enLighter User Manual table of contents
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enLighter Libraries
 
This section applies to: Professional   Networks
Retriever Users: enLighter Retriever has only
one Library, therefore this entire section is not
relevant to Retriever and can be skipped.

Libraries Topics
What are Libraries?

The Library Manager
  Choosing Libraries
  Grouping Libraries (Professional only)
  Adding Libraries
  Editing Your Libraries

What is Auto-Retrieve?
Local vs Remote (Networks only)
Sharing?
How do I delete a Library?


 
What are Libraries? Libraries top
 
enLighter Libraries are similar to their real-world counterparts.  Libraries contain collections of documents.  The enLighter "document" is a web or HTML page (more detail can be found in the Documents section of this manual).  enLighter Libraries therefore contain web pages added by you and possibly others.  Libraries also contain Highlights and Comments (see the Highlights and Comments section) associated with the Library documents. 

Libraries are distinctive in the following ways: ownership, label, sharing, and content.  Each Library has a single owner, who can decide the label, sharing and content type of their Library.  A Library label helps establish the purpose and content of the Library.  Should a Library owner decide to share her Library, she can allow others to view (but not alter) the Library contents (View-Only) or allow others to add to and alter the Library contents (Collaborate). 

Sharing: Collaborate - allow all users to add content to the Library
View-Only - allow all users to view and search content, but not alter the content
Private - only the owner can view or alter the Library
Note: the Library Owner will always have full access to their Library

Library content is organized using Categories (more detail is available in the Categories section of this manual).  Categories provide ways for the contributor(s) to organize Highlights, Comments and documents.  Along with the Library label, the Library owner establishes Categories to help users find and add information, and to establish which content is relevant to the given Library.

The number of Libraries you use depends on your situation.  It is possible to simply keep all of your documents in a single Library, using Categories to organize them efficiently.  It is also possible to organize documents into several topical Libraries, as demonstrated below:

Single Library: Core Library
Ancient History 311
Biology 312
Eng Lit 334
History 223
Jokes
Music
Personal
Physics 217
Spanish 309
TV Shows
 Multiple Libraries: Personal
general
Jokes
Music
TV Shows
Science Courses
Biology 312 Assignments
Biology 312 Labwork
Physics 217 General
Science Fair Research
Language Courses
Eng Lit 334 General
Eng Lit 334 Term Paper
Spanish 309 General
Humanities Courses
Ancient History 311 Course Info
Ancient History 311 Research
Ancient History 311 Term Paper
History 223 Essay

In an enLighter for Networks environment, there can be many users all with their own Libraries and contributing to collaborative (shared) Libraries.  You will choose and "activate" Libraries to fit your purpose, and can offer your own Libraries for use by others.  There are no limits on the number of Libraries you can create and manage. 


 
The Library Manager Libraries top
 
Topics:   Choosing Libraries
  Grouping Libraries (Professional only)
  Adding Libraries
  Editing Your Libraries
The Library Manager provides a control screen for adding, editing, and organizing your Libraries.  You can open the Library Manager by selecting "Manage Libraries..." from the search or highlight menus, or the main menus' Manage list, or by clicking on the Libraries tab when on another control screen.


The main menu Manage list provides access to the various managers.


The Library Manager has two columns containing lists of Libraries.  The left column contains a list of "active" Libraries which are those Libraries you have chosen to contribute to or to include in your searches.  The right column contains a list of all available Libraries, both locally on your machine and remotely on enLighter Servers if you are using enLighter for Networks.  When you first visit the enLighter Library Manager you may only have a single active Library, your Core Library.  You can press "Refresh" to poll the network for available Libraries. 


The Library Manager components.

The Library Manager components are as follows:
  1. Grouping Libraries - associate Libraries by physical location or name.  See the section below for more.
  2. Active Libraries - a list of Libraries you have access to when searching or adding highlights and comments.  See Choosing Libraries for more.
  3. Expand All - expands all Library branches when selected.  See the Grouping section below for more.
  4. Available Libraries - all Libraries you have access to and can make active.  See Choosing Libraries for more.
  5. Refresh - contact the Server and update your Available Library list.  More here.
  6. New Library - create a new Library.  See Adding Libraries for details.
  7. Add Existing Library - add a pre-existing Library to the lists.  See Adding Libraries for details.


Choosing Libraries Lib Manager Libraries top
 
The Available Libraries column of the Library Manager lists all the Libraries that have been found that you either own or others have made accessible to you.  Libraries in bold are owned by you, and can be edited as you see fit.  In the case of enLighter for Networks, the Libraries which are yellow instead of the standard blue are actually controlled by an enLighter Server which provides a centralized way to share and search through multiple user's Libraries. 

Because the number of Libraries can become overwhelming, you can choose which Libraries you want to make "active".  An active Library is one you can contribute to and conduct searches in.  Activating Libraries of relevance to you is accomplished by clicking on the Available Library of interest and selecting "Activate [Library label]" from the popup menu.  A Library which is greyed out is already active, and should be available in your Active list. 

You can expand branches of grouped Libraries by selecting the "Expand All" option, or by clicking on the plus-sign beside a Library if it is present.  Upon activation of a grouped Library, you may be given the option of activating all sub-Libraries associated with the chosen Library. 

Deactivate Libraries you no longer need by clicking on them in your Active list and selecting "Deactivate" from the popup menu. 


Grouping Libraries
(Professional only) 		Lib Manager Libraries top
 
If you have a large number of active Libraries, or if you prefer to keep the Libraries' hierarchy, you can organize Libraries with the grouping options.  Selecting any of the grouping options affects only your display properties.  You can switch between groupings as you wish without affecting other users. 

none   List Libraries alphabetically without any grouping.  You can use this to help find known Libraries.
location Sort and list Libraries according to their physical file location.  This is identical to a file manager, and allows you and others to associate Libraries by simply storing them in hierarchical order.
label Sort and list Libraries according to their labels.  Using a period (.) to separate nodes, you can structure a Library hierarchy using their labels, regardless of their locations.  See the example below.


Use the group options to display Libraries in hierarchies.
Note that the Classes-related Libraries are physically located in the given hierarchy.
Note also that label-related Libraries have their labels shortened when grouped by label.


The expand all option will automatically expand all branches in both lists to help you find Libraries of interest. 


Adding Libraries Lib Manager Libraries top
 
Note: You will only be able to create Libraries at locations of
the network where you have write access.  If you do not have
write privileges and would like to set up a Library, contact your
network administrator.

Local vs Remote Libraries   enLighter for Networks Only

If you are running enLighter for Networks, you should have access to an enLighter Server.  Servers help distribute and manage large numbers of users and all of their sharable Libraries.  The server also greatly speeds up several activities such as searching Libraries.  In order to share your Library with others, you should make your Library "Remote".  Local Libraries, on the other hand, are not controlled by a Server and cannot offer the sharing advantages of a Remote Library.  When in doubt (and you are running enLighter for Networks), make all new Libraries Remote.

New Library

To create a new Library, click on the ‘New Library’ button at the bottom left corner of the Library manager.  The following dialog should appear:



Local or Remote ( enLighter for Networks only):
Determine whether the Library will be local or remote (controlled by an enLighter Server).

Label:
Type the display name of the Library. 
Remember, if you are using the name grouping option (e.g. grandparent.parent.libraryName), you can associate your new Library to others accordingly.

Sharing:
Select the sharing type for this Library:
Sharing: Collaborate - allow all users to add content to the Library
View-Only - allow all users to view and search content, but not alter the content
Private - only the owner can view or alter the Library


Auto-Retrieve:
With this option selected, you will automatically retrieve notes and highlights from this Library while browsing the Web.  Select this option only for the Libraries you use most often.

Location:
Indicate the file path for this Library.  Use the browse button to select an appropriate path where you have write access.  Choose existing Library directories if you want to associate your new Library with others (displayed with location grouping). 



The location group option mirrors the physical file locations of the Libraries.

Click OK to create your new Library.


Add Existing Library
This function should only be used by advanced users.  Only use Add Existing where Libraries have been re-located or Server control has been discontinued.  The properties are similar to New Library above, with the exception of specifying the location by indicating where the Library's .idx file exists.  Click Add Library to complete the operation.
Activate vs Add Existing: Only use the "Add Existing" function
in special cases of physically moved Libraries or changing Servers.
Click on Available Libraries for the option to activate them.



Editing Libraries Lib Manager Libraries top
 
Click on a Library in either list and a popup menu will appear.  The contents and options available in that menu will depend on the Library you clicked.  Here are explanations for each of the possible options:



The Library Manager popup menu appears when you click on a Library.

Auto-Retrieve
This option toggles whether the indicated Library is to be auto-retrieved or not.  A checkmark appears beside a Library that has auto-retrieval on.

Every time a web page is opened in your browser, enLighter can look for documents in Libraries that match the current page.  Given an exact match, enLighter can display the highlights automatically on the web page.  If the document has changed, enLighter will show a multi-version counter providing access to the stored document(s). 

This process, called Auto-Retrieval, however convenient should be used only on Libraries you deem useful and best suited for this feature.  Consider if you were to have 100+ active Libraries, all with auto-retrieval on:  the match-checking process can be intensive and wasteful.  Try to use auto-retrieve sparingly.

Edit
Selecting the Edit option will open a dialog containing all editable properties of the given Library.  If you own the Library, more properties will be editable.  See the Adding Libraries section above for more details on Library properties and values.

Deactivate
To remove a Library from your Active list use the Deactivate option.  The Library will remain in the Available Libraries list should you decide to activate it again.  A deactivated Library is removed from your searches and your highlight/comment lists.  It's a good idea to deactivate Libraries you no longer use.

Delete vs Deactivate: Use "Deactivate" to remove Libraries
from your Active list.  Delete a Library only if it is completely
non-functional and useless for all users.  Consider archiving instead.

Delete
See the warning above.  You can delete Libraries you own.  By doing so, you are removing that Library both from your own Active list as well as the Available list and from any other users.  Deletion should only be used on a Library that is completely non-functional and useless for all users.  Consider archiving instead.  The files in the Library are NOT physically deleted.  This offers an opportunity to reverse the deletion (contact your Administrator to reverse a deletion or consider Add Existing functionality). 

Properties
This option will open a dialog listing the Libraries viewable properties.

Edit Categories
To open the Category Manager directly for this Library, select this option (see the Categories section of the manual for more).

©2002-2004 enLighter Systems Inc., N-LITER Inc. All Rights Reserved