> Is there any way to automatically export the logbook(s)? 

Kind of. You can use "wget" under Linux (use cygwin under Windows to get wget
under Windows). Then issue a

wget "http://midas.psi.ch/elogs/forum/?cmd=Search&mode=xml"

and you will get an XML export. Same works with CSV export. If you put that
command in cron, you have this on an automatic basis.

> > Is there any way to automatically export the logbook(s)? 
> 
> Kind of. You can use "wget" under Linux (use cygwin under Windows to get wget
> under Windows). Then issue a
> 
> wget "http://midas.psi.ch/elogs/forum/?cmd=Search&mode=xml"
> 
> and you will get an XML export. Same works with CSV export. If you put that
> command in cron, you have this on an automatic basis.

Thanks Stefan! That was exactly what I was looking for!

I'm configuring this great application in order to replace the previous
elogbook my community is using (in the accelerator's world).

One of the main and mandatory feature they cannot renunce is the possibility
of displaying every attached image just inline, without having to click over
the file name or to enter the entry view (in which the attachment can
already be displayed inline) ...  

- images (and hopefully ps, eps, pdf) be displayed inline just after the
text body of the message in the main "List" view
- possibility to configure the scale of this view
- possibility of build some thumbs in order to save BW and time


Is there any way to do it or any plan to implement such a feature in the
very next future ? 

> One of the main and mandatory feature they cannot renunce is the possibility
> of displaying every attached image just inline, without having to click over
> the file name or to enter the entry view (in which the attachment can
> already be displayed inline) ...  

Displaying images in the list view is possible by going to the "Find" page and
checking "Display full entries" and "Show attachments". This can even be
automatized by putting

Start page = ?mode=full&attach=1

into the configuration file. 

> - images (and hopefully ps, eps, pdf) be displayed inline just after the
> text body of the message in the main "List" view

PS, EPS and PDF files cannot be displayed inline by the browser (at least not
the browsers I know). I guess what you want is that users submit PDFs, and elog
should convert the PDF automatically into JPG and display a reduced version of
it. Unfortunately this is not possible, and it never will be, since one of the
design prinicples of elog is to be independent of any other package, and with
the requested functionality you would need lots of helper functions (like
ghostview, pbmtools, etc.) which some of which are not present under Windows.

> - possibility to configure the scale of this view
> - possibility of build some thumbs in order to save BW and time

Using a HTML <img width=100 ...> does not help. The image is then shown in a
smaller scale, but still the full picture has to be transferred. For making
thumbnails, you again need external libraries (see point above).

So if you want extensive image processing, you might be better of with a picture
gallery like applications, but maybe the automatic attachment display shown
above helps a little bit.

> > One of the main and mandatory feature they cannot renunce is the possibility
> > of displaying every attached image just inline, without having to click over
> > the file name or to enter the entry view (in which the attachment can
> > already be displayed inline) ...  
> 
> Displaying images in the list view is possible by going to the "Find" page and
> checking "Display full entries" and "Show attachments". This can even be
> automatized by putting
> 
> Start page = ?mode=full&attach=1
> 
> into the configuration file. 

Perfect it works !! :-)

> 
> > - images (and hopefully ps, eps, pdf) be displayed inline just after the
> > text body of the message in the main "List" view
> 
> PS, EPS and PDF files cannot be displayed inline by the browser (at least not
> the browsers I know). I guess what you want is that users submit PDFs, and elog
> should convert the PDF automatically into JPG and display a reduced version of
> it. Unfortunately this is not possible, and it never will be, since one of the
> design prinicples of elog is to be independent of any other package, and with
> the requested functionality you would need lots of helper functions (like
> ghostview, pbmtools, etc.) which some of which are not present under Windows.
> 
> > - possibility to configure the scale of this view
> > - possibility of build some thumbs in order to save BW and time
> 
> Using a HTML <img width=100 ...> does not help. The image is then shown in a
> smaller scale, but still the full picture has to be transferred. For making
> thumbnails, you again need external libraries (see point above).

yes I know, but it could be a "placebo" :-P .. we are using the elog in a lan so it
could be a good temporary solution ...

can you point me to some documentation I can read to be able to do it? should I edit
the css file ?
> 
> So if you want extensive image processing, you might be better of with a picture
> gallery like applications, but maybe the automatic attachment display shown
> above helps a little bit.

yes, of course...

can be usefull to be able to "optionally" execute some external program (a sort of
pipe) in order to be (eventually) able to set a "filter program" for attachments.
The same way an MTA does with procmail I mean.

in this case one has to be able to access both to the original image and the
processed one...

> yes I know, but it could be a "placebo" :-P .. we are using the elog in a lan so it
> could be a good temporary solution ...
> 
> can you point me to some documentation I can read to be able to do it? should I edit
> the css file ?

No, I would have to add another option to the configuration file, it's not yet implemented. 

> can be usefull to be able to "optionally" execute some external program (a sort of
> pipe) in order to be (eventually) able to set a "filter program" for attachments.
> The same way an MTA does with procmail I mean.
> 
> in this case one has to be able to access both to the original image and the
> processed one...

Executing and external program is possible via the 

Execute new/edit/delete = ...

command. While you can pass attribute values to the program to be executed, it is not
possible right now to pass attachment names, although this could be easily added. What
would be harder is to reformat the whole entry. If you just downsample an image, that
would be ok. But if you want to keep the original, you would have to modify the logbook
entry to contain n*2 attachments afterwards, which would not be easy.

So I don't see a simple way of achieving what you want. Sorry.

> > yes I know, but it could be a "placebo" :-P .. we are using the elog in a lan so it
> > could be a good temporary solution ...
> > 
> > can you point me to some documentation I can read to be able to do it? should I edit
> > the css file ?
> 
> No, I would have to add another option to the configuration file, it's not yet implemented. 
> 

uhm ok .. can I expect to get a release with this feature in the near future ?

tnx in advance

> uhm ok .. can I expect to get a release with this feature in the near future ?

I checked how I would do that and did not find a good solution. If I put a

<img width=300 ...> 

for example, this scales down a big picture to only 300 pixels width. But if you submit a small
picture, like just an icon, it blows it up to 300 pixels as well, which does not look nice.
Unfortunatle I don't know of any option like "maxwidth=x" which only scales pictures down if they
are larger than x. Do you know?