Projects Report Page

Purpose

This page will let you create the Project Report for the selected project, based on some user-defined parameters that you will be able to specify here. At present, only one report format is offered, and it will generate a LaTeX source file that you should then compile into a PDF, for instance.

A Project Report can still be generated for closed projects (provided they were assigned a Structure Container Node before they were closed), but it will be identified as such both on the Projects Report Page and in the abstract of the resulting document.

Getting There...

To reach the Project Report Page:

From the Main Application Menu (or indeed almost any other Project Hirtius page), click on the "Manage Projects" icon in the header (). This gets you to the Projects List.
Navigate the Projects List until you locate the project you're looking for.
Then click on the Report action link in the right-most column. Please note that in order for this link to be enabled, you need to have linked your Project record with a Structure Container Node (i.e. selected a node somewhere in your INXtree that will play the role of entry point to the project internal structure). See the Projects Edition Page and Projects Management Workflow for more information on that topic.

Modes

At present, only one mode is available, which I will describe below. More modes may come later on.

Project report

The Project Report only exists in LaTeX format. Its function is to give the researcher a draft document that will contain (almost) all the data that has been gathered in the context of the current project, and to organise it along the lines of the scholarly work that is to be the end result of the research.

For this to work, you need to follow these three steps:

Below a chosen entry point in your INXtree structure, start building the structural backbone of your work (think chapters, sections, subsections). See Projects Management Workflow for more details.
As you research your subject, create as many objects of any kind to store your findings and hypothesis (Slides, Sources, Events, Individuals, Tiddlers, etc.). Document each of them using their supported metadata.
Link these objects to the project structure you created in the INXtree, reworking this structure along the way if needed.

All these steps are of course not strictly sequential, but you will go through each of them repeatedly and concurrently while working.

Based on this data and the structure it is attached to, the Project Report will give you a written outline that you can then use as draft when writing the intended scholarly work. Some suggestions as to how you can go from this draft to the finished product are available in Projects Management Workflow.

This report is also meant to be used during progress review meetings with your promoter.

Controls

Depending on the report you select, you may have to select additional parameters before the resulting output is produced. The available controls and their purpose depend on the chosen report (= mode).

Project report

Paper format:: This control sets the paper format for the resulting PS or PDF file. The only available choices at present are "A4" and "Letter".
Output Document Language:: This control selects the language to use for all "static" strings in the generated report. This will automatically translate standard LaTeX headings, such as Abstract, Chapter or Index, for instance, and also adapt the typographic conventions and hyphenation rules accordingly. But it will also control the langague used for all Hirtius-specific static strings such as the different objects meta-data headings.
The default choice is to use this project contents language as initially defined on the Projects Edition Page at creation time (but the control on the present page can be used to override that choice). This allows you to create projects around communication papers in languages different from your main one, and still get a consistent LaTeX output (of course, if you attach Hirtius objects redacted in different languages to your project, these won't be translated automatically for you).
Please refer to Language Support in Reports for more information.
List all reports:: Clicking on this link will give you access in file browse mode to the folder on the Project Hirtius server where all existing reports are stored. This gives you the ability to re-download any report generated at an earlier time. Clicking on this link will NOT generate a new report.
Preview:: This link gives you access to a very summarized preview of your report. It will list all nodes of the INXtree structure, starting from the specified entry-point for the current project, and list all objects attached to each node. But it won't give any more details about the data contained inside the objects. This link will open the INXtree Report Page in 'preview' mode.

Once you've selected the parameters for your report, click on the Confirm button to generate the report. On the result page will be a link you can click to download the newly generated report. As you can see, there is no field on the report generation page to select the report file name. This is because all file names are automatically generated. Of course, you're free to change that name once you download the file from the server.

The report generation action will be recorded: a new entry will be added to the Event Log.