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Research Data Archiving Project

 bullet What’s new
 bullet    Taxon Class feature
 bullet Bug fix descriptions
 bullet Release Notes for ver 1.3
   
   
 bullet Contact Info
  bullet Dave Rugg
 

drugg@fs.fed.us

   
  USDA Forest Service
 

Northern Research Station
1992 Folwell Avenue
St. Paul, MN 55108

 

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Metavist 2005

An Editor for FGDC metadata, including the Biological Data Profile

version 1.6 (released November 2007)

Release summary

This release packages four bug fixes (version 1.4), some new features that helped address the bugs (version 1.5), and three additional bug fixes (version 1.6). This also marks the first release that supports Microsoft’s .Net Framework 2.0 — although no new features taking advantage of the Framework’s features are present. Version 1.6a uses .Net Framework version 1.1; version 1.6b uses .Net Framework version 2.0.

What’s new

A new style sheet has been included in the program directory. Mr. Howard Sternberg (Dept of Environmental Protection, State of Vermont) created a very nice style sheet called FGDC Plus. It displays FGDC and BDP metadata (plus Dublin Core, ESRI Profile, and FGDC Shoreline Data Profile).

The program is a bit friendlier towards FGDC metadata. When the FGDC Content Standard is chosen in Metadata Reference, the Geospatial Data Presentation Form element in Citation Information is no longer automatically included in the metadata document. It continues to be automatically included otherwise because that is a mandatory element under the BDP.

In Taxonomic Classification, the text and hyperlink to ITIS have been updated to reflect their new web URL: www.itis.gov.

Otherwise, what’s new is the collection of bug fixes that made up version 1.4 and the version 1.5 feature addition for editing Taxonomic Classification. Please note that while Microsoft has moved on to version 3.0 of the .Net Framework, Metavist 2005 still uses version 1.1. (Work is expected to begin shortly on Metavist 2008, which will use a newer version of the .Net Framework.)

Taxonomic Classification editing

One major feature has been added to the program — file-based reads and writes for Taxonomic Classification elements. As you can see in this view, the Taxonomic Classification section has two new buttons: Import and Export.

EXPORT: Select a node in the classification tree, click the 'Export' button, use the dialog box to provide file information. The program will put the selected node, all of its parents, and all of its descendants into the specified file using the standard XML structure. If the "Empire" rank is present, it will not export that unless it is the selected node (in any other case, the selected node should be a member of a particular Kingdom, so the Empire trick is not needed). This capability provides half of what you need to manage species or species assemblages in metadata without needing to constantly input by hand.

IMPORT: This capability provides the other half of what you need minimize managing species or species assemblages by hand. If you have a taxonomic file from Metavist or ITIS, you can now bring it directly into Metavist. If the taxonomic file came from ITIS, it is best to first open it in Notepad and re-save it with "Encoding" box set to "UTF-8" in order to preserve any special characters.
You can use the import feature in one of three ways:

  • Complete tree: If there is no Taxonomic Classification in your metadata document, you can simply import one that you saved or acquired from ITIS. The imported tree can then be edited as needed.
  • Partial tree: If you have files containing the information for the final Taxonomic Classification, but multiple Kingdoms will be needed, create the "Empire" level using Metavist, then "Import" one of the Kingdom files. When there is only one node in the classification, Metavist knows to try appending the imported file to that node.
  • Tree editing: You can select a node for editing (in the list), then click on "Import" to attach multiple nodes to the selected node from the specified file. Metavist will look in the specified import file for a node that matches the node you selected. If it finds one, then it will import the descending lineage (i.e., child nodes) and attach it to the node you selected. If more than one matching node is found, then an error message will pop up and no import is done. (Similarly, if no matching node is found, an error message will pop up and no import is executed.)

To get the resulting tree saved in the metadata document file, don’t forget to select one or more Keywords while in the Taxonomic Information tab.

For more information on using ITIS to get taxonomic classifications, I’ve written what I hope will be a useful guide. This guide is also available from within Metavist; click on the "Help" menu and there is a new help item called "ITIS import help" that brings up the guide in your web browswer.



Bug Fixes

Version 1.6

Quantitative Horizontal Positional Accuracy Assessment (reported by Ken Papp, Alaska DNR)
In the Data Quality section under Positional Accuracy: click the "Add" button is clicked, enter any value ending in zero (e.g., 100.00000 or 100), enter text into the Horizontal Positional Accuracy Explanation, and click "OK". Select the Assessment just created and click the "Edit" button. Change the Explanation text or simply click "OK". Any trailing zeros in the value are removed causing the original value of 100.00000 or 100 to become 1.

This bug also applies to Quantitative Vertical Positional Accuracy Assessment.

Bug is fixed; November 19, 2007


Style sheet URL format in Firefox (reported by Ken Papp, Alaska DNR)
URLs pointing to the location of style sheets do not work in browsers like Firefox. (The URL format is a simple drive-based pointer that does work in Internet Explorer. -DJR)

Situation addressed with more generic URL format; November 19, 2007

Note: Metavist will read metadata documents that do not use the more generic URL convention and it will not alter the format of the stylesheet reference unless a change is made to what style sheet the document should reference. (The change can be to simply re-select the original style sheet.)


Format description in Distribution section lacks flexibility (reported by Ken Papp, Alaska DNR)
In the Standard Order Process, when specifying the Format of the Digital Form, the program only saves the first word — anticipating the use of a single word file extension or acronym.

The FGDC Workbook says “Consider using the full name of the format.” when the format is not in the list. To maintain the look of BDP metadata I suggest use of an appropriate acronym or file extension for this element, coupled with placement of the full name in the Format Specification element. This workaround may be changed in Metavist 2008.

Workaround described; November 19, 2007


Version 1.4

HTML export (reported by Ian Thomas, GeoSciSoft)
HTML export fails when "No stylesheet" radio button is selected

Bug is fixed; July 23, 2007


Security Information (reported by Laurie Porth, US Forest Service)
When Metavist tries to read documents containing Security Information it generates a fatal error

Bug is fixed; July 23, 2007


Taxonomic Classification (reported by Dave Rugg, US Forest Service)
When multiple common names are created, only one is presented for editing; others are then lost. Even when common names are not edited, only the last one is retained upon saving to file.

Bug is fixed; July 23, 2007


Taxonomic Classification (reported by Fred Rasco, Information International Associates)
Editing the taxonomic tree does not work at all well when many species are in the tree. New nodes are not placed where expected.

Bug is fixed; July 26, 2007




Thank you for using Metavist!!

 Last modified: October 2007