Introduction

These instructions are directed towards users of the stand-alone system and will differ from the Sakai embedded tools. In the following we refer to the Project Pad installation directory as [Project Pad Home]. This is the directory where you installed Project Pad. In most cases it will be a directory like 'jakarta-tomcat-5.5.9/webapps/ppad2/' where '5.5.9' is replaced by the version of Tomcat you are running.

Project Pad provides users with direct access to content stored in specific directories in your installation. To change what directories are available see the section 'How To Configure Storage' below. Adding media (images, video, audio) for annotation consists of two steps: adding the media files to a directory that is visible to Project Pad; and then creating one or more annotation documents that reference that media object.

Preparing Media Files

The default installation exposes two directories to user access: the 'home' directory contains folders for each user and group and the 'media' directory contains a shared place for media and annotation document templates available to all users. Note that this may be changed by the system administrator.

In order to add media files you will need to encode them in a form that can be used by Project Pad tools. This depends on the kind of media you are adding:

1.	Audio files need to be encoded as MP3 files. We recommend bit rates from 16 to 32 kbps. The open source LAME utility program (http://lame.sourceforge.net/) can be used to encode files for annotation.
2.	Video files need to be encoded as flash video. This can be done with the utility program provided by Macromedia or by various plug-ins available for Quicktime and video editing systems. (See http://www.macromedia.com/devnet/flash/video.html?promoid=CABI)
3.	Images may be ingested as JPG or PNG files. These will be processed by the system to create tiles that will speed up image serving and zooming.
4.	Transcript files (that synchronize with MP3 audio) should be in TRS format. The open source program 'transcriber' (http://trans.sourceforge.net/en/presentation.php) can be used to prepare transcripts for annotation.

Once you have prepared audio, video, images, or transcript files place these in a directory that is visible to the Project Pad system. Typically this is done by putting your media into the [Project Pad Home]/media folder.

Creating Annotation Documents

After you have placed your media files into a folder you will need to create annotation documents that refer to your media file. Each Project Pad annotation tool has an 'import' button. Press this button to open a file dialog that you can use to locate your media file. Select the file and click 'Save' to create a new annotation document for that file. The tool will immediately open the new annotation document.

Annotation documents created through the import process are 'templates' that is they are read-only. Once you have created a new annotation document you can save a copy for annotation using the 'Save As...' button in the tool.

How To Configure Storage

Internally Project Pad identifies every document via a URI. URIs may be mapped to various storage systems so that some will identify data in a file system directory, others may identify data in a Fedora repository or WEBDEV available file system. The section will focus on setting up storage that maps to file system directories. Other storage systems are set up in a similar way.

When stand-alone Project Pad starts up it scans the directory [Project Pad Home]/WEB-INF/configuration/stores for storage definition files. The system 'mounts' each storage system by mapping a URI pattern to that system. Storage definition files have the following format:

	
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<file-system-store base-uri ="media/" root-path="media" 
    prefix="/ppad2/media/"/>

The element name file-system-store identifies the kind of storage that will be attached. In this case this will mount a file directory as storage visible to users. Other storage systems will have other element names.

The base-uri attribute is the pattern that identifies URIs for documents stored in that storage system. The base-uri is a prefix.

The prefix attribute is optional and is used to specify the location of materials accessible via a URL via a web server. In order to create a URL from a document identifier URI the base-uri is removed from the beginning of the URI and the remaining part of the URI is resolved against the prefix.

The root-path identifies a directory relative to the [Project Pad Home] directory that is used to store content. Note that 'root-path' is specified only for file system stores. Other storage systems will have additional attributes.

There is no requirement that file system storage be used exclusively by Project Pad. You could, for example, set up the 'media' store to point to a location that is accessible via WEBDAV or FTP server so as to allow easy access by instructors or administrators. You could also arrange to serve the directory via an apache web server so as to increase the speed of access to static content.