Tools

In order to follow along with examples and demos, and to participate in the hands-on parts of the workshop, it is advisable for attendees to install some basic tools ahead of time. In particular we recommend that you set up:

  • An XML-aware text editor or IDE
    • for example VSCode or its open-source equivalent VSCodium
    • the most full-featured editor, which does Schemtron as well as schema validation, is oXygen XML editor
      • this is a commercial product, but a trial license key can be requested
  • validate
    • the PDS-provided validation tool used to check data and meta-data conformity
    • this requires java >= 11
  • LDDTool
    • the PDS-provided tool to build local data dictionaries, needed for some hands-on activities
    • this requires java >= 11
  • PDS4 Viewer
    • a tool to open/display any valid PDS4 data product
    • users who are familiar with python and tools such as conda may prefer to install PDS4 Tools, the python library on which PDS4 viewer is based
      • PDS4 Tools is available in the conda-forge community repository

During the workshop we will also use BitBucket, a web interface to git, to distribute templates, examples and other material. git experience is not necessary for this, but basic actions (such as cloning a repo) may make your life easier!

A dockerfile has also been created by one of the workshop participants to o install java, validate and lddtool in a single image.