5.1: The Gather View

This section introduces the Gather area that you use to select what files to include in the collection you are building.

Contents

Simple Instructions: How to view the gather screen The file trees The status area Control buttons Advanced Instructions: Selection methods Special folder mapping

Simple Instructions:

The Librarian Interface starts with the Gather view. To return to this view later, click the "Gather" tab directly below the menu bar.

The two large areas titled "Workspace" and "Collection" are used to move files into your collection. They contain "file trees", graphical structures that represent files and folders.

Select an item in the tree by clicking it. (There are other ways; see below.) Double-click a folder, or single-click the switch symbol beside it, to expand (or collapse) its contents. Double-click a file to open it using its associated application program (see File Associations).

The Workspace file tree shows the sources of data available to the Librarian Interface -- the local file system (including disk and CD-ROM drives), the contents of existing Greenstone collections, and the public and private download caches if Web mirroring is enabled. You can copy and view these files but you cannot move, delete, or edit them. Navigate this space to find the files you want to include in the collection.

The Collection file tree represents the contents of the collection so far. Initially, it is empty.

You can resize the spaces by mousing over the grey bar that separates the trees (the shape of the pointer changes) and dragging.

Beneath is the Status Area, which describes the state of the Librarian Interface: how many items are selected and what action is requested. It reports on the progress of actions that involve files, which can take some time to complete. The "Stop" button stops any action that is currently in progress.

Two large buttons occupy the lower right corner of the screen. "New Folder", with a picture of a folder, creates new folders (see Creating folders). "Delete", with a garbage can, removes files. Clicking the Delete button will remove any selected files from the Collection file tree. Alternatively, files can be deleted by dragging them onto the Delete button.

Advanced Instructions:

To select several sequential items, select the first and then hold down [Shift] and click on the last -- the selection will encompass all intervening items. Select non-sequential files by holding down [Ctrl] while clicking. Use these two methods together to select groups of non-adjacent items.

Certain folders -- such as the one containing your own web pages -- sometimes have special significance. The Librarian Interface can map such folders to the first level of the file tree. To do this, right-click the desired folder. Select "Map", and enter a name for the folder. To remove an item, right-click the mapped folder and select "Unmap Folder".