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+# Metadata Editor for Research Data
+A Nextcloud app to annotate a research data folder with metadata
+
+## Features
+- add metadata as a JSON file ( `metadata.json`) for a folder with scientific
+ data from within the Nextcloud file browser
+- enter and edit metadata through web-forms
+- the metadata schema is specified as a [JSON Schema](https://json-schema.org),
+ which can be used for validating the input data or creating a data model, e.g.
+ in a database
+- currently the schema is based on the metadata schema of the data publisher
+ [PANGAEA](https://www.pangaea.de)
+
+To install the app, copy the folder into the `apps` subfolder of the Nextcloud
+folder and activate the app in the admin interface.
+
+## Development
+The app is inspired by the [Nextcloud plain text
+editor](https://github.com/nextcloud/files_texteditor) and registers
+`fileActions` in the `files` app. The Javascript part of the app is based on the
+[React](https://reactjs.org) components provided by
+[JSONForms](https://jsonforms.io), which render the input forms based on the
+JSON Schema.
+
+Documentation on how to develop Nextcloud apps can be found in the [Nextcloud
+developer
+documentation](https://docs.nextcloud.com/server/latest/developer_manual)
+
+
+### Developing React input forms
+The component for entering the data can be developed without a running Nextcloud
+server using 
+```
+ npm start
+```
+and opening the development server at https://localhost:8080. To build a deployable Javascript bundle use
+```
+ npm run dev
+```
+for a non-minified version or
+```
+ npm run build
+```
+for a minified production build.