.4 Additional Resources for CVS
- III.14 Documentation Standards
  - III.14.1 OpenACS Documentation Guide
  - III.14.2 Using PSGML mode in Emacs
  - III.14.3 Using nXML mode in Emacs
  - III.14.4 Detailed Design Documentation Template
  - III.14.5 System/Application Requirements Template
- III.15 TCLWebtest
  - III.15.1 API test
  - III.15.2 Webtest
- III.16 Internationalization
  - III.16.1 Internationalization and Localization Overview
  - III.16.2 How Internationalization/Localization works in OpenACS
  - III.16.4 Design Notes
  - III.16.5 Translator's Guide
- III.D Using CVS with an OpenACS Site
IV For OpenACS Platform Developers
- IV.17 Kernel Documentation
  - IV.17.1 Overview
  - IV.17.2 Object Model Requirements
  - IV.17.3 Object Model Design
  - IV.17.4 Permissions Requirements
  - IV.17.5 Permissions Design
  - IV.17.6 Groups Requirements
  - IV.17.7 Groups Design
  - IV.17.8 Subsites Requirements
  - IV.17.9 Subsites Design Document
  - IV.17.10 Package Manager Requirements
  - IV.17.11 Package Manager Design
  - IV.17.12 Database Access API
  - IV.17.13 OpenACS Internationalization Requirements
  - IV.17.14 Security Requirements
  - IV.17.15 Security Design
  - IV.17.16 Security Notes
  - IV.17.17 Request Processor Requirements
  - IV.17.18 Request Processor Design
  - IV.17.19 Documenting Tcl Files: Page Contracts and Libraries
  - IV.17.20 Bootstrapping OpenACS
  - IV.17.21 External Authentication Requirements
- IV.18 Releasing OpenACS
  - IV.18.1 OpenACS Core and .LRN
  - IV.18.2 How to Update the OpenACS.org repository
  - IV.18.3 How to package and release an OpenACS Package
  - IV.18.4 How to Update the translations
V Tcl for Web Nerds
- V.1 Tcl for Web Nerds Introduction
- V.2 Basic String Operations
- V.3 List Operations
- V.4 Pattern matching
- V.5 Array Operations
- V.6 Numbers
- V.7 Control Structure
- V.8 Scope, Upvar and Uplevel
- V.9 File Operations
- V.10 Eval
- V.11 Exec
- V.12 Tcl for Web Use
- V.13 OpenACS conventions for TCL
- V.14 Solutions
VI SQL for Web Nerds
- VI.1 SQL Tutorial
  - VI.1.1 SQL Tutorial
  - VI.1.2 Answers
- VI.2 SQL for Web Nerds Introduction
- VI.3 Data modeling
  - VI.3.1 The Discussion Forum -- philg's personal odyssey
  - VI.3.2 Data Types (Oracle)
  - VI.3.4 Tables
  - VI.3.5 Constraints
- VI.4 Simple queries
- VI.5 More complex queries
- VI.6 Transactions
- VI.7 Triggers
- VI.8 Views
- VI.9 Style
- VI.10 Escaping to the procedural world
- VI.11 Trees

II.4.6 Configure OpenACS look and feel with templates

To change the look and feel of OpenACS you will need to dig into the ACS Templating system and change at least some of the given templates and CSS files to suit your needs. Reuven Lerner has written a good Introduction to OpenACS Templates for the Linux Journal.

Categories: beginner (Audience), end-user (Audience), developer (Audience)