SOML oven documentation

LOGBOOK (Aug93) furnace

NAME

logbook --- electronic oven logbook, alias ovenlog

ELECTRONIC LOGBOOK

We are going to try making an electronic logbook during the next firing. Our June 1991 experiment in this area was only partially successful, mostly because of computer limitations at that time. The concept is that instead of writing in the paper logbook, you send an email message to a user named "ovenlog". This produces a text file which can be read back or printed out. We will want to continue with the paper log as well since files can be erased.

The motivation for the computerized log book is primarily so that John, Skip, Mark and the other pilots can read the log remotely. It should also allow us to search more effectively back through old logbooks. It is often desirable to find the last time TC 4352 was acting up.

You should enter the same items in the log as before:

	a) when you arrived and departed
	b) what you checked
	c) any unusual activities you observed
	d) any errors
	e) summary of oven conditions
	f) dial indicator readings
	g) interesting poetry

The idea is that the next shift or someone next year can concisely understand everything that happened on your watch. If your shift was boring, you might only send 1 message. If lots of things are happening, there might be dozens of messages per shift.

LOGBOOK ENTRY

To make a logbook entry, click twice on the mailtool icon, then click the "compose, new" button to start a composition window. Then you type in your mail message with "To: ovenlog" and "Cc: pilot". You don't have to be logged in as pilot to send email to ovenlog, so anybody can do it. The logbook entry is just the same as a regular email message.

Try to make the "Subject:" entry descriptive and consistent. For example, all dial indicator readings might have a subject of "dial gauge". This would allow us to collect all the readings from a run into a file using grep or match.

Times and dates are automatically added to mail, so you don't have to worry about that unless the time is different from when you sent the mail.

Feel free to send practice messages to the log or to me before the next firing begins.

READING THE LOGBOOK

You can read the electronic logbook just like you read regular email with mailtool except that you use the "ovenlog" mailtool icon on the pilot's screen instead of the normal "mailtool" mailtool. Click once with the right mouse button to select a message from the mailbox. Click twice to read a message. (see below for other ways to read the log.) Don't worry, you can't destroy the old messages in the ovenlog.

Click "Done" if you are finished reading mail with mailtool. If you want to iconize mailtool in its current state, click the close button in the upper left corner of the window border.

HARDCOPY

While you are reading mail, click the "file, print" button to make a hardcopy of the message on the laser printer. You can paste this hardcopy in the paper logbook to save writing.

COPYING INFORMATION

Because the mailtool uses the openwindows text edit format, you can copy text from one window to another. For example, if you see an error message in the red window, you can highlight the message in that window by pointing and clicking. Then you hit the "copy" key. Move the mouse to the mailtool window and hit the "paste" key. Once you have learned how to do this, you will never write down an error message by hand again.

You can also move mail messages into or out of files by dragging them to/from the filemanger window.

OTHER OPTIONS

If you are not running openwindows you can use the "Berkeley" mailer by saying "mail ovenlog" and type your message terminated with a . Or you can use PCNFS to send mail from a PC.

To read the logbook file, say:

	cl> mail -f ovenlog

Or you can page the file /u3/ovenlog/Mail/ovenlog. Unix tail can be used to continuously show you the last page of a file.

	cl> !tail -f /u3/ovenlog/Mail/ovenlog
(^C to exit from tail)

BUGS

The "ovenlog" mailtool will complain if you do something that could modify a message.

RELATED MIRROR HELP TASKS

oven

RELATED FURNACE HELP TASKS

furnace, menus

RELATED UNIX MAN PAGES

mail