The Alexis XML Editor Seldomly Asked Questions List

Open Alexis and edit the document. That it. You can answer questions if you feel qualified. Try not to delete large swathes of text.

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.

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.

This is a very serious (in the context of Alexis) problem. We would appreciate it if you would be able to notify either Nick at<nick@findesign.org>or<matthew@ella-associates.org>about this problem. Please try to include a description of the circumstances in which this problem occurred.

Click on the beginning or the ending tag for the branch of tags which you wish to copy. The tag and all its 'children' will be selected (as indicated by some blue highlighting). Now choose 'Edit' and then 'Copy' from the main Alexis menus or else type the key combination Control-C.

Now move the cursor to the spot in the file where you wish to paste (also known as 'copying') the text and type the key combination Control-V or choose 'Edit' and 'Paste' from the menus. Please not that XML is quite strict about where you can place certain combinations of tags and text but that Alexis cannot force you to cut and paste text into the correct place. This means that by cutting and pasting text it is possible for you to make the XML document invalid according to the schema which you are currently using

Press theControl Space keys in order to get a drop-down list of all the 'legal' tags which can be inserted at the current location. You can continue typing the name of the tag and the list of tags will narrow down to those which begin with te text which you have already typed. Press enter to insert the current tag in the XML document.

Another and slightly slower method is to move the mouse pointer down to the right-hand bottom side of the Alexis window and use the scroll bar to scroll down to the XML tag which you wish to insert in the document which you are currently editing. Now click on the name of the tag which you wish to insert. The XML tag will be inserted in the current cursor position

Firstly you need to upload the file to the Ella Associates WebDav Server (actually you can upload the file to any WebDav Server). You can do this by using a thing called Microsoft Web Folders, assuming of course that you are actually running a reasonably modern version of Microsoft Windows. In Microsoft Windows Explorer (which is the program which you use to browse and copy files in Microsoft Windows) go to the section called 'My Network Places'. You can do this by clicking on the drop down arrow which is at the right hand side of a thing called the location bar which is at the top of the Windows Explorer screen.

Now click on the linkk which says 'Add a Network Place' or something similar. A 'wizard' will be displayed which will attempt to guide you through the process of setting up a new network place. A 'Network Place' is just Microsoft Jargon Speak for a short cut to allow you to access a location on the Internet or on the local network using Microsoft Windows Explorer.

In the text box which says something like 'type a location of the Network Place' type the text 'http://ella-associates.org:8081/slide/' and then click on the button which is labelled 'Next'. You will now be prompted for your user-name and password. These details give you the 'privilege' to modify files which are located on the Server. Enter the details which you have been supplied. If you have not been supplied with a user name and password and you think that you should have been you could email Nick at<nick@findesigne.org>.

Having entered the correct login details you will then be asked for a name for the 'Web Folder'. Enter what-ever name you would like to access the Server as. Something memorable. And then click on the button which is labelled 'Finish'. Now you can treat the Web Folder pretty much like any other directory on your Hard Drive by using Windows Explorer. For example you can copy, delete and rename files on the WebDav Server as if they were located locally. There are some significant limitations to this but dont worry about them.

So, in order to upload and existing XML file to the WebDav Server you can just copy and paste the file into the Web Folder. Now the file will be available from within Alexis. Open Alexis and navigate to the appropriate folder. thats it

This is because Alexis has not yet been optimized. You can try saving, closing and opening the file, or even closing and opening Alexis to try and improve the problem. If you save and

This problem should now be fixed (12 june 2003)

There may still (5 june 2003) be some problems with the way that tags are cut and paste in Alexis, although in the majority of cases this should work. If this occurs, please save, close and reopen the file

XML is very strict about what tags you can insert in a document and where you can insert them. If the name of the tag which you want to insert does not appear in the 'list of tags' box then it means that it would be incorrect to insert that tag at the current cursor position. The current cursor position is the spot where that short vertical line is flashing in the XML document which you are editing. The rules about what tag is allowed where are dictated by a thing called the 'Schema' for the document. The schema for the document which you are currently editing is determined by a thing called the 'document set' (this is and Alexis idea, rather than a general XML idea).

You can determine and change what document set applies to your document by clicking on the 'File Information' tab which is located at the the very bottom left hand corner of the Alexis Screen. If you have sufficient permissions (everybody at the moment 5 june 2003) you can change the Document Set which applies to a document.

The short answer is that at the moment (12 june 2003) you can't but that soon you will be able to in all sorts of wonderful ways.

The appearance of the text (and to some extent, the tags as well) is determined by a thing called a Style Sheet or a Cascading Style Sheet. This is exactly the same thing which modern web-pages use to govern the appearance of an HTML page. In order to change the appearance of the text in the XML editor you need to change some of the properties of this style sheet. The style sheet is located in the 'Document Set ' for the document which is located in the directory /files/resources/documents_sets/ etc

At the moment there does not seem any straight-forward way to modify the Style Sheet (5 june 2003). This will be improved soonish.

From the main Alexis menu, choose 'XML' and then 'Validate XML'. In the output window at the bottom of the screen you will see some messages telling you if your document is 'valid' XML or not. This is quite important. At the moment the messages are somewhat cryptic (11 june 2003) but this will improve

XML tag attributes do not appear in the 'editor pane' of Alexis. This is in order to avoid cluttering the editor pane with too much information. You can see what attributes a particular XML tag contains by clicking on the tag looking in the left-hand bottom corner of theAlexis Window.

This is a bug or a feature (12 june 2003) depending on how you look at it. When you name your file you should not include the .xml extension (although it is included by default in therename file dialog box. This behaviour will probably change slightly soon

This is a bug currently (12 june 2003) and will be fixed.

At the moment (12 june 2003) this is not directly possible. You need to use the technique of inserting the desired tag into the XML document and then cutting and pasting the text into the tag

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 theXML 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?

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:

This is discouraged at the moment (I know that sounds absurd). If you just want to 'play around' (I use the word 'play' very loosely here) and experiment with writing XML document, use the file 'the-sand-box.xml'. If you really, really need to create a file, you can to the following:

Click on a file name in the left hand panel of the Alexis XML Editor window. Now click the right-hand mouse button and click on 'copy' from the pop-up menu which appears.

Now click on the 'parent folder' for the file, that is the folder which contains the file which you have just copied. Now right click the mouse and choose 'paste' from the pop-up menu. After a while a new file will appear in the folder which you 'right-clicked' and it will be named the same as the file which you copied but it will have the text _1 just before the .xml extension (if this is visible)

Click on the filename which you wish to rename. Now click one more time on the filename. The file-name will change to a small white text box with the name of the file in it. Edit or change the name of the file and then click somewhere outside of the small white text box. Everything will 'freeze' for a little while (this period of freezing or 'churning' will be reduced to almost nothing as Alexis is progressively optimized), and then the small white text box will disappear and the file will be renamed.

This is a bug or a feature (12 june 2003) depending on how you look at it. When you name your file you should not include the .xml extension (although it is included by default in therename file dialog box. This behaviour will probably change slightly soon

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.

This is the window or panel on the left hand side of theAlexisWindow which contains the folders and files. It is often called the Explorer window because it allows you to 'explore' the files and folders which are available.

Right now (12 june 2003) you cant, but this is being worked on now

The file does not exist on the computer on which you are using Alexis. The file only exists on the Alexis Server. This allows everybody who is part of what ever team which you are part of (A dictionary editing team for example), to collaboratively edit the file.

Alexis, like most large and complex programs, takes up quite a large amount of virtual memory. Approximately 70 megabytes is the usual figure. You can see how much memory Alexis is consuming (on a Microsoft Windows operating system) by right-clicking on the small square of the 'taskbar' which displays the current time. A pop-up menu will appear from which you should choose the menu-itemTask Manager. A small window will appear with various information in it. Click on the tab which saysProcesses and scroll down until you see the line which contains the text 'alexis.exe'. Next to this text will be displayed how much memory Alexis is taking up.

If you have many other applications running at the same time as Alexis, this will slow the program down. If, when you are using Alexis, you see theHard-drive light on your computer continuously lit up for a number of seconds, then this means that Alexis is having to use a thing called 'virtual memory' which is memory located on yourhard-disk as opposed to RAM memory. Using virtual memory makes Alexis run very slowly.

You may be able to ameliorate this problem by closing some of the other applications which you have running.

A style sheet can be either an XSL style sheet or a CSS style sheet. The first is used to transform XML into other formats such as HTML or pdf or Microsoft Word format. The second is used to alter the appearance of an XML or HTML document

XML is a way of 'structuring' plain text documents so that the information is those documents is preserved in a format which can be easily searched and exchanged between people and computers

Please see the filethe-ramblefor a brief introduction to what XML is.

For more infomation, go towww.google.com and do a search for something like 'XML introduction' or 'XML explained'

DocBook is a type of XML which is designed specifically for writing technical documentation. DocBook is used by a number of large companies and is considered to be a 'standard'. Many tools exist for writing and transforming DocBook XML (including Alexis)