Overview     Manager     Publish     Net     Quartet    

A professional browser based digital media asset system for creating commercial picture libraries on the web, or
presenting and distributing digital assets to users on an organisation's intranet. Manage the authorisation of
downloads by an administrator, or through fully automatic online e-commerce transactions.


iBase Net is a browser technology based system for displaying digital assets on a web or intranet site. It is usually deployed in association with iBase Manager. Click here for information on how Net works with Manager. (Adobe Reader required)

See a fully functional demonstration picture library illustrating the key features of iBase Net.

Index

  1. The standard iBase Net system includes the following features
  2. Optional modules include
  3. Configuration options
  4. Database requirements
  5. Hardware requirements
  6. Operating environment requirements
  7. Operating system requirements
  8. iBase Net data and images
  9. iBase Net for kiosk working
  10. iBase Net - ordering and e-commerce
  11. Order fulfilment by download
  12. Image requests - internal use
  13. iBase Net as a standard website

1. The standard iBase Net system includes the following features:

  • Home page banner, colours, text, and menu bar labels customisable within standard layout constraints. Some examples of the different look and feel provided to customers' specifications can be seen on the right
  • Multi-media capability, e.g. sound and video clips.
  • Collections, electronic exhibitions, best seller's gallery etc.
  • Multiple views of 3 dimensional objects.
  • Search by free text; subjects; indexes; collections; view all.
  • Advanced search.
  • Refine search.
  • Search history.
  • Gallery display of thumbnails and titles, user configurable for the number of thumbs displayed per page.
  • Select a gallery thumb for adding to "My Selection".
  • Item detail view showing a larger image and associated textual data; select a higher resolution view if available; links to related subjects; select for adding to "My Selection".
  • Text and / or image watermark on specified image resolutions.

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2. Optional modules include:

  • User login / registration and administration.
  • Image download.
  • E-mail an image file or a link to the web page.
  • My folders or Lightboxes with which registered users can save links to any images they might want to research again at a subsequent visit.
  • Image ordering and e-commerce.

3. Configuration options

iBase Net is highly configurable, the following can be specified at the time of order:

  • Home page text and images.
  • Branding in conformance to an associated site, including - Top banner text / images; Text fonts; Background colours.
  • Data fields from iBase Manager to be included on the website.
  • Text and position of labels on the menu bar.
  • Position of quick / word search.
  • Display of any related items on the item details page.
  • Field(s) to be used in the gallery and list views.
  • Fields to be included in Advanced Search.
  • Additional text pages.
  • Watermarking requirements - if any.
  • Footer links either within the site or to external locations.

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4. Database requirements - iBase Net supports MS SQL Server 2000 / 2005, MSDE - a cost free version of Microsoft SQL Server, and Oracle 10g.

5. Hardware requirements - Suggested specification

  • Pentium 4 Xeon 3GHz or equivalent
  • 2Gb RAM
  • 20Gb spare RAID5 hard disk space (this does not include the space required for the image store)
  • SVGA graphics card
  • Windows Server 2003 Standard Edition
  • SQL Server 2005

6. Operating environment requirements - Web Server Software.
  • Apache http 1.3 or later / IIS 5 or later
  • and PHP 4.4.2 or later (Please note that we do not currently support PHP 5 with Net 5).

7. Operating system requirements - Any operating system that supports Apache / IIS and PHP.

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8. iBase Net data and images

  • The data records used by Net5 are stored in the underlying database in a completely conventional way.
  • Net5 uses completely standard SQL Server / MSDE data tables and these may be backed up by normal procedures. No special considerations apply.
  • The media components in Manager items (images, videos etc) are stored as files in a folder known as the Component Storage Location. This can be any local or network folder provided that files can be retrieved from it by Net5 running on the web server.

9. iBase Net for kiosk working

At one time public access kiosk systems had to be specially designed with extremely simple touch screen interfaces suitable for people with no experience with a mouse or keyboard. However, nowadays it is rare that potential users of a kiosk do not have sufficient skill with a mouse and keyboard. There are two significant advantages of this circumstance:

  1. Users are not necessarily limited to only basic functionality, such as would be available from a touch-screen or similar interface without a keyboard.
  2. Where an organisation requires a website providing essentially the same features as a kiosk, it is not only possible but also highly cost effective to use the same software for both requirements. Any differences between the web system and the kiosk can be accommodated by configuration.

Not only is this approach very cost effective for initial implementation, but of course it also means that any changes made for one application will, if required, also be available to the other at no additional cost.

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10. Image ordering - commercial

PDF version of ordering and e-commerce with screen-shot illustrations. (Adobe Reader required)

iBase Net can be configured to suit many different approaches to ordering and e-commerce, as required. The basic elements available include:

Shopping basket

  • A means of collecting images together, e.g. Shopping Basket, My Selections. iBase Net has this as standard.

E-mail request

  • A simple e-mail request - user selects images and clicks a 'Purchase' button, which opens a window requesting the purchaser's details, then sends an e-mail listing the images required to the host organisation and copied to the purchaser. The host organisation fulfils the order in whichever way they choose. The request system is configurable.

Pricing details

  • Pricing details - can be a simple text statement of a pricing structure, or a dynamic pricing structure customised to the vendor's requirements.

Financial transactions

  • Some organisations prefer to send invoices to their customers, others like to offer on-line payments or indeed make it the only option.
  • iBase will only supply on-line financial transaction systems that use recognised and regulated suppliers of on-line banking. This might be a company such as NetBanx, Worldpay or PayPal, or it might be the organisation's own secure online trading system.
  • The solution is straightforward. iBase Net provides a connection to an on-line banking supplier, and it is their secure system that accepts the price to pay from iBase Net, and whatever card and personal details are required from the purchaser. Thus the card and personal details required by the payment system are not held within iBase Net.

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11. Image requests - internal use

Organisations may wish to make some or all of their images available only to internal users, or perhaps also to external agencies who are doing work for them.

In these cases access to the iBase Net system will be controlled by a mandatory login and password if it is available on the web, or if on an internal network (intranet) perhaps by validating users' normal network credentials without the need for them to sign in again. The LDAP protocol is a version of this.

Authorisation - in some circumstances, once a user's login credentials have been validated an organisation might permit download of high resolution versions of the images without a requirement for further authorisation.

Alternatively images can be selected by the user in the normal way and an email request sent to an administrator for review and authorisation. On authorisation by the administrator an email is sent to the user with a download link URL, with which they can directly download the authorised images.

12. Order fulfilment by download

iBase Net can provide facilities for customers, on completion of a financial transaction, to download images of a higher resolution than are viewable on the web site. The storage location of these higher resolution images can be anywhere that is accessible from the Internet. If iBase Media Services are providing hosting they can also offer storage of these images.

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13. iBase Net as a standard website

Such is the versatility and configurability of iBase Net that it can be used as a standard website. This website (www.ibase.com) uses iBase Net as it's foundation.

PDF version of this page (Adobe Reader required).

Information on how iBase Manager and Net work together (Adobe Reader required).

See a fully functional demonstration picture library illustrating the key features of iBase Net.

For further information on iBase products please contact us at sales@ibase.com or call +44 (0) 1943 603636

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