Your Home for Faceted Classification Tools
Facetmap is both a data model and a software package, created to let users browse complex metadata while retaining a simple, familiar, menu interface.

A Standalone Facetmap System: Quick Installation

These steps outline one possible way to get a FacetMap demonstration installed on your Windows or Mac system. Perhaps your data is proprietary or sensitive, in which case you couldn't upload it to our demo server to see it in action. Or maybe you just want to run without a connection to the internet. So here's how to run a FacetMap server of your own:

  1. Install Java
  2. Install webserver
  3. Install FacetMap
  4. Add your data

1. Install Java. If you already have Java installed on your computer, you can skip this step. If you don't, or if you're not sure, download and install the J2SE 1.4 SDK (not the JRE) from Sun's website at http://java.sun.com/j2se/1.4.2/download.html. (In case you're wondering, FacetMap will work with Java 1.3 or later.)

2. Install Jo!. Jo! is a lightweight web application server well suited to personal computers. Download it from Tagtraum's website at http://www.tagtraum.com/download_frameset.html. Windows users will be prompted to install Jo! in C:\Program Files\tagtraum industries -- if you choose another location instead, remember it so you can install FacetMap in the same place.

3. Install FacetMap Light. The Light version uses files on your disk to store its internal data, so you don't need to install a database. Download facetmap.war and save it in the folder C:\Program Files\tagtraum industries\jo\webapp\host (adjust this path if you installed Jo! somewhere else).

Once the software is installed, you should be able to start Jo! from Start->Programs->tagtraum industries->jo! A window will pop up and give you all kinds of interesting telemetry regarding your new webserver. Writing facetmap data directly to the filesystem may take a few minutes, but eventually the window will report "Service started". At this point, you can point your browser to http://localhost:8080/facetmap/index.jsp and browse through the wine demo facetmap.

4. Add your data, which is probably more interesting than the wine. FacetMap looks for its faceted data in the file C:\Program Files\tagtraum industries\jo\webapp\host\facetmap\WEB-INF\map.xml . Replace that with your own data file (rename your file to map.xml), and restart Jo! You'll then be running your own demo.

Help us stay current. If the above links are broken or this process doesn't work for you, please let us know.

Optimize your installation. The best thing you can do right now to speed up your demo is to change the rebuildMap parameter. There's a line in web.xml that looks like this: <param-name>rebuildMap</param-name> -- you can change the value underneath it from "true" to "false". If you do, the facetmap data will not be freshly reconfigured when you start; it will use the same data it used last time. That means you can't go changing your map.xml file; if you do, set rebuildMap back to "true".

A better optimization is to install a mySQL server on your system, which enables you to run FacetMap Gold, a faster and more powerful engine.