Diamonds Help

Contents

1. About
2. Login
3. Browsing
    3.1 Sorting
4. Search
5. Detailed View
6. Album
    6.1 Album States
    6.2 Album Lists
    6.3 Add pictures to an Album
    6.4 View content of an Album
7. Export Pictures
8. Usage Statistics

1. About

Diamonds is a database of diamond cross sections. It contains 152pictures grouped in 5 albums.
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2. Login

Please enter your user name and password to use the whole set of functions (especially all album functions).
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3. Browsing

All pictures contained in Diamonds are listed on the pictures page. The user can browse through them, change the number of hits per page and the sorting order based on the available attributes. Changes in the display will be saved till the end of the session for each user.
It is possible to add a picture to a private album while browsing. For details see add pictures to an album.

3.1 Sorting

Per default, following multiple sorting will be used:
Diamond Elements, Shape, Mechanism.
The change the sorting, the user can select the desirable sorting criteria in the drip down bixes and klick on "Sort" to use the new selected multiple sorting. Further on, ascending and descending can be changes for each sorting criteria.
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4. Search

It is possible to search within the whole Diamonds collection (default setting) or within a specific published album.
All searches are carried out on the basis of special attributes used to describe each picture. Please note that when several search components are selected, the following rule applies: search criteria within the same attribute will be combined using the Boolean operator "OR" , while different types of attributes will be connected by the Boolean operator "AND".
Adding a picture from the search results to a private album is possible. For details see add pictures to an album.
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5. Detailed View

The View button below each picture has the same effect as clicking on the picture itself. It provides detailed information about the picture and an enlarged version in optimal resolution for use on the internet (labelled Web Resolution).

When viewing the details of a picture, it is also possible to go to the details for the previous / next picture. This navigation is based on the last picture list, which the user started viewing the first picture’s details from.
Adding a picture from the detailed view to a private album is possible. For details see add pictures to an album.
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6. Album

An album is a set of selected pictures within the Diamonds collection created by a user. The aim of an album is to give researchers the opportunity to create their own selection of pictures which can be used as a basis for further studies. Albums can be used as private selections (only visible to the user who created the album) or can be published to reference them within a publication (visible to all logged-in Diamonds users).
A user has to be logged-in to the system to use the album functions.

6.1 Album States

Private
First an album has to be created. This means the user has to enter a name for their album with their name as the author. Optionally, they may add further authors and a description about the album's content. Each author has to be affiliated to at least one organization, so that a minimum background about the person is available.
Further more, the user can set the new album immediately as Active Album. This selection will be valid until the user sets another of their private albums as the active one or until they closes the session.
After its creation, the album is in the state "private". That means that it is only visible to the creator (the so called Owner), who can add and remove as many pictures as they like (see add pictures to an album). Further on, the owner has the option to edit the album's metadata or to delete the whole album when it is of no more use.

Published
Is the owner of an album satisfied with its content they can publish it to make the metadata and the pictures of the album visible for all Diamonds users (logged-in users). During publishing, the album will automatically be persistently identified. The album is now in the state "published" meaning it can not be edited or changed any more and is fully visible within Diamonds. Deletion of the album is no longer possible, because it could already be cited by someone.
A not logged-in user who follows a link to a published album within Diamonds will only see the metadata of the album but not the pictures. These are only visible after being logged-in.

Withdrawn
The way of deleting an already published album it to withdraw it. For this command a comment specifying the reason of the withdrawal has to be entered. The album is now in the state "withdrawn". It is not visible any more in the Diamonds overview of the published albums but still retrieval for users who know the exact URL of the album. That still works because the persistent URL will stay valid. (It could happen that the album was cited by someone. The concept of the persistent URL is that the URL will work for ever. But the withdrawl comment demonstrates that the creator of the album is not content with the album any more.) Further on, the withdrawn album is still visible in the album list of the owner.
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6.2 Album Lists

There are two lists of albums in Diamonds.

My Albums
Firstly, there is the My Albums list, which contains all albums created by the individual user (identified via the user account) independently of their state (private, published or withdrawn). This individual list can be sorted by the following criteria: album name, number of pictures, description, date last modified and state. 
It is possible to delete several private albums in the list in one step. To do this, the checkbox in front of the album name has to be selected and the user has to click on Delete.

Published Albums
Secondly, there is the Published Albums list, which contains all albums published by Diamonds users. This list is therefore the same for all logged-in users.
This list can also be sorted by the following criteria: album name, number of pictures, description, date published, author and affiliation of the author. Further more, the open text search searches within the album names, authors, affiliations and descriptions.

Similar to browsing, changes in the number of hits per page or the sorting order of an album list will be saved till the end of the session for each user.
The user has to click on the name of the album to view the pictures in an album and their detailed metadata.
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6.3 Add pictures to an Album

Adding pictures to a private album (this is no longer possible for published or withdrawn albums) is a function that is offered nearly always when viewing pictures (such as browse, search results, detailed view of a picture). To do this, an album for adding the pictures to has to be selected in the drop down ment "Active Album". It includes a list of all private albums so that the user can easily switch between them. However, it is only possible to select one album at a time.
When viewing a picture within an album, the picture can also be added to another album. Here the drop down menu is not on top of the page, but below the attributes of the picture. In this way the user can easily distinguish between browsing the Diamonds collection and viewing the pictures in an album.

Below each picture within Diamonds an Add button is displayed, which is linked to the Active Album. This means, when using this button, the selected picture will be added to the Active Album. If no album is selected, the Add button is disabled (gray). Further on, it is also possible to add all the pictures displayed on a page or to add all the pictures displayed on all the pages (of one picture list) to the active album.
All pictures already added to the Active Album will be displayed with a blue frame so that the user can easily see which pictures are already in the album. This means, when changing the Active Album, the blue frames around the pictures will change too, based on thethe Active Album.
It is not possible to add a picture more than once to an album.
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6.4 View content of an Album

To view the contents of an album (the pictures and the detailed metadata of the album), the user has to select the album in one of the album lists (My Albums or Published Albums). The active album can also be viewed via the link below the corresponding drop down menu.
For each album, all the available metadata are displayed. When some fields are missing, it is because they do not contain any input and are therefore left out.
The Author of the album is always the owner of the album. All further authors are labeled as Further Authors.
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7. Export Pictures

It is only possible to export albums (private and published ones) not pictures themselves. So, in order to export a picture, first an album has to be created which contains the relevant picture(s). This album can be exported then, which means that all pictures in this album will be exported.
During the export, the user can choose which formats of the pictures they want to export (Thumbnails or Web Resolution), and whether they want to have the attributes exported in a separate csv file or whether to get all attributes and technical metadata of the pictures in a separate xml file.
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8. Usage Statistics

The Diamonds solution stores some anonymous usage statistics: the number of visits (number of different retrievals of the home page once per user session) for all users, the number of executed log-ins, the number of executed exports, and the number of exported pictures. These data will be evaluated per month and year.
These usage statistics are only visible to the administrator(s) of Diamonds.
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