| Sidebar buttons |
| • disable hints
The disable hints button turns off the tool-tips that pop up over the
various PBOS buttons and menu-items. When disabled, the button is
transformed into an enable hints button with the opposite effect.
This button does not have an effect on the mouse-over text that the
margin icons can display.
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| • library
The library button takes you back to the PBOS library page where you can select
from the avilable books to read. See the Library Page section for more details.
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| • bookmarks
The bookmarks button takes you to a page that lists all the bookmarks you've created
for all the available books. See the Bookmarks Page section for more details.
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| • section list
When reading a book, the section list button takes you to a page that lists
all the sections in the current book, in order, along with their title. This
page is not actually a part of the book's content, so you can't create any
annotations on this page.
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| • previous section
When reading a book, the previous section button will take you to the
previous section in the current book (if there is one).
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| • next section
When reading a book, the next section button will take you to the next
section in the current book (if there is one).
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| • page up
When reading a book, the page up button will scroll backward through the
current book's section, switching to the bottom of the previous section when
the top of the current section is reached.
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| • page down
When reading a book, the page down button will scroll forward through the
current book's section, switching to the top of the next section when the
bottom of the current section is reached.
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| • dissect text
When reading a book, the dissect text button takes you to a tool that helps
you to create and use search terms to extract matching sections from the
current book, see word/phrase statistics, or create "DissectionNotes" based on
the matches. Your search terms may either be supplied manually or expanded in
interesting ways using WordNet. See the Dissect Text Tool section for more
details.
|
| • margin effects
When reading a book, the margin effects button takes you to a tool that lets
you control how certain visual properties of the margin icons are presented.
See the Margin Effects Tool section for more details.
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| • analyze
When reading a book, the analyze button takes you to a tool that lets
you generate reports on the attributes in the current book's annotations. See
the Analyze Tool section for more information.
|
| • return to book
The return to book button appears when you are working in a book-related
tool (such as the Dissect Text Tool). Pressing it simply takes you back
to the section you had been reading.
|
| • configure
The configure button takes you to a page that lets you choose between 3
configuration areas: Group Config Tool, Password Changes, and
Extension Config Tool. See the relevant help section for more
information.
|
| • sign up
The sign up button takes you to a page that lets you create a PBOS
account. Note that we only allow one PBOS account per user. This button only
appears when you are not logged in.
|
| • sign in
The sign in button takes you to a page that lets you enter your PBOS
user information and login to PBOS. This button only appears when you are
not logged in.
|
| • sign out
The sign out button logs your current user out of PBOS and takes you to
library page as an unregistered user. This button only appears when you are
logged in.
|
|
| Library Page |
| • Overview
The Library Page is where you can browse the available books and choose one
you'd like to read. Mousing over a book title will reveal the Begin Reading
Menu.
If you have been granted the right to add new books, you will also see
an add new book button on this page.
|
• Begin Reading Menu
This is the menu that pops up when you mouse over the title of a book. The
choices are:
- Go to First Page – visit the first section in the book.
- Go to Section List – visit the section list to choose the section to
start reading.
- Go to Newest Bookmark – visit your most recently created bookmark in
the book (if you've created one for this book).
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| Bookmarks Page |
| • Overview
The Bookmarks Page is where you can all the bookmarks you have placed into the
various library books. The bookmarks are grouped by book, and listed with the
newest ones first. You'll also see an indication of how far along you are in
the section that bookmark is in. Simply click the bookmark link to go to that
bookmark.
|
| Book Pages |
| • Overview
The Book Pages are where you actually read one section of the book at a time.
While reading, you can create new annotations by making a selection, manipulate
existing annotations (seen in the right margin), and click on some book-related
action-buttons that are only visible when reading a book.
|
| • Create an Annotation
To create a new annotation, just select some text in the book at the spot that
relates to the annotation you'd like to create. A popup menu will appear that
lets you choose the type for the annotation (or click "Cancel" to just leave
the text selected).
|
• Manipulate an Annotation
To manipulate an existing annotation, right-click the margin-icon for the
annotation and choose from one of these actions:
- Show – show all the attributes of the annotation.
- Edit* – edit the attributes of the annotation.
- Re-Anchor* – change the connection of the annotation to the
just-selected text.
- Delete* – delete the annotation and all associated data.
- Cancel – don't do anything.
* The annotation must be one of yours for you to change/delete it.
|
| Add New Book |
| • Overview
If you have been granted permission to add books to the library, you will reach this page
from the library. Enter the summary information for the book (title, author, copyright,
and description) first, and then start adding sections to the book.
|
| • Add Section
When adding a section, you enter it into the text box or you upload it from a
file (see the bottom of the page for the Browse and Upload buttons).
PBOS knows how to convert HTML and plain text into our internal
wiki-like text format, so if you upload/enter one of those formats, make sure
that you set the text format in the drop-down list and click the convert button
to transform the text into the right format.
When adding a new section, you can optionally split the text you've
entered into multiple new sections (you should create a new section for each
chapter in a book, for instance). As long as each section starts with a heading
that looks like this: "== section ==" (which is equivalent to an HTML H2 tag),
your input text will be split up appropriately. Note also that no splitting
occurs prior to the very first section in the file, which allows you to put
the book title and author information above the first section's title.
|
| • Edit Section
To edit a section, select it from the drop-down list-box and press the Edit
button. You will be given the opportunity to change the text and/or the
section's title. The uploading and conversion options are the same as for
adding a new section, but no section-splitting is provided.
Note that if your text has any annotations associated with it, you will
see annotation markers in your text (such as <1234>). Be careful not to
remove these, as that will cause the associated annotation to lose its place in
the text.
|
| • Wiki-style Markup
|
|
| Dissect Text Tool |
| • Overview
This tool allows you to search for words/phrases in the current book and
either extract them in context, create annotations from the matches, or get
usage statistics.
The words/phrases can be either just what you type, or can be expanded in
interesting ways via WordNet lexical relationships.
|
| • Lexical Expansion
If you choose to expand a word or phrase, you will be shown a page from the lexicon
that has various options for the various types of word-relations that are present.
Choose one section and a word-relation from the drop-down, and optionally restrict
the search to 1 or more of the definition's "senses" by entering the sense numbers
in the edit field. When you press the "Expand" button, you will be shown a list of
related words that can be used as an expanded search—feel free to trim out the words
you're not interested in by removing the checkmark next to them. Then, click on one
of the "Extract ..." buttons, the "Show Stats" button, or the "Annotate" button.
|
| • Extract Paragraph, etc.
Each "Extract ..." button will show you sections from the book that match your
search criteria. They differ only in how much context you see around the
matches. You may choose to see whole paragraphs, single sentences, or just
phrases.
|
| • Show Stats
When you press the "Show Stats" button, you will see match-statistics for the
search terms you have supplied. The statistics are broken down by paragraphs,
sentences, and phrases.
|
| • Annotate
When you press the Annotate button, you will be taken to a page that shows you
all the matches for your search terms and gives you the opportunity to create a
DissectionNote object for one or all of the matches. A new annotation group is
created to hold all the new annotation(s), which makes it easy for you to find
them all and (when you're done with them) to delete them by simply deleting the
containing group.
|
| Margin Effects Tool |
| • Overview
This tool lets you control the visible properties of annotations based on their
type and/or their attributes. For instance, you can make all OutgoingLinks
have an orange background, or you can make all Notes put their
MarginMouseoverText value into the IconText so that it appears directly in the
margin.
You define rules to affect the way the icons display by using the
drop-down lists. The first two drop-downs select what kind of an annotation
get affected, and the last two drop-downs choose what effect to display.
|
| • Checkbox
The checkbox lets you choose to disable all the existing color and font changes
in the margin. This turns all the annotations into black text on a white
background with a gray border and the default font except for links,
which will still be blue text. This is especially useful for starting fresh,
allowing all the color/font changes to come from your rules.
|
| • First Two Drop-downs
Drop-downs 1 and 2 select which annotations are to be affected:
The first drop-down lets you choose an Annotation Type (or "*Any Type*"),
which reveals the remaining drop-downs for that line. In the second drop-down,
choose an annotation attribute (or "*Any Attribute*"). These two choices
are combined to decide which annotations are affected by this rule.
For example, you may choose a "Note" in the first drop-down and
"MarginMouseoverText" in the second drop-down to only affect Note annotations
that have a non-empty MarginMouseoverText, plus this value might be used in
modifying what gets displayed (see the last two drop-downs).
|
| • Last Two Drop-downs
Drop-downs 3 and 4 select what visible effect is to be performed:
Use drop-down 3 to choose a value—either a literal value or the value
of the selected attribute from the second drop-down. Use drop-down 4 to choose
what visible property to affect. For instance, you can show "orange" in the
"IconBackgroundColor" property, or you can show the value of the
MarginMouseoverText in the IconText.
If the attribute's value is used, it may be either used unchanged, or
(if it is a number) scaled over the range of its min-max values and then mapped
into an appropriate value for the visible property. For instance, scaling a
numeric value into a color property results in one of 6 colors being selected;
scaling a numeric value into a text field shows the value's percentage (as it
relates to the minimum and maximum values for the requested numeric attribute).
|
| Analyze Tool |
| • Overview
This tool lets you analyze the annotations by choosing attributes that you're
interested in searching and/or seeing in the results. After choosing the
fields that your interested in and specifying any search strings (if you want
to limit the returned results), press the Search button.
|
| • Attribute Drop-Down
The names that start with "Icon" are visible properties that all annotations
possess. The names that start with an underscore are optional attributes that
may or may not be present in each annotation type. Some optional attributes
affect a visible property and some do not. If you don't care which optional
attribute set the IconMouseoverText to a particular value, search for it via
its Icon name, otherwise search for the specific attribute that you're
interested in.
|
| • Find Text
Use % as a wildcard—for example, "%red%" would match the word "red"
at any point in the text. Using a single "%" will match any present value, which
means that annotations that don't include that attribute are excluded. Leaving
the find text empty will not place any restrictions on that attribute, but simply
return it amongst the results.
|
|
| Group Config Tool |
| • Overview
This page lets you add/change/delete your Annotation Groups, which allow you
to both categorize your annotations, and to control how they are shared with
others.
The opening page lists all the attributes for which you have one or
more permissions (such as View). You may see/manipulate the groups
by clicking on the group's adjacent action link. You can control which
group's annotations are displayed in the margin while reading by using the
group's checkbox and pressing the "Change margin-visible groups" button.
|
| • More Detail
|
| Password Changes |
| • Overview
You will be prompted for a new password, which will trigger an email to your
on-file email address to verify that the change should take effect.
|
| Extension Config Tool |
| • Overview
This tool has two main pages, one for editing/creating Annotation Types,
and one for editing/creating Annotation Attributes. These are advanced
features for someone who wants to create extended data types for their
annotations. Custom Annotation Types are built out of one or more Attributes,
which can be either the stock Attributes or custom Attributes you've created.
|
| • Custom Types
When creating/editing a custom annotation type, you are presented with a screen
that lets you enter the name of the type, the action that will be performed when
the annotation's margin icon is clicked, and the help-text that is displayed in
the annotation-creation menu.
Below that is where you choose what attributes should be included. All
annotations must have a MarginText attribute, so that is hard-wired as the
first attribute in the list.
All the available attributes are listed in the first drop-down on the
line. The text field (on the right) lets you specify a default (or unchanging)
value for the attribute (if it is left blank, the attribute's default value is
used).
The second drop-down lets you choose if the attribute is optional (the
user may leave it blank), required (the user must fill it in), unchanging (the
user is not prompted for the value), or a filter-provided value (the user is
again not prompted for the value, but a filter process might change it from its
default).
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| • Custom Attributes
When creating/editing a custom annotation attribute, you are presented with a
screen that lets you enter the attribute's name, whether it is a string or a
number, the mapping of the attribute into a visible property (if any), the
maximum length of the value (if it is a string; range 1-255), the default
value (which can be a list of valid values, as explained on the page), and
the 3 input values that govern how the value will be prompted for when you
create an annotation with this attribute.
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