EMu 5.0

Thesaurus Browse View

The Thesaurus module Browse View option has been updated with many new functionality and usability improvements, including:

• Seamless interaction with other EMu modes (Search, Display and Edit) and views (List, Contact Sheet, Page and Details). Records selected in the Browse View are displayed in the main EMu window according to the current view.
• All of the hierarchies of the current record in EMu can be displayed in the Browse View, either automatically or at the click of a button.
• Additional options for navigating between and showing or hiding terms in the Browse View have been added.
• The new Hierarchy View tab displays all of the hierarchies for the displayed records term.

A complete description can be found in the Thesaurus Browse View and Hierarchy View tab documentation.

Reporting Formats

New report formats have been added to improve report generation and loading performance. It is now possible to report directly to an Open Database Connectivity (ODBC) data source or to an ActiveX Data Objects (ADO) Recordset object. The new report types are:

• Crystal - reports directly in ODBC format, removing the need for an ODBC filtering process.
• Crystal ADO - reports in ADO Recordsets for Crystal which are accessible via Crystal's ADO connector.
• Microsoft ADO - reports in ADO Recordsets for Microsoft products.

Existing Crystal Report and Microsoft (Excel, Power Point and Word) report types that currently connect to an ODBC data source can be changed to use an ADO Recordset.

A description of ADO reporting can be found in the ADO Reports documentation.

Unicode Support

Full support for Unicode has been added, including:

• Support for the Unicode 8.0 character set.
• Data stored using UTF-8 encoding.
• Character folding for all Unicode characters.
• Use of the Default Unicode Collation Element Table (DUCET) for collation (default Unicode sorting order).
• Punctuation is indexed and searchable.
• Punctuation characters with special meaning (!~@$^&*()=") must now be escaped with a leading backslash.
• Auto-phrasing where indexed terms are not separated by spaces are searched as a phrase.

A complete description can be found in the Unicode documentation.

Download a Unicode Cheatsheet: IE English | US English

Performance Improvements

Performance improvements have been made to sorting, exact matching, reporting and attachment searches in EMu. Some examples of the observed performances improvements are:

• Sorting improvements:
  

  Module	Records	Old Time	New Time	Factor Improvement
  Catalogue	270,000	2:15	0:45	x3
  Parties	25,000	1:20	0:02	x40
  Events	22,000	2:15	0.015	x90

  The performance improvement increases with the size of the module. The modules are listed from small to large.
• Exact matching improvements:
  

  Module	Records	Old Time	New Time	Factor Improvement
  Catalogue	250,000	1:30	0.15	x6
  Thesaurus	115,000	6:45	0:15	x27
  Events	22,000	2:20	0.01	x80

  The performance improvement increases with the size of the module. The modules are listed from small to large.
• Reporting improvements:
  

  Module	Records	Old Time	New Time	Factor Improvement
  Bibliography	6,500	1:00	0.10	x6
  Parties	70,000	10:00	1:00	x10

  The performance improvement increases with the size of the module. The modules are listed from small to large.
• Attachment searching improvements:
  

  Module	Records	Old Time	New Time	Factor Improvement
  Sites	10,000	10:00	1:50	x6
  Parties	200,000	60:00	9:30	x11

Mandatory field consistency improvements

The consistency of the behaviour of grid and edit fields associated with columns that have been set as mandatory using the Mandatory Registry entry has been improved. The behaviour has been modified so that when a user tries to leave an empty edit or grid field that uses a mandatory column, the user will first be presented with the mandatory pop-up message. If the user tries to leave the field again, the mandatory pop-up message will not be presented until they re-enter and leave the empty field again or the record is saved. Prior to these changes mandatory settings that applied to edit fields were only triggered when the record was saved.

Additionally, changes have been made so the Lookup List buttons of grid controls that are associated with mandatory columns can be used without triggering the mandatory pop-up message.

Events module Move Objects command

A command has been added to the Tools drop down menu of the Events module that uses the Exhibit Objects extensions. The command allows objects selected in the Objects grid on the Objects tab to be moved to another Event record. Associated Exhibit Object records are also moved:

To use the command you select a series of rows in the Objects grid corresponding to the objects to be moved. Once they are selected the Tools>Move>Objects to another Event record command can be invoked. A new instance of the Events module is displayed allowing the user to locate the record to which the objects should be moved. The button is clicked to make the selection. Once the Event record is selected the user is asked to confirm the movement of objects to the selected Event record. Once confirmed the objects are moved one at a time. When the operation is complete, the number of objects moved is displayed.

Styling of HTML controls

A new Column CSS Registry entry has been added, making it possible to specify the default font family and font size for EMu client controls that display HTML formatted text. An example of an HTML control is the control associated with the NarNarratives column on the Narrative tab of the Narratives module.

A complete description can be found in the EMu Help documentation for the Column CSS Registry entry.