EMu 4.0.01

Statistics Module

A facility has been added that allows statistical information to be gathered and stored at regular intervals. The information is maintained in a new module called Statistics. Tasks are executed on the EMu server to populate Statistics records with a numeric value. The resulting records may be used to produce numeric and graphical reports. Statistical data may be generated:

• hourly
• daily
• weekly
• monthly
• at user defined periods (e.g. fortnightly, annually, etc.)

Statistical data may also be added manually, if required. The image below shows the structure of a Statistics record:

A sample report is shown below:

System Administrators may add new tasks to generate site specific statistics.

A complete description of the new module and periodic tasks can be found in the Statistics module documentation.

Common Lat/Long Tab

At the North American User Group meeting in 2005 the EMu NH SIG (Natural History - Special Interest Group) proposed the design of a common tab containing geo-referencing information. Discussions were carried out over the next year with a number of users and results were published on www.emuusers.org for review by all users. After considering all feedback the group produced a proposal for implementation. The proposal has now been implemented and applied to all Sites and Collection Events modules containing geo-referencing data. The mapping table used to manipulate data into the new common fields is also available. The new Lat/Long tab is pictured below:

A complete description of the new Lat/Long tab can be found in the Common Geo-reference Tab documentation. Special thanks to Larry Gall from Yale Peabody Museum of Natural History and the rest of the geo-referencing committee for all their work.

Lat/Long Precision

The EMu NH SIG also advocated a change in how precision should be handled when converting between latitude/longitude values in DMS (degrees / minutes / seconds) format and DEC (decimal) format. The recommendations were:

• If a DMS value is entered, the decimal value will be converted to two decimal places if seconds is missing, four decimal places if whole seconds is provided, five decimal places if one second decimal place is provided, six decimal places if two seconds decimal places are provided, and seven if three seconds decimal places are provided, etc.
• If a decimal value is entered, the precision of the DMS should be calculated in reverse of the above. Two decimal places round to minutes, three or four decimal places round to seconds, five decimal places round to tenths of a second, six decimal places round to hundredths of a second, seven decimal places round to thousandths of a second, etc.
• Centroid calculations should be given one degree of precision greater than the least precise lat/long value in the group. Although this may be implying an increase in degree of accuracy, it is only one degree and will help lessen the skewing of the centroid values.

Each of the above recommendations has now been implemented. Special thanks to Beth Gamble from National Museum of Natural History (Smithsonian) for proposing the changes.

Record Recall

The addition of record level auditing in EMu 3.2.04 provided the possibility for restoring records to previous versions. A new facility has been added that allows a record to be restored to the values it contained at a specified date and time. A batch command allows a set of records to be reset. Users require the daRecall operational privilege to be able to use the facility. The images below show the new commands:

A complete description of the new facility can be found in the Record Recall documentation.

Record Templates

The new Record Templates facility allows an existing record to be used as the basis for producing one or more new records. A wizard is provided to streamline the record creation process. A number of features are available:

• Data from the existing record may be copied into the new records
• Static values may be added to the new records
• Users may be prompted for values that are added to the new records
• Starting values for incrementing fields may be supplied, along with an incrementation value
• Variable data may be added to the new records (e.g. record creation number)
• Blocks of IRNs may be preserved

The Record Template facility allows a number of duplicates to be made of an existing record. It provides a useful means for reserving a block of numbers (e.g. Accession Numbers, Loan Numbers, IRNs, etc.) that will be completed at a later date.

A complete description of the new facility can be found in the Record Templates documentation.

Import XSLT Processing

The Import facility has been extended to allow XSLT pre-processing before XML data is imported into EMu. A series of pre-configured templates may be used (e.g. BRAHMS) or users may define their own templates. The Import wizard has been extended to allow templates to be tested before importing data. A complete description of the extension may be found in the XSLT Processing documentation.

FIFO Service

A generic framework has been added to the EMu server allowing complex calculations to be performed with the results used to populate data values. The framework removes the old system() scheme leading to significant improvements in speed and flexibility. A series of plugins is used to perform the calculations. The new service is used for:

• centroid calculations
• variations in latitude / longitude values for given datums
• determining multi-lingual values for system settings
• building hierarchy paths for the Thesaurus module

A complete description of the new server can be found in the FIFO Server documentation.

Taxonomy Tabs

Improved support for the distinction between ICBN and ICZN. Four new nomenclature tabs have been added to provide additional information about the status of names for a taxon. A new tab displaying the taxonomic hierarchy of a name is also provided. The new tabs are:

• Legitimacy - ICBN specific tab recording legitimate / illegitimate names
• Availability - ICZN specific tab recording available / unavailable names
• Validity - ICBN / ICZN tab recording valid / accepted name of a taxon
• Hierarchy - displays taxonomic hierarchy of a name

The image below shows the new Hierarchy tab:

Multimedia Upgrade

Replacement of the old multimedia components with new versions is complete. All controls where media is attached and viewed now use the same sub-system. The new sub-system provides support for a large selection of audio, video and image formats. In particular improved support is available for the following formats:

• AV
• MPEG
• WMV
• MP3

Multimedia Drag and Drop

A multimedia file (image, audio, video, documents, etc.) or URL may be dragged from the Windows environment and dropped on any control displaying multimedia. A new Multimedia record is created for the dropped item with the resulting record attached automatically to the control. Allowing multimedia to be added via drag and drop may streamline the data entry process, however the Multimedia record created will only contain minimal data (default values, extracted metadata, generated resolutions, etc.). If extra data exists, the multimedia record may need to be updated manually.

Hierarchy Tree View Tab

A new Hierarchy tab has been added to modules that support parent / child relationships (Catalogue, Events, Narratives, etc.). The new tab displays the hierarchy using a Tree View layout, similar to the way XMP data is displayed in the Multimedia module. The original Hierarchy tab is still available, allowing you to choose which should be displayed.

System Tuning

New tools are available to provide more optimal indexes for searching. In general, the EMu server will configure itself to provide near optimal searching performance for most data sets. The new tools allow fine-tuning of the indexes to provide even faster retrieval and to minimise the amount of storage required. System Administrators may configure the system manually to achieve optimal performance for irregular data sets. A complete description of the new tools may be found in the Configuration and Range Indexing documentation.

XSLT Report Viewer

The XSLT Report viewer has been rewritten. The previous version wrapped the generated XML with a stylesheet processing instruction, requiring the browser to perform the transformation from XML to HTML. Since web browsers provide different implementations of the XSL standard, the generated HTML may vary from browser to browser, resulting possibly in erroneous views. The new version of the viewer performs the transformations internally (rather than using the browser) using the MSXML engine. Page consistency is guaranteed, regardless of the browser employed, as a single engine is used.

Image Resolution

A new Registry entry has been added that allows the resolution (dots per inch / cm) and resolution unit (inch / cm) to be defined for derived images. Using this entry, derived images can be altered to contain a resolution suitable for embedding directly in Crystal reports via their OLE Graphic object. The format of the new Registry entries is:

System|Setting|Multimedia|Metadata|Set|Property|format|Resolution|x:y
System|Setting|Multimedia|Metadata|Set|Property|format|Resolution Unit|unit

where:

format is the image format for which derived images will have the resolution set. A value of Default may be used to indicate the resolution should be set for all derived images. Individual image formats may also have an image width and height specified to further restrict the setting of the resolution. For example, a format of 90:100:JPG would indicate that only 90 x 100 (width x height) pixel JPEG images should have the resolution set.

x:y specifies the resolution (width:height) to place in the derived image. The resolution unit is defined by the second Registry entry where the following values are available for unit:

0 - Clear any existing resolution
1 - Resolution unit is DPI (dots per inch)
2 - Resolution unit is DPCM (dots per centimetre)

Media Thumbnails

The thumbnails displayed where multimedia is embedded in a tab have been upgraded to provide consistent colouring and detail. The image below shows some of the new thumbnails:

Crystal Viewer Upgrade

The Crystal Reports viewer has been upgraded to Crystal Reports XI Release 2. A number of Crystal Reports issues have been resolved in the latest version. Support for French, German, Italian, Spanish and Swedish is available in the new viewer. To install the new viewer a Standalone or Network Client installation is required on all user computers.

User identification

The status bar, located at the bottom of each module, now includes the user name of the person logged in and the service (port number) to which they are connected. The information provides an easy way to determine the EMu server to which you are connected, particularly if you are logged in more than once:

Image Quality

The Registry entry used to determine what resolutions are derived when an image is added to the Multimedia repository has been extended to allow the image quality to be defined. The quality is used by lossy formats (e.g. JPEG) to determine the level of image loss tolerated. The value is between 1 and 100, where 1 indicates a complete loss of quality and 100 represents no loss of quality. The format of the Registry entry is:

System|Setting|Multimedia|Resolutions|format|Resolution| resolution;...

where resolution consists of up to six colon separated values:

• image width in pixels
• image height in pixels
• image type (e.g. JPEG, TIFF, etc.)
• scale image, that is maintain aspect ratio when resizing (TRUE or FALSE) [default: TRUE]
• enlarge image, that is allow derivative to exceed size of original image (TRUE or FALSE) [default: TRUE]
• compression to apply (e.g. NONE, FAX3) [default: NONE]
• image quality (value between 1 and 100) [default: 100]

Copy Special

A Copy Special command has been added under the Edit menu to allow the end of line (used within text to end a paragraph) and end of row (used between records) delimiters to be defined. The delimiters to use may vary depending on the application into which records are being pasted. The image below shows the delimiters available:

Groups Module

The Groups module has been extended. A number of new tabs have been added:

• Tasks
• Multimedia
• Notes
• Legacy Data

Three new fields have also been added:

• Group Purpose
• Group Description
• Group Status

The new fields and tabs allow full documentation of a group, rather than just recording the group name.

Font Setting

A new option allows the font used to display data to be set. The option is useful for LCD screens where the standard Windows font may be difficult to view. The image below shows the new Font tab option:

The default font has changed from MS Sans Serif to Microsoft Sans Serif.

Audio Duration

A field for Duration has been added to Audio Attributes in the Multimedia repository, allowing the length (in time) of the media to be catalogued.

Security Extension

The Security Registry entry has been expanded to allow the name of the user to be embedded in security values. The variable $user will be replaced with the user name of the person running EMu. Using this variable, security may be adjusted on a per user basis depending on the user name stored in the data. The entry below grants editing privileges based on the user name stored in the AdmTrustedUser column in the Catalogue module:

Group|Default|Table|ecatalogue|Security|Edit|AdmTrustedUser=$user

Exact Lookup Match

A new Registry entry has been created requiring that Lookup List values must match exactly against values entered, that is, the character case and punctuation must be the same as the Lookup List entry. The format of the Registry entry is:

Group|group|Table|table|Lookup Exact|colname|true

where colname is the name of the column for which Lookup List entries must match exactly the value entered.

Improved Media Download

The mechanism used to transfer media files from the EMu server to the client machine has been replaced with a more efficient protocol. The new mechanism has resulted in download time improvements of between 300% and 700%.

Multimedia re-arrangement

Significant speed improvements have been made when re-arranging attached multimedia. The improvement is significant if a large number of multimedia attachments exist.

Image Display

The Image Display Registry has been extended to allow testing for empty and filled fields. The new Registry entries are:

Group|group|Table|table|Image Display|colname|NULL|image
Group|group|Table|table|Image Display|colname|NOT NULL|image

where NULL matches an empty field and NOT NULL matches a filled field.

The Audit facility introduced in the previous release requires each record created to have a unique IRN (Internal Record Number). If a record is deleted, the number should not be re-used, otherwise audit trail data for the new record may display information about a deleted record.

The default value for autokeyreuse has changed from yes to no. The change guarantees IRNs are never re-used, ensuring audit trails refer to the current record only.

The record displayed after using any of the batch update tools (Relocate, Recondition, Revalue, etc.) may not contain updated reference values. For example, the Current Location field may not display the new location value correctly (the data stored however is correct).

After any batch update tool has been used the current record is refreshed to ensure that all reference values are displayed correctly.

Queries generated via intermediate references may not retrieve all matching records. The problem occurs when an IRN is not used as the reference link query field. The issue is restricted to clients who have an Exhibit Items module (Mv, Tepapa), where a query is performed via the Conservation Records field.

All matching records are now retrieved correctly.

The error message Column operation performed before row has been accessed may appear after sorting a matching set of records or retrieving a set of records via the Groups facility. After the error is shown, the data for the matching records may be blank (although the record count is correct).

The error no longer appears and the records are displayed correctly.

If the Security tab is resized the Add and Remove buttons may not be positioned correctly after the tab layout is adjusted.

The Add and Remove buttons are now positioned correctly.

If a user is modifying a record that a background load is trying to update, the load will wait ten minutes before skipping the record. If the user then cancels the changes, the record is not updated with the latest version of changed reference data.

The background load will now wait until either the user saves or cancels the modifications made to the record. The ten minute timeout has been removed, ensuring that records reference data is always refreshed.

If a thesaurus candidate term is not completed, an Access Violation message may be shown.

The Access Violation message is no longer displayed for incomplete candidate terms.

A number of controls on query tabs do not allow multiple values to be entered, hence restricting OR based queries to additional searches.

All query controls now allow multiple values to be entered, enabling alternative terms to be entered in the same search.

An invalid number format or Invalid query specified error is shown if a value greater than 2,147,483,648 is entered into a numeric (integer) field.

The maximum allowable value for a numeric field has been increased to 9,999,999,999.

An Access Violation error may occur when extracting XMP metadata where multiple RDF xmlns attributes are defined.

Multiple xmlns attributes are now handled correctly.

If many columns are defined for viewing via Shortcuts, moving between records may be slow, even if Shortcuts are disabled. The columns are loaded from the EMu server regardless of whether Shortcuts are displayed.

When Shortcuts are disabled, the columns are no longer fetched from the EMu server. The change results in faster movement between records.

Client specific reports may not be retrieved correctly from the EMu server where a report with the same name exists in the EMu cache. The cache report takes precedence over the server report even if the reports are not the same.

A check is performed to determine whether the cache version of the report is the same as the server version. If the reports are not the same, the server version is retrieved, otherwise the cached version is used.

An Access Violation error may occur in the Multimedia repository for audio, video and document based media where the Documents table is empty. Under normal operation the table always contains the master media entry; however if data is loaded from external sources, the table may be empty.

An error is no longer displayed if the Documents table is empty.

An Access Violation error may occur when moving through records where a read-only grid changes from having no entries to having one entry.

An error is no longer displayed where a read-only grid changes from having no entries to having one entry.

If controls have been removed from a tab (as a result of sub-classing), the remaining controls may not be laid out correctly when the tab is resized.

The controls in sub-classed tabs, when resized, are laid out correctly.

Under rare circumstances it is possible to have the same IRN assigned to two different records. The sequence of events required to produce the error involves a complex interaction between a series of users.

This sequence of events no longer causes an error.

An End of File error may be produced when performing a search and displaying matches in either List or Contact Sheet mode. The error is displayed only if the results contain a "false" match.

"False" matches are handled correctly in List and Contact Sheet modes.

An image in a report may not be displayed if the file name contains an ampersand (&) character.

The image is displayed correctly if the file name contains an ampersand.

Some multimedia helper applications may not start correctly when Launch Viewer is selected. Older Windows based programs may not accept the slash character as a valid path separator (e.g. MS Excel).

All paths to multimedia files are now translated to "old" Windows based paths (using the back slash character) before launching the associated viewer.

An Access Violation error may display when using drag and drop to re-arrange the order of a large number of multimedia attachments.

The error message no longer appears when re-arranging multimedia attachments.

The Undo command may not rewind changes made to the order of multimedia attachments. An incorrect order may result where a large number of multimedia attachments exists.

The Undo command resets the order of multimedia attachments correctly.

The EMu help file does not load correctly under Windows Vista. Microsoft has modified the mechanism used to load help files under Vista.

The EMu help file now loads correctly under all versions of Windows.

The Summary Data may not be displayed in bold when moving between records under some circumstances.

The Summary Data is always displayed in bold.

A module may be created off the viewable screen area if the Save Last Position option is enabled and the viewable size of the monitor is reduced (either by moving from dual monitors to a single monitor or moving from a large monitor to a smaller monitor). As the new module cannot be seen it may be difficult to move it to a viewable area.

All modules are now created within the viewable area of the monitor regardless of the Save Last Position setting.

When re-attaching media to an existing Multimedia record the original version of the media may not be removed correctly where multiple storage areas exist on the EMu server (as defined by the ServerMediaPathRegistry setting).

Previous versions of media are cleaned up correctly when multiple storage areas are specified.

The Paste and Paste (Insert) commands are not enabled when the clipboard contains some invalid data for pasting into grids. A better solution is to allow valid values to be pasted with an error displayed for invalid values.

The Paste and Paste (Insert) commands are now enabled even if invalid values are part of the clipboard data.

A report consisting of image and non-image based multimedia within the same record, where a resolution has been specified for the images, may not display the images.

The images are now displayed correctly for reports where the record contains image and non-image based multimedia.

The layout of controls on a tab may not be correct if a new module is opened and the Save Last Position and Save Last Size options are enabled and the module is maximised.

The controls are laid out correctly if a new module is opened and maximised.

The time required to save a new record may be increased if another instance of the same module is open and a large number of matching records are displayed.

The time taken to insert a new record is not lengthened if another instance of the module is open.

Computed fields in both Sites and Collection Events may be set to zero rather than cleared when the data entry field is cleared. The fields with the issue are computed Depth fields.

Computed fields are now cleared correctly if the corresponding data entry field is cleared.

Incorrect data may be displayed when performing a spell check on a text field that is part of a nested form. The data displayed is for another row in the form, rather than the row with the bad term.

The correct data is displayed when performing a spell check in a nested form.

Only the first row of a multiple row Paste or Paste (Insert) may be added to a grid if multiple rows are extracted from the same attachment module.

All rows are pasted correctly where multiple columns are extracted from the same attachment module.

The metadata values (EXIF, IPTC, XMP) are copied into a new record when Ditto All is selected.

The metadata values are no longer copied when Ditto All is selected.

A loop in hierarchical references may be created (parent / child relationships) where a parent record is attached to an existing child record.

A check has been added when attaching a child record to a parent record to ensure that a loop cannot be created.

The What's this Help? dialogue contains information about the control selected. It would be useful if the information could be copied and added to the clipboard for use by other applications.

The field help information may be selected and copied to the clipboard.

The resizing of CMYK images may result in the C (Cyan), M (Magenta) and Y (Yellow) planes being resized correctly, however the K (black) plane may not be resized, causing a distortion in the final image.

CMYK images are resized correctly.

The Audit facility does not handle back slash characters correctly. The character is removed from audit trail data.

Back slash characters are handled correctly and kept in audit trail data.

An End of File error may be displayed if a thesaurus term is entered matching more than one term and multiple terms are selected. The error occurs when Attach Selected or Close & Attach is invoked.

The End of File error no longer appears.

The tabs located at the bottom of the module window may become disproportionately large when the Windows Big Font feature is enabled.

The tabs increase size in proportion to the rest of the module.

The Attach Media button on the Multimedia tab may be disabled the first time the tab is visited, even if media could be attached.

The Attach Media button is enabled if media may be attached when the Multimedia tab is first visited.

A Primary Key is not assigned error may appear when completing one insertion and starting the next if the New Record command is entered before the saving of the previous record has completed.

A new insertion cannot commence before the saving of the previous record is complete.

The latitude and longitude centroid values may not be calculated when the Import facility is used to create new records.

The centroid values are calculated when records are created via the Import facility.

The Thesaurus module copies the selected terms into the field from which the thesaurus was invoked. In some circumstances it may be useful to allow Thesaurus records to be attached rather than copied.

The Thesaurus module may be used as an attachment module or to copy terms. The required functionality is set on a field by field basis when the tabs are designed.

The Date Modified and Time Modified fields are not updated when a record is changed in the Field Help module.

The Date Modified and Time Modified fields are updated when the record is saved.

The ownership of created reports may not be correct if a Registry entry exists for a report without a title (the entry can only be entered via the Registry module).

The ownership of created reports is correct even if a bad Reports Registry entry exists.

A report containing images may not adhere to the report resolution settings when the reporting module is not the Multimedia module. The master image may be used rather than the resolution specified.

The correct image resolution is used.

An Admin Task may not stop executing when the Abort button is clicked.

The Admin Task is terminated when the Abort button is clicked.

A Topic not found error may be generated in the Collection Events module if the What's this help? facility is used.

The correct help is now displayed.

The Audit facility does not generate the correct column name for double nested grids of latitude, longitude, date and time columns.

The correct column name is generated. The upgrade process to EMu 4.0.01 corrects any bad column names.

The Audit facility may add redundant empty values to audit records where a column computes to an empty value.

Empty values are not added to audit records. The upgrade process to EMu 4.0.01 removes any redundant empty values.

The Audit facility may place the client specific catalogue name as the table name in audit records, rather than the generic ecatalogue table.

The generic ecatalogue table name appears in all catalogue audit records.

The Program field in the Audit module may display the time value rather than the program name.

The program name is shown in the Program field.

The column widths configured for List View mode may not be preserved correctly if the total width of all columns exceeds the width of the module.

The column widths are preserved correctly.

An incorrect attachment query may be generated from Search mode if a grid control already contains attachments which are cleared after which the attachment button is clicked.

The attachment query is no longer generated if the grid has been cleared.

The Sync facility (used to ensure data updates are propagated to all attaching records) may not update fields that contain lists of values.

All attaching records are updated correctly.

An incorrect query may be generated where two or more query controls contain attachment queries (that is records have been attached to query control). An OR based query is generated rather than the required ANDquery.

The correct query is generated where multiple controls contain attachment queries.

The Update Resource command in the Multimedia module may truncate IPTC metadata where the metadata contains a null character (that is, a non-existent character at code point zero).

All null characters are removed from IPTC data when the metadata is extracted. A null character is not valid under the IPTC standard.

A module may start with the maximum screen size, but without the maximise button enabled if the Save Last Size option is selected and the module was last closed when maximised.

The module starts maximised with the button enabled.

The values in calculated fields may not display correctly if a non-standard colour is set for calculated data.

Calculated values display correctly, even when a non-standard colour is used.

An Index out of bounds error may be displayed if rows in a grid are deleted from the top down while in Query mode.

The error message no longer appears.

An Access Violation error may appear if the Abort button is clicked when sorting records where a summary is requested.

The error message no longer appears.

An Access Violation error may appear when right clicking an image thumbnail and viewing the Launch Viewer sub-menu.

The error message no longer appears.

The Audit Trails and Groups modules may not display module specific documentation when help is requested.

Module specific help is displayed.