Hi

I'm doing something wrong but can't work out what! 

I've created a new logbook with some date attributes that need to keep in step, e.g. one date ("receipt date") is set to the date the new record is created and another ("response required") to 7 days later.  The logbook doesn't use threaded messages, just a single page for each log entry with Submin/Preview/Back.  The dates are set with:

Preset Receipt Date = $date

Preset Response Required = $shell(gawk 'BEGIN{ print $Receipt Date + 86400 * 7}')

"receipt date" and "response required"  are set correctly when the log is written but if I change "receipt date" then "response required" is not altered - presumably because Preset only works on "New".  Tho I haven't found a way to make this dynamic with Subst.

When the log is updated later a third date may be entered ("proposal submitted") and this should calculate a fourth date ("proposal expires").  Again, I thought I could do this with some sort of "Subst" but can't work out how.  If I use Subst then the value of "proposal expires" isn't changed at all and if I use Subst On Edit then the value isn't changed until I go in to edit the log when the correct "proposal expires" date gets calculated and displayed, e.g.:

Subst On Edit Proposal Expires = $shell(gawk 'BEGIN{ if ($Proposal Sumbitted > 0) {print $Proposal Submitted + 86400 * 30}}')

Am I trying to do the impossible, and is there a document that will help me to understand when different updates (Preset, Subst, Subst On..., Change etc) happen and comparing their use?

Just try with the current version, where I reworked the "Subst" commands. See elog:66592. "Subst" work now only on "New", and "Subst on Edit" only works when editing an entry.

 We have configured several logbooks to allow users to duplicate an entry in another logbook, which is very useful for entries which apply to more than one category.

However, once the entry is duplicated, subsequent revisions to the original entry are not copied to the duplicate entries.

I can see where implementing that would add a lot of code to ELOG.  Rather than do that, would it be possible to add a configuration option to duplicate only the attributes, and place a link to the original entry in the body of the duplicated entry instead of the full text?

I don't know if you are aware, but you can put links to other entries manually into the text. Just enter them in the form elog:65799. You can click on that link which takes you the entry you reference. Unfortunately there is at the moment no automatic way to generate this back link automatically.

Periodically (rarely) on manually adding a record into Elog it generates a duplicate record with its own incremented ID and I don't know why. I just delete the duplicate in the meantime but would like to know if anyone else has seen this and whether their is a answer/fix for it. Thanks.

I've seen exact;y this effect, even though I have branching = 0 in my config file - so ordinarily no chance to have two
 replies to an entry.  My pointer aka mouse (I'm on Linux) is a bit dodgy, and sometimes disconnects/reconnects, so in effect gives a very fast double click.  I've always assumed that was the cause of the problem.  The two replies have incremental IDs, and both those IDs are listed in the "Reply to" header section of the entry.  I'm not sure how this overcomes the branching = 0 detail, though.

That is what I have assumed, but if others see this on occasion, perhaps it's got a different cause.

I find that I can reply to a message ("original" message, if you will) without doing anything to the reply message (the "copy" of the original message, if you will).  If I then submit it, it gets saved as a new message, identical to the one I replied to.

I read through the options at the end of the docs.  I did not see anything about a way to suppress identical messages, or a way to force the user to make some kind of change to make the reply different from the original.