ELOG User's Guide  

How to get the most from your ELOG server

 A Quick Intro 

ELOG is part of a family of applications known as weblogs. Their general purpose is :

  1. to make it easy for people to put information online in a chronological fashion, in the form of short, time-stamped text messages ("entries") with optional HTML markup for presentation, and optional file attachments (images, archives, etc.)

  2. to make it easy for other people to access this information through a Web interface, browse entries, search, download files, and optionally add, update, delete or comment on entries.

ELOG is a remarkable implementation of a weblog in at least two respects :


 What Words Mean Here 

Just to be clear, some definitions of terms that will be used throughout the guide :


 Accessing an ELOG server and its logbook(s) 

Usually you will be given a URL (through mail, a Web page etc.) to access the ELOG server.

If several logbooks are defined on the server, the entry page may be a list of all logbooks, with their descriptions, number of entries, and links to enter the logbook you want to use.

Alternatively, you may be taken directly to a specific logbook. By default you will see a list of entries, but the administrator may have defined a different "default view" for the logbook, like the list of the day's entries, or directly display the last entry, etc. (depending on what is most convenient for that logbook's purpose).

Each entry in a logbook is identified by an unique ID, which is last part of the URL when that message is displayed. This ID might be used to create a bookmark in a browser pointing directly to a specific entry.

There are four ways through which access to a logbook may be controlled: it may be open for all to read ; it may require a common "read" password for all users ; it may require each user to have an individual user account (login name) and password ; finally, access may be granted or not depending on the address of the workstation you are using.


 Viewing information in ELOG 

There are two main viewing modes in a logbook :


 Browsing around and finding things 

There are several interesting ways to peruse the information in a logbook :


 Adding stuff to a logbook 

If you have "write access" to a logbook (by one of the same four methods as for read access), then you may use the "New", "Edit", "Reply" and "Delete" commands.

For the quality of the information committed to the logbook, you need understand and use these as well as possible. Here are some of the important features for each commmand :


 Misc. tips & tricks, things to be aware of...