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Created in: 2006-01-07 12:49:16

Author: martin

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Last updated: 2006-01-07 12:49:16

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Adding a document to a repository

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Tutorial: Working with documents

In this tutorial it will be shown some useful tasks to perform with documents. Even that jLibrary can be used by a single user to manage his information, the reality is that jLibrary reachs its most powerful when is used for collaborative working. The tasks that will be shown are specially useful under this scenario allowing tasks like file locking, offline working, etc.

Locks

jLibrary has been created with the workgroup idea in mind. So, maybe it will be very common that while you're working with a repository, there will be more users working simultaneously on that repository. Maybe, some of those users could want to work with a document that you're currently editing. Well, under this circunstances, if you store your changes, your teammate changes will be lost, and surely that he is not going to be very happy with it.

To solve this, jLibrary offers an explicit locking system (pessimist). Any user can lock a document, and since that moment no other person would be able to modify that document. Read access to the document is allowed, but not write access. So while a document is locked you can query his properties, content, etc.

To lock a document you only have to right-click over it and select the men? option Work with (lock)

After doing that, jLibrary will try to lock the document. After locked, a lock icon would be overlapped over the original node icon marking that the file is locked.

While you're working with jLibrary is possible that you see locked documents. To know who has locked a concrete document, you only have to put over the node your mouse cursor, and a tooltip would show who has locked that document.

The only way to unlock a document locked by another person is contacting with that person and asking him to release that document. So, it's very important do not forget unlocking your documents once that you have finished with them.

To know the documents that you have locked, you can open the Working set view. This view shows the documents that you have locked in the different opened repositories. Normally, you would find this view just under the repository view, unless you have moved it to another place.

When you have decided to end working with a document, you should unlock it. To do this, you must right click over the document within the repository view and select the menu option Leave working (unlock). You can do the same operation in the working set view. Inmediatelly the document will be released, and the lock icon will disappear from the document.

Refreshing the repository

While you're working with jLibrary, is possible that some other users have deleted documents, or maybe that they have created new documents, or maybe they have locked some documents to work with. At any moment, you can refresh the content of a directory, document, or even a complete repository, to check the their state, and to check if other users have done any changes.

To refresh an element, simply you have to select it on the repository view, right click over it, and select the menu option Refresh

After doing that, the content of the selected element will be refreshed, and also the content of all of its children. If some element has been created, it will appear with a repository icon overlapped. If some element have been removed, it will appear with a warning item overlapped. If some element has been locked it will appear with a lock item overlapped.

Working outside jLibrary

Sometimes the jLibrary editor may be innadequate for your needings. Other times you will find that you need to get the content of a repository file to another place outside the jLibrary repository. jLibrary allows to export the content of a document to your file system to work with it. Later, you can reload the content of the file and update the repository.

To save a document in your local file system, you only have to right click over it and select the menu option Save content

It will appear a dialog asking for a place to store the document contents, and the name of the file. Fill those data and save the document.

Once that you have worked with the document in your local file system, you can restore its content right clicking over the document and selecting the menu option Load content.

It will appear another dialog asking the location of the file that you want to load. Select the file, and jLibrary will load automatically its content. Once that jLibrary loads the document, it will appear on your editor, but it won't be saved. You must explicitly save the document contents.

Congratulations! Now you know to work better with your documents :-)