Dear Ken,

first of all thanks for trying to improve the documentation. For me as the developer it's always hard to imagine what people need to know, since I know already all about elog. Therefore I ask usually other people to write the documentation. The one for elog was written by Fred Pacquier.

When going through your comments, I realize that you had some problems on your first steps. But you say you have a Windows installation. If you use the normal installer, you get some entries in your "Start" menu under Windows, with which you can directly access your "demo" logbook which comes with the installation: Start -> All Programs -> ELOG -> Demo Logbook (requires running server). To create a logbook, just access your demo logbook, then clock on "Config", then you see a button "Create new logbook". Your point 1) mentioned above is actually not necessary if you use the default root directory. It might confuse people more than it helps. Point 2) is true, but only some internal database behavior, which might not be interesting to most users.

If you download the standard package, it installs a demo logbook on your computer which you can use as a personal logbook. It uses port 8080 by default, although this can be changed. Then only thing you need to do is to make sure that port 8080 is blocked on your firewall. Read your OS documentation on how to set-up and use a firewall. Once you block port 8080, the data cannot be accessed from outside your laptop. 

 Thanks Stefan,

I've properly set the firewall, and access is forbidden from outside. But when I don't have internet access, how could I open my database?

Furthermore: how it is possible to change the "demo" title ? and what's the procedure to open other databases?

Thanks again for helping

Sara

You can start the elogd daemon even when you don't have internet access, and access your database locally under http://localhost:8080. For changing the title of a logbook, please read the documentation. 

There is a simple way. In your logbook directory you will find files of the format xxyyzza.log where xxyyzz is the year/month/day of the entries being submitted during that day. The attachments have a similar form, they have just the attachment name appended to the date. To back it up, just copy or tar all files of that directory. If you want to back up a certain year, you can select 2009 for example with 09*.*  To restore these files, simply untar them into the directory and restart the elogd daemon. The restart is necessary, since during start the daemon indexes all entries. 

Since elog is only the web server providing (comfortable) access to the logbook database, it relies on the web browser (possibly enhanced by script code) for facilities to attach pictures and other files to entries. So unless your browser has such an extension or someone writes some sort of script that can do it, the only way is to use an external capturing program, save the picture and upload it in the usual way. Cf. also entry 66004.

Unfortunately not to my knowledge. The underlying editor FCKEdit has however certain styles etc., and one might maybe be able to tweak that, but I never figured out how.  

 Stefan, sorry to bother you yet again. but I can not seem to get the "Subdir" to do what I want (user error I am sure). Thanks for any help you can give.

[OnlineHelps]
Write Password = SWNlQ3ViZQ==
;DISPLAY
Theme = default
Display mode = threaded
Mode Commands = 0
List Menu commands = New, Find, Config

Thread display = --------------  $Title  --------------

Comment = On-Line Helps
Attributes = Title
Required Attributes = Title
Page Title = ELOG - $subject
Reverse sort = 1

[OLH.gsh]

Subdir = \\ssoelog\ELOG\logbooks\OnlineHelps
Write Password = SWNlQ3ViZQ==
;DISPLAY
Theme = default
Display mode = threaded
Mode Commands = 0
List Menu commands = New, Find, Config

Thread display = --------------  $Title  --------------

Comment = On-Line Helps
Attributes = Title
Required Attributes = Title
Page Title = ELOG - $subject
Reverse sort = 1