About
Tripal is a toolkit for construction of online biological (genetics, genomics,
breeding, etc), community database, and is a member of the
GMOD family of tools. Tripal v3 provides by default
integration with the GMOD Chado database.
Tripal's primary goals are:
- Provide a framework for those with genomic, genetic and breeding data that
can facility creation of an online site for display, search and visualization.
- To use community-derived standards and ontologies to facility continuity
between sites which in turn fosters collaboration and sharing
- Provide an out-of-the-box setup for a genomics site for those who simply
want to put new genome assemblies and annotations online.
- Provide Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) for complete customization
such that more advanced displays, look-and-feel, and new functionality
can be supported.
Features
The following major features
are available in Tripal v3.
- Tripal v3's design is centered around controlled vocabularies and ontologies.
This allows for greater integration with the semantic web and will help
support data exchange between Tripal sites.
- RESTful web services. Tripal v3 introduces RESTful web services for Tripal.
The resources provided by these web services uses JSON-LD and WC3 Hydra
vocabulary to deliver content.
- Tripal v3 introduces new content pages. In older versions of Tripal all
content was provided via Drupal "nodes". Now content is delivered using
new content types (e.g. gene, genetic_marker, organism, germplasm, etc.)
and the site admin controls which content types are available on the site.
- Chado support:
- Tripal v3 represents a major redesign from previous versions. Previously,
Chado was the only storage backend supported. Tripal v3 provides by default
support for Chado, but also sports a new design that affords integration of
other storage backends (including noSQL options).
- A Chado v1.2 or v1.3 installer
- Data loaders for ontologies (controlled vocabularies), GFF files, and
FASTA files, publications (from PubMed and AGIRCOLA).
- Generic Bulk Data Loader Modules allows for creation of custom loaders
without programming (requires an understanding of Chado).
- Supports creation of materialized views for faster data queries.
Required Dependencies
- Drupal:
- Drupal 7.x
- Drupal core modules: Search, Path and PHP modules.
- Drupal contributed modules:
- Views
- Entity API
- PostgreSQL
- UNIX/Linux
Installation
Please follow the instructions in the online Tripal User's Guide:
http://tripal.info/tutorials/v2.0/installation
Upgrade from Tripal v2.x to v3.x
Note: Upgrade can only be performed using 'drush' command.
Note: Deprecated API functions from Tripal v1.x have been removed from Tripal
v3. Therefore, use of deprecated API functions in templates or custom
modules may cause a white screen of death (WSOD). Check teh server logs if this
occurs to find where deprecated functions may be used.
Upgrade Instructions:
Step 1: Put the site in maintenance mode.
Step 2: Disable tripal modules. Disabling the core module will disable all
other Tripal modules:
drush pm-disable tripal_core
Step 3: Remove old Tripal v2 package and replace with Tripal v3 package
Step 4: Enable the tripal module
drush pm-enable tripal
Step 5: Enable the tripal_chado module
drush pm-enable tripal_chado
Step 6: Tripal v2 modules are now called 'legacy modules'. these are the
modules that were disabled in step #2. For backwards compatibility, you
should re-enable these modules:
drush pm-enable tripal_core, tripal_views, tripal_db, tripal_cv,
tripal_analysis, tripal_organism, tripal_feature, tripal_pub, \
tripal_stock
Be sure to enable any additional modules not included in the example
drush command above.
Step 7: Return to your Tripal site, and click the link that appears for
preparing Chado and launch the job.
Customization
Tripal can be used “as is” but also allows for complete customization.
PHP-based template files are provided for all data types to allow for
precise customizations as required by the community. A well-developed
Tripal API provides a uniform set of variables and functions for
accessing any and all data within the Chado database. See the Tripal 3.x
Developer's Handbook for additional details.