Some basic questions from a beginner

[davidtaylor]

I apologise with such basic questions. I have looked for some way to find out for a beginner but was not able to locate the place to find basic instructions.

1
When entering a new dive, I must fill in fields Country / CityIsland / Dive Site and Buddy. In each case I have the choice of a) simply entering the text into the form field (against the yellow pencil symbol), or b) clicking the grey link symbol and starting a fresh parent record for a (eg) country. How should I decide whether to enter text directly or to start a new parent (eg new Country) record?

2
If I first fill in a Country field directly, and then subsequently use the link symbol to create a Country record of the same name, there are then no dive records with the yellow-pencil version of that Country. However the next time I go to that field on a Dive record, both a yellow-pencil version and a link symbol version of that Country will show in the Country dropdown. Why has the yellow-pencil version persisted: what is it for?

3
I have established a new Buddy but would like to update something about his/her profile. On the Home window I click Buddies, and get the Tree Browser popup. However there is no ability to do anything other than View. I cannot Create or Edit Buddies from here ( nor can I Create or Edit a Location from the Location link - etc). It seems that I must find an individual dive record and click a link symbol (eg at the right of the Buddy field) in order to access the linked Buddy record. Is that the correct way to do it?

4
If I go into an existing Dive record and change something, I then want to save the record. But If I click Save, I get an unexpected rtf Save dialogue. This must be doing something else. I therefore Save my moving to a new record (as if I were in Access). Is that the way to Save a record after a change, and what is the function of the Save button?

If there is a place to find this type of initial info I'd be most grateful for a link to it.

thanks

[divinglog]

Hi David

No problem, I'm happy to help you getting started.

1
When entering a new dive, I must fill in fields Country / CityIsland / Dive Site and Buddy. In each case I have the choice of a) simply entering the text into the form field (against the yellow pencil symbol), or b) clicking the grey link symbol and starting a fresh parent record for a (eg) country. How should I decide whether to enter text directly or to start a new parent (eg new Country) record?

It is up to you if you want to use a linked item or enter just the name directly. I do it this way: If I have no other information beside the dive site name (e.g. no GPS, map photo, etc.), I just enter the dive site name directly in the logbook window. When I have GPS coordinates and other detailed information, I create a linked item. It's the same for buddies, countries and cities. If you dive with someone in your vacation and you do not really know anything else than the name of this person, I just enter the name and do not create a linked buddy. But it is up to you and you can use just linked items or just pencil items.

2
If I first fill in a Country field directly, and then subsequently use the link symbol to create a Country record of the same name, there are then no dive records with the yellow-pencil version of that Country. However the next time I go to that field on a Dive record, both a yellow-pencil version and a link symbol version of that Country will show in the Country dropdown. Why has the yellow-pencil version persisted: what is it for?

The pencil item will disappear, once it is not used in any dive anymore (you may have to press the refresh button). As long as it is displayed in the list, it is used somewhere. You can quickly check that by going into the logbook table window and activate the edit mode. If the CountryID column is empty, it is a pencil item. In the table editor you can quickly convert all countries to linked items, by selecting all identical CountryID fields and enter the ID of the country.

3
I have established a new Buddy but would like to update something about his/her profile. On the Home window I click Buddies, and get the Tree Browser popup. However there is no ability to do anything other than View. I cannot Create or Edit Buddies from here ( nor can I Create or Edit a Location from the Location link - etc). It seems that I must find an individual dive record and click a link symbol (eg at the right of the Buddy field) in order to access the linked Buddy record. Is that the correct way to do it?

You can access all linked items like buddies from the "Details" dropdown:

Image1.jpg (40.56 KiB) Viewed 4016 times

4
If I go into an existing Dive record and change something, I then want to save the record. But If I click Save, I get an unexpected rtf Save dialogue. This must be doing something else. I therefore Save my moving to a new record (as if I were in Access). Is that the way to Save a record after a change, and what is the function of the Save button?

There are different "Save" buttons in the toolbar, which unfortunately have all the same icon. I know, this is not good and I clicked the wrong button myself a number of times. Just the Save button on the Home tab of the toolbar saves the dive. The save button on the Comments tab, saves the comments to a RTF file. The save button on the Layout tab saves the layout. So to save a dive, you have to click the save button on the Home tab or the one in the quick access toolbar on top of the ribbon toolbar. Or you an press Ctrl-S or you can activate the "Autosave" function on the home tab, which saves a dive automatically.

[davidtaylor]

Thank you, much appreciated.

All is clear, except for "You can access all linked items like buddies from the "Details" dropdown:"

I can indeed access the linked items from this place, but only to view them. I cannot figure how to edit a linked item from the resulting 'Tree Browser' window. To change anything I seem to have to go back to the logbook and find a dive that includes the linked item I want to edit - but that does not feel like the right way to do it.

[divinglog]

I can indeed access the linked items from this place, but only to view them.

No, you can also edit the linked items there. In the image I posted above, you do not get to the tree browser. You have to click the "Details" button in the main toolbar, not in the sidebar. The tree browser is the wrong place, that's just a way to view the data in a structured way.

[davidtaylor]

Of course. Should have got it, thanks again (for now!)