The FingerPost Packager

Overview

The FingerPost Packager reformats and normalises various elements of a common group so they can be uploaded directly into a CMS – editorial or web. Generally a common uid or with an additional top element containing the links to the separate items.

An example would be a package containing all the details of a Soccer match – preview, recap, results, stats, team report, player rumours plus any pictures from a couple of hours before and after. In this case the package would be updated at significant points before, during and after the game

Or a interview with an incoming politician containing the text or video of the interview, pictures, videos, presentations, and news reports covering the topics the person had influenced

Or, a simpler example, all the elements of an email that need to be kept ‘together’ – such as a TV listing with the actual timing information plus pix and comments about some of the programs in order to produce a complete Listing section

How it fits with the Fip Base module

The Fip Packager sits on top of the Fip Base module and uses any means of grabbing/receiving the elements – web grab, soap, web services, ftp, email.

It also uses the Base module – and if there are more specific requirements, the Fip Remote/News Agency Broadcast module – to move the results to the remote end point.

Options – tuning the output to what the CMS/end user can receive

The Module is reasonably flexible and the actual package format(s) can be either
– a proper packaging format such as Newsml 1 or NewsML G2
– custom formats
– with further options to zip/pack all the elements so that delivery can be a single blob which much reduces any tracking of sub-elements.

Other options can be tuned to help cases where the remote end point wants to repurpose the Package automatically – such as a website publishing the Soccer match package immediately on their site – or whether the package needs to reedited before publishing and only a subset of the pix required.
As not all CMS/end points can accept all formats and file types, individual elements in the package can be checked and processed according to whether they are
– acceptable format/file type and can be passed thru without change – most systems can take plain text jpegs for example
– unacceptable and blocked – such as .exe files
– unacceptable but easily converted to a format the remote CMS can handle. For instance :
png -> jpg
docx -> rtf

Text can be reformatted in a number of ways

– some cases want even the text elements as separate files/items
– others require all text items to be merged into a single document with appropiate dividers between the sections/elements.
– most CMS require text to be normalised in a single format – InCopy tagged files, RTF, a specific XML or HTML5