Adding a person

[MarkusKonk]

Hello,
I am trying to add a new person as an author to my ro-crate json using the describo desktop app on Windows. For some reason, this is not working. If I type in a name, it starts loading and nothing happens. What am I doing wrong?

[marcolarosa]

Hi @MarkusKonk

Can I get some more information please? You've raised the ticket in the repository for the online version but you say you are using the desktop windows app.

I'm just looking at my version on windows and it seems to be ok.

Do you know which version you are using? If you open the settings, are you on 0.20.7 as in the following screenshot?

Did you get it from https://github.com/describo/desktop-releases/releases/tag/v0.20.7?

[MarkusKonk]

Hi @MarkusKonk

Can I get some more information please? You've raised the ticket in the repository for the online version but you say you are using the desktop windows app.

Oh yeah right, I just followed the link on the website. I can move it if you like. In the online version it works fine.

I'm just looking at my version on windows and it seems to be ok.

Do you know which version you are using? If you open the settings, are you on 0.20.7 as in the following screenshot?

Yes, right, I am using the same version:

Did you get it from https://github.com/describo/desktop-releases/releases/tag/v0.20.7?

Correct

[marcolarosa]

No need to move it. I just wanted to be sure we were talking about the same thing.

I have windows 11 ARM running inside parallels on a mac. What is your windows environment? I have to say that as a mac user I don't know very much about windows...

Did you install it from the Setup bundle or is it from the zip? They should be the same but i'm using the installed version from the Setup bundle.

Also, can you please restart the app, select a folder, open the settings and click the Show Developer Tools button then try again and send me a screenshot of the console tab.

I'm in AU so it's late for me but I'll stay up for a few minutes if you can do it now. Otherwise i'll get back to you in the morning.

[MarkusKonk]

oh, no worries. Let's continue tomorrow. I am anyway in a meeting in a few minutes and will not be able to continue afterwards.
Thanks so far, I will provide the required information later.

[MarkusKonk]

So, here my details:
Windows version:

Console output:

Same issue in Ubuntu by the way from https://github.com/describo/desktop-releases/releases/download/v0.20.7/Describo-linux-x64-0.20.7.zip with this env:

[marcolarosa]

Ahh ok. There are two bugs!

The first about Invalid version was already fixed but not yet released.

Meanwhile, the second one is causing this issue. And it happens on macos as well. Desktop uses an sqlite database internally to be able to load and search data packs. That DB wasn't getting initialised until the data packs were loaded (you do that on the dashboard). When you try to add an entity, describo performs lookups in the crate and outside - ie datapacks in the db. Since that db wasn't created the lookup failed causing this issue.

You can confirm this by loading the datapacks on the dashboard and then trying again (it should work!).

But there's also a new release with a bugfix for this and some other issues I'd discovered since 0.20.7. https://github.com/describo/desktop-releases/releases/tag/v0.21.0. With this release you don't need to load the datapacks. Though they do have some handy content.

Thanks for reporting and let me know how you go.

Also - can i ask how you heard about describo?

[MarkusKonk]

Great! I checked the new version and it's working now. Thanks!
I am working in the EU-funded project AquaINFRA project where we want to develop a virtual research environment based on Galaxy. We were thinking about how to publish research outputs generated in the context of the project and came across ro-crate. I really like it but the metadata file quickly gets quite complex, which is why I was searching for a tool --> Describo :). It would be quite nice to integrate that in Galaxy as a tool or similar but I need to talk to the Galaxy people to figure out if this is possible and how.

[marcolarosa]

Ok. Thanks for the info.

If you're talking to the Galaxy dev's then it's probably the component that will be of most interest to them: https://describo.github.io/component. This is the ro-crate engine behind the desktop and web versions that powers them.

Also, it would be nice to have a chat after you've had some time to play with the tool to get your thoughts on it. My email is in my github bio if this is something you'd be happy to do.

[MarkusKonk]

Thanks for the info and yes, we can do that once I used a couple of times!