BRICKS - Desktop demonstrator final system description, set-up and developer's guide

This document describes the Graphical User Interfaces and the software architecture of the BRICKS Desktop Demonstrator, and provides guidelines for the software developers who want to add new plug-ins to the BRICKS Digital Library Management System (DLMS). The document is structured as follows: Chapter 2 presents an overview of the state-of-the-art concerning the development of Rich Internet Applications and introduces the technology framework of the Desktop application in relation to such emerging platforms for the Web development. Chapter 3 is the end user documentation. It describes how to install and update the Desktop Software and how to use the Desktop GUIs to interact with a BRICKS Digital Library. Chapter 4 introduces to the basic concepts of the Eclipse RCP framework and OSGi specification, and then focuses on the main Application Programming Interfaces to the BRICKS foundation services, by describing the logical layers of the Desktop architecture with snippets code extending the Desktop functionalities. Chapter 5 is a short tutorial to the installation of a full-featured Desktop Development Environment and describes the basics steps to follow in the development of new Desktop plug-ins. Chapter 6 summarizes the status of the Desktop development highlighting the improvements that might be implemented in the BRICKS System Architecture and new scenarios that would benefit from the concepts behind the Desktop Demonstrator.