Mathew Bishop Why does a very very small picture of a padlock appear next to the name of the file when I start to edit it This is because, when you start to edit a file or make some other change to it, you automatically get a 'lock' on that file, which prevents anybody else from modifying it at the same time. This is to avoid getting inconsistencies in the XML if two people work on the same section of the file simultaneously. For example: somebody else may have deleted a whole section of the XML file which you are currently carefully proof-reading and correcting. This would be a waste of your time. When you save a file the 'lock' which you have on the file is automatically removed or, in other words, the lock is 'released' or the file is 'checked in'. These are all basically analogious terms. This means, that if you are editing a file and you save your changes you no longer have a lock on that file and somebody else can start editing the file, thereby getting a lock and preventing you from making any more changes, until that other person releases the file. If you don't want this to happen you can explicitly 'check-out' the file, by right-clicking the mouse on the file name and choosing check-out from the pop-up menu. You will notice that when you save your changes to a file which you are editing, the very very small 'open padlock' icon which is next to the file name will disappear. If however you have explicitly checked out a file this will not occur. Confused? How can I see the 'source' for an XML file (that is, the actual mark-up tags Click the right-hand-side mouse button when the mouse pointer is hovering over the name of the file for which you want to see the XML source. On the pop-up menu which appears click on the item labelled 'edit'. A window with the XML source will open on the right-hand-side of the screen. Please note: How do I start editing files in Alexis Start up Alexis and wait for a while. Alexis takes about 20 seconds to start on my 2000 vintage laptop (5 june 2003). Now click on the menu item at the top of the screen which is labelled File, and then click on the submenu item which is labelled Login. A box will appear with 3 text entry fields In the entry-field enter you user name, your password and in the text box labelled 'network', enter the following text exactuly http://ella-associates.org:8081/slide/ The user-names and passwords should have been supplied to you by Nick in an email or something similar. If you dont know who Nick but is still interested in accessing the documents, you could try using the 'guest' login. Send an email to nick@findesign.org or to matthew@ella-associates.org for more details about guest logins Enter the details specified above and click on the button labelled 'login'. If you get your user-name or password wrong you will see a message in the bottom part of the Alexis Window saying something like Please check that your username and password are correct If you get the text in the 'network' box wrong you will see a message like 'unknown url' or 'could not connect to host' displayed in the bottom part of the screen. If everything is OK the Output Window which is at the bottom of the Alexis window should be empty. If not, follow the steps above one more time ensuring that the Caps-Lock key is not on when you type your password (and that sort of thing). Now in the top left hand side of the Alexis window should appear a line that looks something like this WebDav: http://www.ella-associates.org:8080/slide with two small icons in front of it; A small circle with a line protruding out from it, and a sort of boxy rectangular thing. Click on the small circle icon. A series of folder should appear below the WebDav line with names like 'actions', 'files', 'users'. Click on the small circle for the 'files' icon. Another set of folders will appear with names like 'documents' and 'resources'. Click on the small circle for the 'documents' folder. Now click on the circle icons for any of the folders which appear (which may be called 'alexis_docs' and 'test_dictionary' amongst other things. Now you will see lists of file names appearing. Next to the file names are the names of people and what sort of XML document the file is. Click on one of the file-names. The line on which it is on will become blue, or some other colour. Now click the right-hand button of the mouse while the mouse pointer is hovering over the file name. A pop-up menu will appear. Click on the 'open' menu item. The file will now be retrieved from the Server and opened in the right-hand panel of the Alexis window. This may take a few seconds. The mouse pointer should indicate (with an hour-glass icon or something similar), that the program is 'doing something'. (Note: these retrieval times will be optimized later: 5 june 2003). Click in the right-hand panel of the Alexis window and start editing the file. Congratulations. Are there any bugs in Alexis at the moment (5 june 2003) Yes, there are a number of bugs, which are being actively solved. Sometimes when you are editing a document a box may appear which say something like 'null pointer error occurred'. You should be able to click on the 'ok' button in the box and continue editing, although in some cases you may have to save, close and open the file which you are working on.