Chapter 4: Editing Logbook Entries

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Control Room Logbook User's and Administrator's Guide

Chapter Contents

Chapter 4: Editing Logbook Entries
  4.1 Input Container Menu Options
  4.2 Selecting Logbook Data
    4.2.1 Select/Deselect Single or Multiple Entries
    4.2.2 Select Text within an Entry
  4.3 Modifying Non-archived Logbook Entries
    4.3.1 Add to or Change Text in an Entry
    4.3.2 Cut, Copy and Paste Text
    4.3.3 Undo and Redo Operations
    4.3.4 Change Text Font
    4.3.5 Delete Entries
  4.4 Attaching Keywords to a Logbook Entry
    4.4.1 Keywords Tailored to Entry's Topic and Data Type
    4.4.2 Global Keywords
  4.5 Recovering or Deleting Checkpointed Entries
  4.6 Printing Entries
  4.7 Sending Entries via Email

Chapter 4: Editing Logbook Entries

Before a logbook entry is archived to the CRL database, its content and/or appearance can be modified, or it can be deleted. In this chapter we discuss the menu options available on the entry input containers, and we describe how to select and edit your logbook entries.

4.1 Input Container Menu Options

The menu options given on the container window operate on existing logbook entries, they do not create new ones. For example, Insert Image inserts an image where the cursor is, assuming you have already inserted an entry; if no entry header exists in the container, the image does not get inserted.

The menu options and their functions include:

Entries

Bring up the Entries menu either by clicking on the Entries menu option, or by right-clicking anywhere in the container window.

Select/unselect all entries, remove, archive, print, add/delete entries to/from a thread, or send via email.

For non-archived entries, the Remove options delete the entry, after a confirmation query. For archived entries, these options only remove the entries from the input container; they are no longer displayed in the container window, but they remain unchanged in the database.

Edit

Edit text in an entry (undo and redo, cut, copy and paste text, select all text).

Font

Set family, style, size, and color of text in entry.

Insert

Insert into an entry: the current date and time1, an image from a file or URL, or text from a file or program.

Check Category

Display menu path of container.

1
You can also insert date and time using Ctrl-Alt-d.

If there is nothing editable in the container (e.g., all entries are archived), all menus except Entries and Check Category are grayed out. When the cursor is in the body of a particular entry, the features not available for the current entry type are grayed out.

4.2 Selecting Logbook Data

In order to modify or archive logbook data, you need to be able to select entries. You can select one entry at a time or all the entries in the container at the same time. You can select non-archived and/or archived entries. Nonselected entry headers have a white background. When an entry is selected, its header background turns gray.

The status bar at the bottom of the container displays the number of selected entries.

4.2.1 Select/Deselect Single or Multiple Entries

select single entry

Point anywhere in the header of the desired entry, and click once.

deselect single entry (only one entry selected)

Click once in the entry's header. (The click toggles between select/deselect.)

deselect single entry (only one entry selected) and select different entry simultaneously

Just click in the header of the new entry.

select multiple entries

Select the first entry as described above, then press the <Ctrl> key and click once in the header of another entry. Continue for additional entries

deselect one of multiple selected entries

Press the <Ctrl> key and click once in the header of entry to deselect.

select all entries

Open the Entries menu (either click on it or right-click anywhere in the container window). Choose the Select ALL Entries option in the Entries menu. This selects non-archived and archived entries.

deselect all selected entries

Click twice (not a double-click; two singles1) on the header of one selected entry. Or choose the Un-select ALL Entries option from the Entries menu.

1
The first click deselects all but the one you're on, the second deselects the current entry.

4.2.2 Select Text within an Entry

You can select text in an entry. To select it, simply drag the cursor over the desired text, or use the shift and arrow keys, as usual.

To select all the text in a single entry, use Ctrl-a or choose the select-all option from the Edit menu.

To deselect the text, click once anywhere in the entry.

4.3 Modifying Non-archived Logbook Entries

After an entry is archived, it cannot be changed in the container window or deleted from the CRL database. Prior to that, text in entries can be edited, text and images can be added or deleted, and whole entries can be deleted. Undo and Redo functions are available from the Edit menu (also implemented as Ctrl-z and Ctrl-y, respectively); these functions stack successive user operations.

4.3.1 Add to or Change Text in an Entry

To add to text in any entry, just place the cursor where you want it and start typing. To replace a block of text, select the text (see section 4.2.2 Select Text within an Entry), and start typing over it.

4.3.2 Cut, Copy and Paste Text

The Edit menu contains options to cut, copy and paste text to and from the clipboard. The <Ctrl>-x, <Ctrl>-c and <Ctrl>-v keys work in the standard way, as well. Text can be copied within the same input container, between different input containers, and from or to external applications.

Within CRL or to/from External non-X Application

Cut/Copy:

To cut or copy text from a logbook entry, first select the item, as described in section 4.2.2 Select Text within an Entry. Choose cut-to-clipboard or copy-to-clipboard from the Edit menu, or press <Ctrl>-x or <Ctrl>-c, respectively.
To cut or copy text from an external non-X application, use the standard procedure (usually <Ctrl>-x or <Ctrl>-c).

Paste:

To paste text into a logbook entry, place the cursor in the entry where you want to paste the item, and choose paste-from-clipboard from the Edit menu, or press <Ctrl>-v.
To paste text into an external non-X application, use the standard procedure (usually <Ctrl>-v).

To copy text from the VT100 window into a CRL entry:

select the text from the window with the left mouse button as usual, then right click to get pop-up menu, and choose Copy (or press Ctrl-Insert).
in the CRL entry container, place the cursor where you want the material copied, and press Ctrl-V or select paste-from-clipboard from the Edit menu.

Between CRL and X Window Applications (Linux)

To copy text into a CRL entry using the standard X Window method:

In the CRL window, select the target container and create the target entry.
In your external X application, highlight the content that you want to paste into your CRL entry.
In the CRL container window, using your middle mouse button, click in the target entry.

To copy text into a CRL entry using the clipboard, first make sure your X application uses the clipboard in the standard way, then:

In your X application window, highlight the content of interest. Then select Copy to place it in the clipboard.
In the CRL window, select the target container. Then create or click in the target entry.
Select paste-from-clipboard from the Edit menu, or type Ctrl-v. You should now see the content in your entry.

To copy text from a CRL entry to an X Window application:

Highlight the content in your CRL entry that you want to paste into your external application. Then select copy-to-clipboard from the container's Edit menu, or type Ctrl-c.
Position your cursor in your X application window and click the middle mouse button to paste the highlighted content into this window.

4.3.3 Undo and Redo Operations

Undo and Redo functions are available from the Edit menu; these functions stack successive user operations.

Shortcut keys:

Undo

Ctrl-z

Redo

Ctrl-y

4.3.4 Change Text Font

CRL provides choices for font family, style, size and color for text in logbook entries (although not for plain text). To change the text font, first select the desired text, as described in section 4.2.2 Select Text within an Entry. Then choose the font property(ies) you want from the Font menu.

To undo font properties, you can use the Undo function on the Edit menu or you can just select a different property (note that for Style, clicking on the same one again toggles the style). Redo is available, too.

4.3.5 Delete Entries

There are two menu options for removing logbook entries: Remove Selected Entries and Remove All Entries in this Topic. As mentioned in section 4.1 Input Container Menu Options, when operating on a non-archived entry, the Remove function truly deletes the entry (after a confirmation query). Archived entries simply get removed from the container with no prompt (see section 5.3 Removing Archived Logbook Entries from View).

To delete a single entry or a set of hand-picked entries, first select each entry as described in section 4.2.1 Select/Deselect Single or Multiple Entries. Then choose Remove Selected Entries from the Entries menu. CRL prompts for confirmation before the deletion of each entry.

To delete all non-archived entries in the container, simply choose Remove All Entries in this Topic from the Entries menu. CRL prompts for confirmation before the deletion of each entry. Any archived entries will be removed from the container as well.

For (non-archived) entries that have been checkpointed automatically, the checkpoint entry will not be removed when you delete the actual entry. To delete these (or other) checkpointed entries, click the Checkpoint Recovery button on the Logbook toolbar. A window comes up containing a list of all the entries that are currently checkpointed. Select the entry you want to delete, and click the Delete Selected Files button at the top of the frame.

4.4 Attaching Keywords to a Logbook Entry

Keywords can be linked to logbook entries in order to provide an additional dimension for querying the database when attempting to later identify and retrieve particular entries. Keywords are stored in UPPERCASE. Each experiment defines its own keywords in accordance with the logbook entry pages, categories, topics and data types it has configured.

Typically the keyword(s) you'd want to attach either come automatically attached or appear in the entry's list of default keywords. However, any keyword defined in your CRL configuration can be attached to an entry via the Global Keywords feature, discussed in section 4.4.2 Global Keywords.

In the container, a data header appears in red. Attached keywords, if any, are listed in the last line of the header. If keywords are available for this entry, the keyword symbol appears under the header.

.

4.4.1 Keywords Tailored to Entry's Topic and Data Type

Each input container may have its own set of default, "attachable" keywords pertaining to the container topic. Any or all of these keywords may be configured to link automatically to each entry in the container. Similarly, each data type may have keywords associated with it. Therefore, every logbook entry of a given data type inserted into a given input container has the same set of default, attachable keywords, and you can choose from among them. Some of the automatically linked keywords may be removable, others may not. On any given logbook entry, you can only remove keywords that are removable (to state the obvious!).

To edit the list of keywords linked to a logbook entry, click on the keyword symbol for that entry ( ) to pop up the Keywords window:

In the left-hand column is the list of default, attachable keywords. In the right-hand column is the list of keywords attached to the entry (initially, this is the set of auto-linked keywords).

To attach keyword(s):

select from the left-hand list and click Add=>

To remove keyword(s):

select from the right-hand list and click <=Remove

To add/remove multiple keywords at a time, use the standard method of selecting multiple items for your windowing system. E.g., for Windows, use the Ctrl or Shift key (Ctrl-click individual, nonadjacent items, or Shift-click first and last of set of adjacent items).

4.4.2 Global Keywords

If you wish to attach a keyword that does not appear in the list of default attachable keywords for the entry, click Global Keywords. This brings up the Global Keywords box which lists all the keywords defined for the CRL installation.

In the same way as for the keywords discussed in section 4.4.1 Keywords Tailored to Entry's Topic and Data Type, select any keywords from the left-hand column and add them to the right-hand column. Click Add Global Keywords when done, and the selected keywords will appear in the right-hand column of the Keywords box and be attached to the entry. Click Cancel Global Keywords to cancel.

Once you're back on the Keywords window (described in section 4.4.1 Keywords Tailored to Entry's Topic and Data Type), if you remove a global keyword from the right-hand column, it will not appear in the left-hand column since it did not appear there initially.

4.5 Recovering or Deleting Checkpointed Entries

Entries that have not yet been archived or deleted get written out periodically to a checkpoint directory. This protects against significant data loss in the event of a crash or accidental deletion.

To recover checkpointed entries, click the Checkpoint Recovery button on the Logbook toolbar on the left. A window comes up containing a list of all the entries that are currently checkpointed (see the background window in image):

Select the entry or entries you want to recover, and drag it (them) into a Checkpoint Container or into an Input Container of the same Category and Topic. A Checkpoint Container accepts any checkpointed entry, and thus allows you to drag all the entries at once. An Input Container, in contrast, has a particular Category and Topic, and it accepts only entries that match. Both container types allow you to edit, delete and/or archive the recovered entries. The Entries menu for a Checkpoint Container is identical to that of an Input Container (see section 4.1 Input Container Menu Options).

To delete checkpointed entries, select them in the Recover Checkpointed Files window, and click Delete Selected Files. Checkpointed entries may need to be purged now and then.

To select multiple checkpointed entries at a time, use the standard method of selecting multiple items for your windowing system. E.g., for Windows, use the Ctrl or Shift key (Ctrl-click individual, nonadjacent items, or Shift-click first and last of set of adjacent items).

4.6 Printing Entries

There are two Entries menu options for printing entries from a container: Print Selected Entries and Print All Entries in this Topic (the latter can also be performed using Ctrl-p.) When you use one of these options, a standard Print window for your operating system pops up in which you set the destination printer and printer options. The printed report will contain the entries in the container corresponding to the entries you selected and the menu option you selected.

4.7 Sending Entries via Email

The Entries menu contains options to send entries, archived or not, to an email recipient or to a mailing list. Entries can be of any data type (virtually all MIME types are supported), and are sent in HTML format. The two options are:

Send Selected Entries To Mail Recipient (F8)

Select entries to be sent, using a technique from the table in section 4.2.1 Select/Deselect Single or Multiple Entries. Then click this option on the Entries menu, or press F8.

Send ALL Entries To Mail Recipient (Ctrl+Shift+s)

Verify that you want to send all the entries currently in the container, archived and not, to the recipient. Then click this option on the Entries menu, or press Ctrl+Shift+s.

The Send Entries to Mail Recipients dialog box pops up in which you identify yourself, the recipient and a subject (a default subject is provided):

In the To: field, enter either a single email address or a mailing list address. As of v1_7_04, multiple addresses are not supported.

Note that CRL may be configured such that certain form entries (and only form entries) get sent automatically upon archive to designated recipients. This action depends on the configuration of the form's toolbutton. The user is not notified in any way when this happens, so ask your CRL administrator if this applies to your installation.

Entries Bring up the Entries menu either by clicking on the Entries menu option, or by right-clicking anywhere in the container window. Select/unselect all entries, remove, archive, print, add/delete entries to/from a thread, or send via email. For non-archived entries, the Remove options delete the entry, after a confirmation query. For archived entries, these options only remove the entries from the input container; they are no longer displayed in the container window, but they remain unchanged in the database.
	Edit Edit text in an entry (undo and redo, cut, copy and paste text, select all text).
Font Set family, style, size, and color of text in entry.
	Insert Insert into an entry: the current date and time1, an image from a file or URL, or text from a file or program.
Check Category Display menu path of container.

select single entry	Point anywhere in the header of the desired entry, and click once.
deselect single entry (only one entry selected)	Click once in the entry's header. (The click toggles between select/deselect.)
deselect single entry (only one entry selected) and select different entry simultaneously	Just click in the header of the new entry.
select multiple entries	Select the first entry as described above, then press the <Ctrl> key and click once in the header of another entry. Continue for additional entries
deselect one of multiple selected entries	Press the <Ctrl> key and click once in the header of entry to deselect.
select all entries	Open the Entries menu (either click on it or right-click anywhere in the container window). Choose the Select ALL Entries option in the Entries menu. This selects non-archived and archived entries.
deselect all selected entries	Click twice (not a double-click; two singles1) on the header of one selected entry. Or choose the Un-select ALL Entries option from the Entries menu.

Typically the keyword(s) you'd want to attach either come automatically attached or appear in the entry's list of default keywords. However, any keyword defined in your CRL configuration can be attached to an entry via the Global Keywords feature, discussed in section 4.4.2 Global Keywords. In the container, a data header appears in red. Attached keywords, if any, are listed in the last line of the header. If keywords are available for this entry, the keyword symbol appears under the header.	.

If you wish to attach a keyword that does not appear in the list of default attachable keywords for the entry, click Global Keywords. This brings up the Global Keywords box which lists all the keywords defined for the CRL installation.


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