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48px OSDS icon
The OpenLink Structured Data Sniffer
Usage and Examples — v2.9.0

Usage

Having installed the OSDS browser extension, simply visit an HTML document location on the Web, and click the OSDS icon 16px OSDS icon which appears in the address bar, to experience the functionality added to your browser by this extension.

Once the OSDS pane has loaded, you can explore the data therein, and when ready --

  • Query — Click the 24px OSDS Query icon button to perform a LOD Cloud Lookup, using the SPARQL Query Language on the URIBurner service. You may be prompted to authenticate; click any icon in the Virtuoso Authentication Layer (VAL) dialog to authenticate with your account on that service; authentication with any of these is sufficient for current URIBurner settings.

    PNG of OSDS Query VAL prompt

    You'll then be presented with the results of the LOD Cloud Lookup.

    PNG of OSDS Query results

  • Annotate — Click the 24px OSDS Annotate icon button to enter a browser-hosted editor (OSDE, the OpenLink Structured Data Editor, here hosted by URIBurner) that makes note taking about documents of interest trivial.

    PNG of OSDS Annotation main page

  • Describe — Click the 24px OSDS Describe icon button to view URIBurner's description of this Web Document, i.e., the document identified by the hyperlink in the address bar. You may be prompted to authenticate; click any icon in the Virtuoso Authentication Layer (VAL) dialog to authenticate with your account on that service; authentication with any of these is sufficient for current URIBurner settings.

    PNG of OSDS Describe VAL prompt

    You'll then be presented with URIBurner's current description of the Web Document.

    PNG of OSDS Describe results

  • Download — Click the 24px OSDS Download icon button to save extracted metadata or new annotations to cloud (anywhere accessible by LDP, WebDAV, or SPARQL protocols) or local storage.

    PNG of OSDS download dialog

Sample pages you can visit to experience things first hand:

Configuration Options

OSDS has a few Configuration options, accessed as with any extension in your browser of choice.

PNG of OSDS Options dialog

  • UI Terminology

    This is a largely cosmetic user preference, switching the labels shown in the user interface between Entity, Attribute, Value (the defaults) and Subject, Predicate, Object.

  • LOD Cloud Lookup & Upload Service

    • The menu allows easy selection of four pre-defined URL templates, all of which use the URIBurner services. Two of these templates target the describe service; two target the about service. One of each of these uses standard unencrypted HTTP; the other uses encrypted HTTPS for enhanced privacy over-the-wire (or over-the-air, when using WiFi, smartphones, etc.).

      You may also choose to use a Custom URL template. In all cases, the string {uri} in the URL value will be replaced by the URL of the currently visible Web Document.

    • The default template, for the URIBurner Describe service, is

      http://linkeddata.uriburner.com/describe/?url={url}&sponger:get=add

    • Clicking the Revert to Defaults button will reset both the menu selection and the URL value to their defaults.

  • Annotation (Read-Write) Service

    • The Default Storage Document URL (default is unset) allows you to save time, by setting a default location for your annotation documents. This may be any HTTP-accessible server that supports at least one of the following open standards:

    • The Editor Service URL allows you to specify your preferred RDF Editor. As above, the string {uri} in the URL value will be replaced by the URL of the currently visible Web Document, typically to be used as the Subject or Entity being described in your annotations. The default value, targeting the OpenLink Structured Data Editor service hosted by URIBurner, is 

      http://linkeddata.uriburner.com/rdf-editor/#/editor?newDocument=true&statement:subject={url}&view=statements

    • Clicking the Revert to Defaults button will reset both the Default Storage Document URL and the Editor Service URL values to their defaults.

  • SPARQL Query Service

    • The URL specifies the SPARQL endpoint to which the Query will be submitted for execution. As you might guess, the {query} string therein will be replaced by the value you set for the Query. The default URL value is 

      http://linkeddata.uriburner.com/sparql/?query={query}

    • The Query allows you to specify the SPARQL query to be executed against the endpoint specified by the URL The default Query is: 

      DEFINE get:soft "soft" 
SELECT DISTINCT ( ?s AS ?entity )  
                ( ?p AS ?attribute ) 
                ( ?o AS ?value ) 
FROM <{url}> 
WHERE { ?s ?p ?o 
       FILTER (    CONTAINS( str(?p),'mainEntity' ) 
                OR CONTAINS( str(?p),'primaryTopic' )
                OR CONTAINS( str(?p),'topic' )
                OR CONTAINS( str(?p),'mentions' ) 
              ) 
      } 
LIMIT 100

    • Clicking the Revert to Defaults button will reset both the URL and Query values to their defaults.

Examples

Here are a few screenshots illustrating the effects of OSDS nanotation (requires OSDS v2.6.1 or later) and metadata sniffing. Click any image to see a full-size screenshot; click the link below the image to see OSDS in action on the same page, in your own browser.


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