The Slide Trays Edition Page

Purpose

This screen is used to create, view, update, clone and delete Tray records. In the context of Project Hirtius, a Tray represents any "container" for pictures that you might think of, be they physical objects or digital files. For physical Slides, your Trays could represent the plastic cartriges your store your slides in, or photo albums for paper prints or postcards. In the case of digital files, the Tray would represent a directory structure visible from your Apache server.

This document will focus on the functionalities of the page that you will use to manage your Tray records, not on the whole policy that you will need to put in place to manage the related physical objects (naming conventions, etc.) or the technical aspects of its implementation. For in-depth information about these topics, please refer to Pictures Management Workflow and Helper Scripts.

Getting There...

The Trays management screens are not available straight from the Main Application Menu. To reach the Edition Page of an existing Tray:

From the Main Application Menu (or indeed almost any other Project Hirtius page), click on the "Manage Slides" icon in the header (). This gets you to the Slides List.
Scroll to the bottom of the page. Click on the Slides Trays link located between the Slides List and the page footer. This gets you to the Slide Trays List.
Navigate the Slide Trays List until you locate the entry you're looking for.
Then click on the tray ID (first column), or on any of the action links (last column) to view, edit, clone or delete the tray record in question.

To add a new Tray record:

From the Main Application Menu (or indeed almost any other Project Hirtius page), click on the "Manage Slides" icon in the header (). This gets you to the Slides List.
Scroll to the bottom of the page. Click on the Slides Trays link located between the Slides List and the page footer. This gets you to the Slide Trays List.
Press [End] to reach the bottom of the list.
Click the Add action link in the bottom-right corner of the list.

Supported actions

The Tray Edition Page supports the following actions:

Add: the form to fill in and submit in order to create a new Tray record.
Insert: creating the new Tray record in the database (post Add action).
Edit: modifying an existing Tray record through a form populated based on the current database contents.
Update: storing the modified data in the database, updating the appropriate Tray record (post Edit action).
View: display the current database contents for the selected Tray record (this will also list the tray contents, with links to the actual Slides). No form in this case.
Clone: create a new Tray record from a form filled by the database contents of an existing record. The Clone action will be followed by an Insert upon submit.
DelCon: first step when requesting the deletion of a record -- issues a prompt for confirmation.
Del: the actual removal of the selected record from the database (post DelCon action). Beware: the removal of a Tray implies the removal of all the Slide records it contains, including all metadata for those Slides. The deletion confirmation dialog will tell you if the selected tray still contains slides. If you want to preserve your Slide records, you should move them to a different tray first.
The deletion action will be recorded: a new entry will be added to the Event Log.

Of these, only Add, Edit, View, Clone and DelCon are entry points. They are typically reached from the Slide Trays List.

Fields

Here below are the fields that you can expect to find on the Tray Edition Page. The goal here is not to simply duplicate the database layout information. If this is what interests you, please refer to the Database Layout, the database creation script or the database itself. The purpose is rather to explain what each field is meant for [D], what format it is expected to follow [F] and what are the conditions for its validity (if applicable) [V].

A star (*) after the name of the field denotes a mandatory field (the star is shown in red with the same meaning in the application user interface).

Tray ID*	D	Unique identifier for your tray. If your Tray record represents a physical object, that ID should be written on the cartrige or photo album. For digital files, that ID will be passed as parameter to the script that creates the corresponding directory structure, and it will be used to name the top-level directory. That ID will form the first part of the "in-tray address" Slide field (simply called Tray on that page -- see Slides Edition Page).
	F	Free text (within the confines of the naming convention that you should have defined, as detailed in Pictures Management Workflow). Max. 4 characters (unless defined otherwise -- see `$tidlen` in the Global Definitions File).
	V	The tray ID must be unique and its length must exactly match the value of `$tidlen`. A change of ID post creation is allowed (the in-tray address of any linked Slide will be updated accordingly). The '`mvtray`' helper script can then be used to adjust the on-disk Tray structure accordingly.
Tray name*	D	Tray name. Can be used to describe the kind of contents, if you decide to organise trays by broad, high-level categories (e.g. 'architecture', 'sculpture', 'epigraphy', etc.).
Tray name*	F	Free text.
Slides per tray*	D	Number of "slides" this Tray can accomodate. When considering physical media (slides, paper prints, postcards), that number is clearly defined by the size of the container and/or the number of "slots" it contains. In the case of digital files, you get to choose the size (i.e. the number of slots) -- just make sure to use the same value as parameter when calling the '`mkcdtray`' script.
	F	Integer number.
	V	The value has to be numeric and larger than zero. If modified post creation, the value cannot be reduced to less than the last slot number already occupied.
Comment	D	Any comment you might have on the tray, such as where it is stored (if physical), or what its content is. This field is only provided for user convenience.
Comment	F	Free text. HTML markup allowed.
Contents is digital	D	Check this field if the Tray will store digital files. When checked, a hyperlink will be added on the Slide view page (in the upper left corner, next to the Slide ID), allowing the user to easily open the image itself in a viewer. For this feature to work, there are some configuration parameters that need to be properly set in the Global Definitions File ("webstore" configuration). Please note that you cannot mix physical and digital contents in the same Tray (I thought that much would be obvious) -- but you can (and should) flag as digital a Tray whose physical media you have digitized and stored in the appropriate on-disk Tray structure (as created by the '`mkcdtray`' helper script).
Contents is digital	F	Checkbox.
Hex. slot numbering	D	Check this field if the Tray's slots should be numbered in hexadecimal. You may wish to use this to limit the number of characters used by your slot numbering scheme.
	F	Checkbox.
	V	Modification of this field post creation is only allowed when the highest occupied slot is at most #9.

Controls

In View mode

Gallery link: The Gallery link (when present) will lead you to the Photo Gallery HTML index page generated from all the Slides contained in the current Tray. This Gallery is optional and is created by calling the 'tray_gallery_gen' script (see Helper Scripts and Pictures Management Workflow for more details).
This link is only displayed when said Gallery is available.
Slide view link: The Slide ID is a link that leads you to the Slides Edition Page in view mode.
Located inside the table drawn within the Contents section of the page.
Picture view link: (Only available when the Tray is flagged as 'digital'.) The Pict action link points your browser to the online folder that contains the digitial picture file, allowing you to open it in your browser.
Located inside the table drawn within the Contents section of the page.
Add Slide to slot action link: (Only available when the slot in question is still empty.) The Add action link leads you to the Slides Edition Page in 'add' mode with the 'TrayID' field already filled in.
Located inside the table drawn within the Contents section of the page.
EXIF data view link: (Only available when the Tray is flagged as 'digital' and EXIF data has been uploaded.) The EXIF action link leads you to the EXIF Data Viewer.
Located inside the table drawn within the Contents section of the page.
Switch to edit mode link: Located at the bottom of the page, just above the footer. Click on this link to edit the current object (switches the view from a R/O rendering of the contents to an HTML form that allows you to modify that contents and submit it afterward).

In Edit mode

Submit button: (Also in "Add" and "Clone" modes). Commits the locally modified HTML form fields contents to the database that stores Project Hirtius data. Use it to save your latest modifications. It is of course perfectly legitimate to click Submit any number of times during a long edition session to avoid loosing unsaved data. When doing so, use the Edit this tray some more... link on the update result screen (see below) to return to the current tray record and edit it further.
Reset button: (Also in "Add" and "Clone" modes). Cancels any un-committed change, and returns all HTML form fields to their initial value (i.e. the one they had when the page was last loaded in the browser). Use this button to revert any erroneous edit you might have done (Beware: this only works on local changes that have not been saved to the database yet, i.e. for which you've not clicked on Submit yet).
Switch to view mode link: Located at the bottom of the page, just above the footer. Click on this link to view the current object (switches from the current HTML form that allows you to modify the object contents and submit it afterward to a R/O rendering of that contents).

In Insert or Update result mode

This result page appears once you have clicked the Submit button on the Add, Edit or Clone page. It will offer the following links:

Edit this tray some more... link: Returns you to the current Tray record in edit mode. Use this link to further edit the tray in question. This link is also present just after you added a new tray.
Add a new tray link: Opens the form that allows you to create a new Tray record. Usefull when creating multiple records in sequence.
Add a new slide link: Opens the form that allows you to create a new Slide record. Once the tray has been created, you can start adding Slides right away.
Back to trays list link: Returns you to the Slide Trays List.