Static RO-Crate Viewer

Browse RO-Crate archives offline — no server required

Get Started View on GitHub

See It in Action

A clean interface for navigating collections, items, and files

Collections view showing a list of archive collections
Collection detail view showing items within a collection
Collection detail
Item detail view with metadata and media playback
Item detail
Full-text search across items, collections, and languages
Search

Features

Offline-First

Works without a web server — just open index.html directly in your browser.

Collections, Items, Files

Hierarchical browsing of your archive structure at every level.

Inline Media Playback

Built-in audio player and image viewer for MP3, WAV, JPEG, and PNG files.

Full-Text Search

Search across items, collections, languages, and filenames.

Rich Metadata

RO-Crate rootDataset display with resolved linked entities.

One-Line Install

A single curl command downloads and sets everything up.

Quick Start

Get up and running in under a minute

curl -fsSL https://github.com/paradisec-archive/static-rocrate-viewer/releases/latest/download/install.sh | bash

Prerequisites

  • bash
  • curl
  • tar
  • Node.js v20+

Expected data structure

data/
└── {CollectionId}/
    ├── ro-crate-metadata.json
    └── {ItemId}/
        ├── ro-crate-metadata.json
        ├── audio.mp3
        └── image.jpg

What does the install script do? It downloads the latest release tarball, extracts the pre-built viewer files, and runs the catalog generator against your data/ directory to produce the static browse and search indexes.

Need more detail? See the step-by-step guide below for a complete walkthrough with examples.

How It Works

1

Organise your data

Place your RO-Crate files in data/{CollectionId}/{ItemId}/

2

Run the installer

A single curl command downloads the viewer and generates your catalog

3

Open in your browser

Double-click index.html — no server needed

Step-by-Step Guide

A detailed walkthrough for setting up the viewer with your data

Prerequisites

Before you begin, you need Node.js (version 20 or later) installed on your computer. If you don't have it, visit nodejs.org and download the LTS version — it includes everything you need.

You also need curl and tar, which come pre-installed on macOS and Linux.

Windows users: The install script requires a Unix-like terminal. Install WSL (Windows Subsystem for Linux) or use Git Bash, then follow the steps below from that terminal. You will also need to install Node.js inside WSL if you go that route.
1

Create a working directory

Create a new folder where the viewer and your data will live together. Open a terminal and run:

mkdir ~/my-archive cd ~/my-archive

You can name this folder anything you like and put it anywhere. The installer will place the viewer files directly into this directory.

2

Organise your data

Place your RO-Crate data inside a data/ folder within your working directory. The viewer expects a two-level hierarchy: collections contain items, and each item has a metadata file alongside its media files.

Here's a concrete example with two collections:

my-archive/ └── data/ ├── NT1/ ← Collection folder │ ├── ro-crate-metadata.json ← Collection metadata (optional) │ ├── 001/ ← Item folder │ │ ├── ro-crate-metadata.json ← Item metadata │ │ ├── NT1-001-001A.mp3 ← Audio recording │ │ └── NT1-001-001A.jpg ← Image │ └── 002/ ← Another item │ ├── ro-crate-metadata.json │ └── NT1-002-001A.mp3 └── AC1/ ← Another collection ├── ro-crate-metadata.json └── 001/ ├── ro-crate-metadata.json └── AC1-001.wav
  • Each collection is a folder directly inside data/ (e.g. NT1, AC1)
  • Each item is a subfolder within a collection (e.g. 001, 002)
  • Every item folder must contain a ro-crate-metadata.json file
  • Collection-level ro-crate-metadata.json is optional but recommended — it provides the collection name and description shown in the viewer
  • Media files (audio, images, video, transcripts) go alongside the metadata in each item folder
3

Run the installer

From inside your working directory, run the install command:

curl -fsSL https://github.com/paradisec-archive/static-rocrate-viewer/releases/latest/download/install.sh | bash

This command does three things:

  • Downloads the latest viewer release from GitHub
  • Extracts the viewer files into your working directory
  • Generates a searchable catalog from your ro-crate-metadata.json files

After it finishes, your directory will look like this:

my-archive/ ├── data/ ← Your data (unchanged) ├── index.html ← Open this in your browser ├── catalog.js ← Generated search index ├── rocrate-data.js ← Generated metadata ├── generate-catalog.js ← Catalog generator script └── assets/ ← Viewer CSS and JavaScript
4

View your archive

Open index.html in your web browser. The easiest way is to double-click it in your file manager. From the terminal, you can run:

# macOS open index.html # Linux xdg-open index.html

The viewer works in all modern browsers — Chrome, Firefox, Safari, and Edge. No web server is required; it runs directly from the file on your computer.

5

Share your archive

To share your browsable archive with others:

  • Zip it: Compress the entire my-archive/ folder into a ZIP file. The recipient unzips it and opens index.html — no installation needed on their end
  • USB drive: Copy the folder to a USB stick for offline distribution
  • Web server: To host it online, serve the folder with any HTTP server, e.g. python3 -m http.server 8080