Morpho User Guide

 

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Introduction to Data Packages

 

What is a Data Package?

Data packages are the logical units that Morpho creates to represent your data files and their descriptions (e.g. documentation, or metadata). Morpho provides an easy interface for you to access your data and its documentation via these data packages.

 

There are two main components of Morpho that deal with data packages:

  • Data Package Wizard, which guides you through steps to create a new data package, and
  • Morpho Editor, which helps you manipulate, edit, and add documentation to existing data packages.

The Data Package Wizard and Morpho Editor are described later in this document. Below is an introduction to data packages, and what these look like.

 

Data Package Panels

Morpho uses the term "Data Package" to describe a set of documentation and /or the associated data. A "Data Package" consists of either metadata alone, or metadata along with the associated data.

 

After creating a new data package, or opening an existing data package, you will see the contents of the data package represented by a "Data Package" screen, shown below for a sample data package.

 

 

This screen consists of several parts. The standard Morpho menu and toolbar are at the top of the screen. Below these are three panels: the package documentation panel, the data table panel, and the table documentation panel. Each of these panels are described below

 

  • Package Documentation Panel

The top panel contains a brief "citation-style" summary of the data package. It includes icons to the right that indicate whether the package is located on the local machine, on the network, or both.

 

The top panel can be expanded to reveal additional documentation, either by dragging the divider bar, or by clicking the "more" link. The additional documentation is shown below.

 

The blue links in this documentation window link to files that contain the documentation, displayed in EML format, or data. Clicking on one of these links will cause the relevant part of the documentation to be displayed in the current panel. For example, clicking the "tao.9049.1" link in the above screen would cause the eml-physical documentation to be displayed. After navigating to different documentation pages, you can use the "back" button near the top left corner of the panel to navigate back to the initial view (this works in a similar way to a web-browser's "back" button).

 

The Package Documentation Panel may be collapsed to its original size in one of several ways:

  1. by clicking the "less" link;
  2. by clicking the "hide" button, located to the right beneath the net and/or local icons;
  3. by using the mouse to drag the divider bar, which is at the bottom of the screen, up or;
  4. by clicking the small arrow icons located on the left side of the lower divider bar.

The documentation may be edited by clicking the "edit" button that is located beneath the "hide" button. This will take you to the Morpho Editor, described later in this User Guide.

 

  • Data Table Panel

The data table panel, displayed below for a sample data package, either shows the data in spreadsheet form, or for several formats of image entities, displays the image. The tabs along the bottom of the data table panel may be used to select and view different tables or image entities within the package.

 

Using the drag bar on the right side of the panel, you can collapse, expand, or change the size of the data table panel.

You can click and edit data directly within the table cells. After editing the data, click the "update" button to save the changes, or "cancel" to undo the changes. "Cancel" and "update" only apply to the changes made on the tab that is selected. To cancel changes that have been made to ALL data panels, you can select "Revert all tabs" under the "Data" menu at the top of the window.

 

You can right-click on the data table to bring up a menu which allows you to:

  • sort columns
  • insert and delete rows
  • insert and delete columns
  • add new tables
  • add/edit documentation

These same options are also available under the "Data" menu at the top of the window. Read more about using these tools here.

 

  • Table Documentation Panel

The table documentation panel (located to the right of the data table) displays documentation for the table that is currently being viewed. Note that tables are also referred to as "entities" in Morpho, using terminology consistent with database management systems. Similarly, "attribute" refers to the variables or columns contained within a table.

 

Clicking on any of the column headers in the table will cause the documentation panel to show more specific information about the selected column (or "attribute"). An example of this more detailed information about a sample column of data is shown below.

You can return to the table (entity) documentation either by using the "back" button (located at the top left corner of the panel), or by clicking on the data table tab at the bottom of the data table panel.

 

You can edit the currently displayed documentation by clicking the "edit" button (located beneath the "hide'" button). Doing so will open the Morpho Editor, described in a later section.

 

As with the other panels, this panel can be resized by dragging the dividing bars, and can be hidden or expanded fully by clicking the arrows on the divider bars, or by clicking the "hide" button at the top-right corner.

 

The next section describes how to open an existing data package.

 

Help Index

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