I have another tricky question.

Is there a way to simulate an ELOG SUBMIT?

We developed a module which automatically inserts new submits from ELOG 
into an SQL database. The module is in testing phase but we can already 
tell it does the job as it should. 

This allows us to copy ELOG entries into SQL database. But in some cases, 
we would like to transmit data in the other direction too - from SQL into 
ELOG (synchronization).

Now, one way to do that is to create .txt files with entries directly, but 
we find it too risky (file-locking mentioned in a question earlier today 
can be one of the issues). So we're contemplating a possibility that ELOG 
does these inserts for us by processing some simulated SUBMITS.

We're assuming that ON SUBMIT, you generate a POST (or a GET ?) over http 
which is then processed by the ELOGD server. This should be possible to 
simulate in our synchronization application. Are we correct in our 
assumptions?

Tomas

> > Is there a way to simulate an ELOG SUBMIT?
> 
> Have a look at the elog utility which comes in the package. It does exactly 
> this. It "simulates" a browser and does a submit directly to elogd. So you 
> can either redo the elog code somewhere, or call elog with the proper 
> command line parameters to insert logbook entries.

Thank you, Stefan!

Hello everybody.

I am sure that some of you (just like me) experimented already with themes 
and especially now with .CSS in order to give ELOG a different "look" 
and "feel". 

I was wondering if we could maybe share examples of such adapted 
ELOG's .CSS files (or themes). Maybe you can take a screen shot of your 
favorite ELOG "face" (no sensitive data, of course) and post it here as an 
attachement. Or is everybody using only the original look that Stefan 
delivers as default?

Let's share some inspiration. I'll post mine as soon as finished the re-
look.

Tomas

Hi, 

I have a question concerning the "Selection page" ELOG.cfg parameter.
I was wondering if it is possible to specify a complete (absolute) URL such 
as http://www.myserver.com/my_elog_menu.htm.

I need this type of configuration because we actually need to have the 
custom selection page sitting on a different server from the one where ELOG 
is run.

Thus far, the only work-around I could think of is to make a reference to a 
local html file which redirects to the http:// resource outside of the 
server.

When tried the absolute path, i got "The requested 
file /usr/local/elog/http://www.myserver.com/my_elog_menu.htm was not found 
on this server" error message. I'm wondering if it's just a bug or if there 
is a reason for it.

Thanx,
Tomas

> > I have a question concerning the "Selection page" ELOG.cfg parameter.
> > I was wondering if it is possible to specify a complete (absolute) URL 
> such 
> > as http://www.myserver.com/my_elog_menu.htm.
> > 
> > I need this type of configuration because we actually need to have the 
> > custom selection page sitting on a different server from the one where 
> ELOG 
> > is run.
> 
> I added this possibility to the source code (->CVS), although it's not 
clear 
> to me how this should work for you. If you don't have access to the server 
> where elogd is running, how should elogd then redirect you to somewhere 
else?

Thank you Stefan,
It's not that we wouldn't have access to the ELOGD server, it's the fact that 
we're trying to create our own dynamic selection page (with a more detailed 
overview of the content of different logbooks - such as the date of last 
logbook entry, number of entries in last week, month etc.) based on the 
information we send from ELOG to our SQL server. 

So in this case the user logs on to ELOGD (currently run on Linux) then will 
be redirected to the selection page on a Windows machine (ASP getting all 
necessary information from a MS SQL DB) and the dynamically created links 
refer back to the ELOGD Linux server. May seem a little too complicated but 
works fine.

Tomas

I guess this question got somehow lost.
So once again : Is there a possibility to EDIT an existing message with 
elog.exe ?

Tomas


> > Is there a way to simulate an ELOG SUBMIT?
> 
> Have a look at the elog utility which comes in the package. It does 
exactly 
> this. It "simulates" a browser and does a submit directly to elogd. So 
you 
> can either redo the elog code somewhere, or call elog with the proper 
> command line parameters to insert logbook entries.

We did some tests of your elog utility. It does what we need except for one 
important thing: EDIT existing messages. Is there a way to edit en existing 
message? Adding a new message or replying to an existing message works fine 
but in our case we need to have the ability to modify messages that were 
created in the past.

Tomas

Is there a possibility to integrate into ELOG some more features in terms 
of page formating?

Currently, the .cfg file allows you to specify only the data structure of 
the dataentry/consultation HTML page. And you only have very limited 
possibilities to change the layout of the page (basically only the order of 
attributes on the page and with the help of the .css file the font, color 
and background of the page as a whole).

What we would like to do is to :
+ apply a stylesheet class to an attribute (change the particular TD class)
+ specify the width of a textfield (sometimes it is really not necessary to 
have such a long textfield area for a 3-letter long code)
+ put an attribute on the same line as the previous one (instead of putting 
it automatically on the next line)

Therefore, in addition to the current attributes & parameters, we suggest 
the following syntax in the .cfg file:
+ parameter AttribPos which would specify the position of an attribute, 
it's lenght (for text attributes only) and the .css class to apply
+ parameters in [] are optional
AttribPos AttribName = same_line, width, [class]

Examples: 
AttribPos DateUp =  0,20, [important]   
+ Attribute "DateUp" will be put on the next line, the textfield width will 
be 20 characters and a .important class will be applied to it from the 
default (or specified) .css file.

AttribPos DateUp =  1,15,
+ this puts the DateUp attribute on the same line, width 15

We believe that these improvements would help to make the ergonomy of the 
screen better and thus facilitate the user-dataentry/consultation. 

I was wondering if there is a way to have a more detailed log of users' 
activities?
Current Logfile = <file> gives a good base for information about 
logins/access to 'protected' logbooks. 

What we would like to have is information about when a user reads an ELOG 
entry (to be able to determine the reaction/response time). 

For instance the LOG could look sg like this: 
%%user %%datetime %%logbook %%record read/edit/new/delete