Open Parliament TV - Platform

A PHP web application and REST API for exploring parliamentary data (speeches, sessions, agenda items, documents, people, organizations). Full‑text and faceted search is backed by OpenSearch; relational data lives in MariaDB/MySQL. The UI renders server-side via PHP and consumes the internal API.

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Architecture

• index.php - entry point for the web UI; dispatches pages and calls the internal API (api/v1/api.php).
• api/ - REST API with OpenAPI spec (api/openapi.yaml) and API documentation page at /api.
• content/ - UI pages, components, and assets (CSS/JS/fonts/images).
• custom/ - Custom content and overriding files.
• data/ - Git repositories of parliament data.
• modules/ - domain logic and helpers (search, media, i18n, mail, utilities).
• lang/ - translation JSON files; langcache/ holds generated i18n caches (needs write access).
• vendor/ - Composer dependencies (OpenSearch PHP client, PHPMailer).
• Configuration lives in config.php (see config.sample.php for all options); API-specific settings in api/v1/config.api.php.

Prerequisites

• PHP 7.4+ (8.x recommended) with extensions: mysqli, mbstring, json, dom, curl, openssl.
• Apache webserver.
• MariaDB/MySQL:
  • Platform DB (users, orgs, metadata).
  • Parliament DB (sessions, agenda items, media IDs, texts).
• OpenSearch 2.x cluster with indices named openparliamenttv_*.
• Composer for PHP dependencies.
• Optional SMTP credentials (otherwise PHP mail()).

Setup

1. Place code - Clone the repository to the directory of choice.
2. Create config - copy config.sample.php to config.php and fill:
   • dir.root base URL; version for cache busting.
   • UI toggles (display, allow), password salt.
   • Mail (PHP mail or SMTP).
   • DB credentials: platform.sql.access.*, parliament.*.sql.access.*, table names.
   • OpenSearch hosts/auth/SSL (OpenSearch.*) and index prefixes.
   • Optional ADS API (ads.api.*) and wordmark (customization.wordmark).
3. Install dependencies - run inside the root directory:

   composer install --no-dev

4. Import data - load provided SQL dumps (e.g., openparliamenttv_parliament.sql, openparliamenttv_platform.sql) into the respective databases; ensure table names match config.
5. Index into OpenSearch - indices openparliamenttv_* will be created at the first import of data.
6. Set write permissions - PHP user needs write access to:
   • langcache/ (i18n caches)
   • api/v1/cache/ (API caches)
   • optional mail log path (logs/mail if mail.dev.file_path is used)
7. Run
   • Production: configure Apache to serve your root directory (HTTPS recommended).

Usage

• Web UI: https://<host>/ (e.g. /search).
• API docs UI: https://<host>/api.
• REST base: https://<host>/api/v1.
• Languages: translations in lang/*.json.

Security & Operations

• config["mode"]="dev" logs errors but hides them in the browser; set to production for live.
• Public endpoints are whitelisted (e.g., getItem, search, autocomplete, status, user login/registration). Admin-only actions (indexing, CRUD) require authenticated sessions.
• Sessions manage login and language; color_scheme cookie controls dark/light mode.
• Mail: in dev mode you can store mails to disk (mail.dev.file_path).

Data & IDs

• IDs follow <PARL>-<...>; parsing derives type, electoral period, session, etc.
• OpenSearch highlights come from attributes.textContents.textHTML with <em> tags.

License

See LICENSE.

Custom overrides

• Use /custom/ to override content without touching core files. The helper include_custom() first looks for language-specific overrides (e.g., custom/content/footer.en.php), then for a generic override (e.g., custom/content/footer.php), and falls back to the original file.
• Existing overrides: custom home/footer components and about/datapolicy/imprint pages (per language), plus custom logos under custom/content/client/images/.
• Custom logic: custom/overriding.functions.php can define hooks like overrideVideoSource($speech) that the media player uses when present.
• Keep your installation-specific branding or behavior in /custom/; core updates remain unaffected.