Sig.ma EE documentation

How to use Sig.ma EE:

On the welcome page write a query in input box and press the button.

Sig.ma EE results page will be displayed. At the top of the page there are two buttons:

  • "Add More Info" - use this button to retrieve more information about the query
  • "Start New" - use this button to create a new Sig.ma EE

On the right hand side you will see the "source manager" area. Sources are displayed on 3 tabs: sources, approved, rejected. In this area you can manage sources by approving ones you wish to use, and rejecting ones you wish to exclude from your results. When you reject a source all information that comes from that will be removed from your Sig.ma EE results.

Sig.ma EE url options:

There are a few options that can be passed with Sig.ma EE url:

  • &singlesource=url to specify the url to a single source example
  • &sources=number to specify the number of sources used initially by Sig.ma EE example
  • &raw=1 to get the raw version of a Sig.ma EE, without a header and footer example
  • &format=json to get results in JSON format example
  • &format=rdf to get results in RDF format example

How to install Sig.ma EE

Sig.ma EE can be installed in two ways as:

  • debian package
  • war file

Debian package installation steps

1) download sigmaee-xx.deb from http://stack.lod2.eu/deb/lod2
2) sudo aptitude install tomcat6 sqlite3 memcached dbconfig-common
3) dpkg -i sigmaee-xx.deb
4) follow the on screen instruction

War file installation (Linux) steps

Before installing Sigma EE you need:

  • sun-java version 6
  • Tomcat container version 6
  • memcached server

When you have the working Tomcat plus memcached environment do:

1) Set up environment variable SINDICE_HOME to contain a path to folder for config files and logs
    export SINDICE_HOME=/home/sindice
    Note: 
    if $SINDICE_HOME is not set the application will try to use /home/sindice/sigmaee or ~/sindice/sigmaee
    
2) Create a folder named $SINDICE_HOME/sigmaee 
    mkdir $SINDICE_HOME/sigmaee
    chown tomcat6:tomcat6 $SINDICE_HOME/sigmaee
    
3) create a folder named $SINDICE_HOME/log    
    mkdir $SINDICE_HOME/log
    chown tomcat6:tomcat6 $SINDICE_HOME/log
        
4)  Copy the config.xml, logback.xml and example.sigma.config.turtle into $SINDICE_HOME/sigmaee/
    cp config.xml logback.xml $SINDICE_HOME/sigmaee/
    cp example.sigma.config.turtle $SINDICE_HOME/sigmaee/sigma.config.turtle

5) Edit the config.xml - set up the correct path to the sigma.config.turtle
6) Edit the sigma.config.turtle - provide correct values for:
    The MySQL database connection or SQLite database connection
    search providers
    lookup providers
    cache providers
    
    Note: (only when using MySQL database) 
        As we are not shipping the mysql-connector.jar in the package.
        if you want to use MySQL database you have to 
        a) install mysql-connector jar into your tomcat6 lib folder
        b) make a change in sigma.config.turtle file
        
7) Install sigmaee.war into tomcat container

8) Check that sigmaee.log file has been created in $SINDICE_HOME/log/sigmaee/sigmaee.log

9) Check that Sig.ma EE is accesible from http://localhost:PORT/sigmaee/
    where:
    PORT is the port Tomcat is listening on

10) In case of problems examine catalina.out and other Tomcat log files

How to configure Sig.ma EE

Editting of sigma config file

After a successful installation you should see the default Sig.ma EE screen at http://localhost:8080/sigmaee. To see current config file open: http://localhost:8080/sigmaee/eeservlets/eeconfig?op=printConfig

(the port and context path may vary depending on your container settings)

To get the sigma config file location open: http://localhost:8080/sigmaee/eeservlets/eeconfig?op=getConfigFilePath

Before making any changes to this file please take a look at example.sigma.config.turtle file shipped together with the war as this file contains information about all possible parameters.

Changing configuration via web interface

It is possible to make changes to the configuration via web interface, but such changes are temporary and they disappear when the user restarts their web browser. At any time the whole configuration can be exported to a file and saved.

These changes can be made at result screen Options->Config Tab The first screen called "Simple configuration" allow the user to:

  • Enable/disable each of preconfigured data providers
  • Save changes
  • Restore default configuration
  • Add sparql endpoint providers

The second screen called "Advanced configuration" allow the user to:

  • Enable/disable each of data providers
  • Modify all parameters of each data providers
  • Save changes
  • Restore default configuration
  • Add new data provider
  • Export current configuration to a file

How to implement your own data provider

There are 3 different data providers which can be implemented and plug in to Sig.ma EE.

Each of the above can be created by implementing a java interface.

How to add your data to Sig.ma EE

Join the Web of Data. Markup your pages or the theme of your content management system with RDFa and Microformats. Once you have interoperable data online, just make sure you submit it to the Sindice submit page. Sig.ma EE should show your data within 30 minutes.
In order for your data to be aggregated properly, the ideal thing is to make use of RDF and make sure that the node which is the main subject of your description has sufficient metadata to be recognized as such (a proper label and possibly also other attributes, e.g. class and other distinguishing properties). While Sig.ma EE doesn't disambiguate now, it is expected that future versions will use as many extra properties as possible to select which entity descriptions to aggregate. For more help, please refer to sindice-dev group.