SLAC ELOG User's Guide

 

ESD Software Engineering, SLAC

Table of Contents

Overview

Home Page Description

About Home Page Symbols

Make an Entry

Pending Entries

Entry Display

Print Queue Attachments

Overview

This web page provides information regarding the use of the SLAC Electronic Logbook system ported from Jefferson Labs. Users may make entries into logbooks and view logbook entries through a web-based interface. The web interface is accessable only from SLAC due to security concerns. Anyone at SLAC who has access to the E-log web interface may view logbook entries. However, to make a log entry one must have a SLAC AFS (UNIX) account and have one's name and UNIX account username entered into a database list of E-log users (contact Bob Hall to be entered into this list).

Graphics attachments may be generated from SLAC VAX/VMS MCC systems, UNIX systems, and Windows systems. This is accomplished through the "print queue" mechanism where graphics images are "printed" to special E-log print queues and appear in a "thumbnail" list of graphics files that may be attached to a log entry. Also Windows graphics files may be attached directly to a log entry. Log entries and associated attached graphics files are stored into an Oracle database.

The E-log system is DOE compliant, which implies that log entries may not be altered once they have been made. Corrections to information in a log entry may be made by entering a new log entry which refers to the entry in error.

It is also possible for software programs to make log entries. Such entries may contain signal values, such as luminousity and beam current. Please contact Bob Hall to make requests for program modifications for log entry.

Home Page Description

The E-log home page is the starting point for the E-log system:

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The name of the current logbook being viewed appears on the title on the top of the page. When the home page is first entered the name of the default logbook, MCC, appears. The logbook entry summaries displayed at the bottom of the page are associated with the current logbook, whose name appears on the title.

The first section of the page below the title consists of three items: logbooks, actions, and other links. The logbooks line lists the names of all of the logbooks currently supported. Clicking on the name of a logbook makes this logbook the current logbook being viewed. The last logbook listed, TLOG, is a test logbook. Log entry tests may be made by associating test log entries with this logbook.

The actions supported are:

  1. Make an Entry - Clicking on this action brings up a form allowing one to make a new log entry. The details of making a new log entry is discussed in another section of this User's Guide.
  2. Logbook prefs - Clicking on this action brings up a form allowing changing the items displayed for a log entry. Users should not select this action and change the items displayed for a log entry because this affects all users of the E-log system. Therefore, this action will not be discussed in this User's Guide. Although the effects of a user changing the logbook preferences should be relatively minor this action may be removed from the main E-log page to prevent users from experimenting with it.
  3. Scrollable/printable logbook - Clicking on this action allows one to scroll through all of the log entries currently displayed in the summary at the bottom of the main page. These scrollable log entries may also be easily printed.
  4. Pending entries - Clicking on this action allows the user to view a summary of newly made log entries that have not yet been processed and are not yet available for display. A short discussion of this appears in another section of this User's Guide.
  5. Login/Logout - The action "Login" appears if one has not yet entered an AFS (UNIX) username and password that has been successfully validated. If this has been done, the "Logout" action appears. The "Login" action is not strictly necessary since the same username/password validation is done before one first makes a log entry. Once username/password validation is done one is "logged in" and will not be required to reenter the username/password when making new entries. The "Logout" action "logs out" the user from the E-log system and is useful when one has finished making log entries on a display terminal used by several people.

The Other Links allows one to select other web pages. Each logbook may have different web pages in the list of available links. The list of web pages for each logbook will always include at least two links:

  1. ELOG News - Provides update information regarding the E-log system. It includes information regarding changes and new features.
  2. ELOG Users Guide - A link to this web page containing User's Guide information.

The second section of the E-log home page contains pull-down menus and a search text box that allows one to filter logbook entry summaries at the bottom of the page:

  1. Start Date - Allows the selection of the starting date/time. Only log entries created at or after the specified start date/time will be displayed.
  2. End Date - Allows the selection of the ending date/time. Only log entries created at or before the specified end date/time will be displayed.
  3. Logbook - Allows the selection of one or more currently supported logbooks. Only log entries associated with the selected logbooks will be displayed.
  4. Area - Allows the selection of any Area (e.g. injector, damping rings, linac, etc.) or "ALL". Only log entries that were created with this area specified will be displayed (if "ALL" is selected, no area filtering is performed).
  5. Sort Order - Allows sorting of entries to be in ascending or descending order by the last sort filter selected/altered (e.g. date, name, etc.).
  6. Source - Allows the selection of "USER LOGS", "AUTOLOGS", or "ALL LOGS". If "USER LOGS" is selected only log entries created by users through the "Make an Entry" action will be displayed. If "AUTOLOGS" is selected only log entries created by software programs will be displayed. If "ALL LOG" is selected no Source filtering is done-- all log entries satisfying the other filter criteria will be displayed.
  7. Search - A text box is provided to enter a search string. This string of characters will be searched for in either "Titles and Text" (all log entry titles and text) or "User names" (all log entry creator user names), depending on what is selected on the pull-down menu to the right of the text box.

Once one or more of the above filter criteria is selected, the "Apply Filters" button may be clicked to apply the filters to the log entries to determine the log entry summary information which is displayed at the bottom of the page. The "Default Settings" button may be clicked to set all filters back to their default values.

The summary information at the bottom of the page includes all of the log entries satisfying the filter criteria. The header links at the top of each column (number, date, name, area(s), title) may be selected to sort log entries by that column.

At the very end of the page is a message of the form "Database query + PHP page generation time = x seconds, result set has y records" indicating how long it took to retrieve and display the displayed log entry summary information and how may entries are displayed.

Home Page Symbols

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Make an Entry

This section describes how to make a new log entry. The following is the top section of the form that appears when one selects the "Make an Entry" action from the E-log home page:

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There are three parts in this top section of the "Make an electronic logbook entry" form:

  1. Log entry title - A text box allowing one to enter text up to 255 characters in length. It is strongly recommended that each new log entry contain a title since this field is shown on the E-log home page entry summary information to identify an entry.
  2. Log entry text - A text box allowing a virtually unlimited number of characters describing the log entry.
  3. Logbook check boxes - At least one check box must be selected to associate the new log entry with at least one logbook. Multiple check boxes may be selected to associate the log entry with multiple logbooks.

The following is the middle section of the "Make an electronic logbook entry" form:

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There are five parts in this middle section of the "Make an electronic logbook entry" form:

  1. Machine Areas check boxes - One or more check boxes may be selected to associate the log entry with a machine area or areas. This is optional-- there is no requirement to select any Machine Areas check boxes.
  2. Priority Level - This is a pull-down menu that allows the log entry to have one of two priorities: NORMAL or README. The title of README log entries appears in red to attract attention to them.
  3. Email addresses - A newly created log entry may be emailed to one or more people. In the email addresses text box one may enter one or more email addresses, separated by a space. For non-qualified addresses (without the "@" character), the suffix "@slac.stanford.edu" is assumed.
  4. Reference to other log entries - A new log entry may reference one or more existing log entries. In the references text box one may enter the number of one or more log entries, separated by a space.
  5. Attachments - An log entry may have one or more graphics attachments. There are two methods of making attachments. One is to enter the file name of each attachment in the Attachments "File" text box (the "Browse..." button may be used to find a file to attach). Each such attachment is available from the user's Windows PC. The second method of making attachments is via the "print queue" mechanism, which is discussed in another section of this User's Guide. Each attachment may have a title, which is entered in the "Title" text box associated with the attachment. By default there are two "Title" and "File" text boxes available for entering information. With Netscape browsers and Internet Explorer browsers 5.0 and 5.5 the "Click to add more files" button may be clicked to add addition text box rows. At present this does not work using Internet Explorer browser version 6.0.

The following is the bottom section of the "Make an electronic logbook entry" form:

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There are three parts in this bottom section of the "Make an electronic logbook entry" form:

  1. Usernames associated with log entry - By default only the user whose username and password has been validated is associated with the new log entry. To associate additional users with the new log entry enter each such user's AFS (UNIX) username, separated by a space.
  2. Printed attachments - This section contains boxes, with each box containing a check box, a file name, and a graphics "thumbnail" of each previously "printed" graphics file available for attachment to a log entry. The file name in a box may be selected to bring up a window containing the graphics image for this file. One or more check boxes may be selected to associate graphic image attachments with the new log entry. The "Title" text boxes in the middle section of this form may be used to associate a title with each selected graphics image. The graphics attachment files are listed in order of creation date (in boxes from left-to-right and top-to-bottom) with the oldest first and the newest last. Attachment files "printed" more than two days ago may not be available. Contact Bob Hall if there is a need to restore an older attachment (less than 10 days old). The "print queue" mechanism which is used to generate the graphics files in this section of the form is discussed in another section of this User's Guide.
  3. Make entry/Reset buttons - After completing the "Make an electronic logbook entry" form one may submit a new log entry by selecting the "Make entry" button. If one has made several mistakes on the "Make an electronic logbook entry" and wants to clear the form one may select the "Reset" button.

After an entry has been submitted, a page containing information similar to the following will appear:

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This page summarizes the pending log entry. It may take up to 5 minutes for the pending log entry to be processed and stored in the Oracle database. After viewing the above page one may select the "Back to Elog" link to return to the E-log home page.

Pending Entries

After returning to the E-log home page one may verify that the new elog entry has been submitted by selecting the "Pending entries" action. A page such as the following will appear:

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An entry in the NEW or UNPROCESSED pending entries section indicates that a new logbook entry has not been yet processed. Again, it may take up to 5 minutes for a pending entry to be processed. To see the new entry appear on the E-log home page one must wait for the pending entry to be processed and then refresh the home page with the browser or wait for the next automatic refresh of the home page (every 5 minutes).

Entry Display

To display an entry one may select a entry from the bottom section of the E-log home page. The following is an example:

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This display contains two arrows at the top: the down arrow allows one to see previous entry for the current logbook and the right arrow (labeled INDEX) allows one to return to the E-log home page.

The box below the arrows contains summary information about the log entry:

  1. Entry number - Each new log entry is assigned a number. This number is one number bigger than the number assigned to the last new log entry.
  2. Title - The log entry title is displayed.
  3. Date/Time - For user entries, the date/time when the log entry was submitted is displayed. For software program entries, the date/time when the program created the entry file is displayed.
  4. Area(s) - If any machine area was associated with the log entry, the name of this area (e.g. LINAC) is displayed.
  5. User name(s) - For user entries, the name of the log entry creator is displayed along with any names corresponding to usernames entered in the "Make an entry" form.
  6. Logbook name(s) - The name(s) of the logbook(s) associated with the log entry is displayed.

Below the summary information box is the content of the log entry. Any text information will be displayed first. For each graphics attachment, the title of the attachment and the graphics attachment will be displayed.

If the log entry references other log entries these log entries will also be displayed.

Print Queue Attachments

Graphics attachments may be "printed" to special E-log print queues and made available for attaching to log entries as described in the "Make an Entry" section of this User's Guide. Only graphics files may be attached: postscript, GIF, or JPEG files are converted to PNG graphics files. Text files are not allowed as print queue attachments.

The following special E-log print queues are available from the MCC VMS machine (e.g., from SCP panels) or UNIX machines (e.g., from EPICS displays):

  1. elog_accl
  2. elog_pep
  3. elog_mcc
  4. elog_nlcta
  5. elog_pack
  6. elog_rf
  7. elog_bic
  8. elog_spps
  9. elog_lband
  10. elog_amrf
  11. elog_pcdpse
  12. elog_swlog
  13. elog_tlog
  14. elog_rotate

Any E-log print queue may be used for creating a graphics attachment (creating one E-log print queue for each logbook provides flexibility for future enhancements). However, the elog_rotate is a special E-log print queue that allows for rotating an image 90 degrees when this is desired. The queue name minus the "elog_" prefix appears in the name of the graphics attachment file for easy identification when making a log entry.

From the SCP one may go to the first "Print Control Panel" and select a "ELOG Attach" button before "printing" a graphics display. There is one "ELOG Attach" button on this panel for each logbook name.

Windows graphics files may also be "printed" to create E-log attachments. To add an E-log print queue to your available Windows printers:

  1. Click on the cd-server1 link to open cd-server1 on your Windows PC.
  2. Double click on the "Printers and Faxes" icon.
  3. Double click on one of the special E-Log print queue icons. At present it does not matter which one you select. Each Windows E-log print queue has the suffix "_mccelog". At present the following print queues are available: accl_mccelog, pep_mccelog, mcc_mccelog, nlcta_mccelog, pack_mccelog, rf_mccelog, bic_mccelog, spps_mccelog, tlog_mccelog, and rotate_mccelog (these correspond to the SCP and EPICS display print queues elog_accl, elog_pep, elog_mcc, elog_nlcta, elog_pack, elog_rf, elog_bic, elog_spps, elog_tlog, and elog_rotate).
  4. A window will appear with a title such as "tlog_mccelog on CD-SERVER1". Select "Printer/Connect".

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Owner:  Bob Hall
Last modified:  Thursday, November 6, 2003