Greenstone 3 is a complete redesign and reimplementation of the original Greenstone digital library software (Greenstone 2). When complete, it will retain all the advantages of Greenstone 2 - for example, it will be multilingual, multiplatform, and highly configurable. It incorporates all the features of the existing system, and is backwards compatible: that is, it can build and run existing collections without modification. Written in Java, it is structured as a network of independent modules that communicate using XML: thus it runs in a distributed fashion and can be spread across different servers as necessary. This modular design increases the flexibility and extensibility of Greenstone.
Caution : Greenstone 3 is the research version of Greenstone, and is still incomplete, and not stable. For a production digital library they recommend using Greenstone 2.
However, you may like to try Greenstone 3 if:
- You want increased flexibility with the interface, and like using XSLT.
- You have your own library front end, and want to talk to a Greenstone collection server using XML and SOAP.
- You want a distributed library
- You want to add exciting new features into a Greenstone library, and have difficulty understanding the Greenstone 2 C++ source code
- You like trying out new software
- You are kind and generous and would like to help out by testing the new software (thanks!)
