in the user
interface. In Internet Explorer 7.0 or higher, the icon shows up in the upper right
menu bar as indicated in the screenshot below.This DSS Service Description Index provides a searchable index of all services that ship as part of Microsoft Robotics Studio and associated packages. This index contains information about each service including supported DSSP message operations, message types, service categories, service partners, and more. The index allows for discovery of services based on their descriptions and because it is using Atom/RSS technology, enables subscribers automatically to be notified of updates and additions.
Using a tool provided by Microsoft Robotics Studio, you can generate your own service description index of services that you have written, publish it on a web site, and either use it for internal use or add it to the DSS Service Description Catalog. For detailed instructions on how to do this please refer to the Microsoft Robotics Studio documentation on this topic.
In this document you can find information about:
When reading this page using an RSS enabled Web browser you should see an RSS
icon looking like this
in the user
interface. In Internet Explorer 7.0 or higher, the icon shows up in the upper right
menu bar as indicated in the screenshot below.
Clicking on the icon will take you to the index which will look similar to the screenshot below. If you don't see the orange RSS icon then you can access the index directly:
The index contains a set of entries, each describing a service including a short description of what it does and its properties including CLR namespace, contact identifier, etc.
Each entry title (as indicated in the screenshot above) is a link to a detailed description about the contract for the service (alternatively you can click on the green arrow icon which will also show the detailed description). Here you can find information about supported DSSP message operations, message types, service categories, service partners, and more.
The service descriptions in the index can be sorted, arranged, and searched in ways that facilitates finding the particular service description or functionality you are interested in. The mechanism for searching the index is provided by your RSS reader and may vary as a result. The description provided here applies to Internet Explorer 7 or higher.
On the
right side of the index you will find the pane for setting up filters and searches
looking similar to the screen shot to the right.
This section shows the number of entries that are displayed out of the total number of entries in the index. Selecting All clears all applied filters and and shows the total number of entries.
The text input box allows you to search through the number of displayed entries using a full text search of each short description. For example, if you type "text", you will find all displayed entries with "text" somewhere in their short description.
You can sort the entries in the index either by Date or by Title in both ascending or descending order. This enables you to search for entries that have just been posted as well as old entries. By default the index is sorted by Date with the newest items first (descending order). Clicking multiple times on either Date or Title will toggle between ascending and descending order.
When you select a category your view will be limited to the services that have been classified as having that particular category. Categories are used by the creator of the index to classify service descriptions and as a result are not configurable when searching the index. However, as the index is updated, the creator can introduce new categories describing new or existing service entries. Services may be listed under multiple categories facilitating different views of the same entries.
Using the text input box allows you to further limit the the number of displayed entries using a full text search of each short description within a specific category. That is, if you select the "dss/samples" category and then type "text" in the input box, you will see service entries with that category and with "text" somewhere in their short description.
If you select All then you will see all entries regardless of category.
At the top of the index you will find a link titled "Subscribe to this feed". Following this link will cause your RSS reader to subscribe to the index allowing you to automatically receive updates and additions to the index without having to manually see if anything has changed. This enables you to be notified when new services are posted.
As mentioned in the introduction, you can create your own index for your services, publish it, and either use it for internal use or announce it to the Microsoft Robotics Studio community. For detailed instructions on how to do this, please refer to the Microsoft Robotics Studio documentation on this topic.
The DSS Service Description Catalog provides a catalog of indexes that have been announced to the Microsoft Robotics Studio Community. This catalog of indexes is itself RSS enabled allowing you to subscribe in order to be automatically notified of the announcement of new indexes. The process for subscribing to the catalog of indexes is the same in that you click on the RSS icon and then follow the link titled "Subscribe to this feed".