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Morpho User Guide
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Introduction to Data Packages |
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:
The Data Package Wizard and Morpho Editor are described later in this document. Below is an introduction to data packages and what they look like. |
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.
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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.
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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.
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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 previous 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:
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 displays the image (for several formats of image entities). 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.
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You can click and edit data directly within the table cells. To save changes you have made to the data table, save the data package under the "File" menu. To cancel changes you have made to a data table, choose "Revert Entity to Saved Version" under the "Edit" menu. To cancel changes that have been made to ALL data panels, you can select "Revert all Entities to Saved Version " under the "Edit" menu at the top of the window. You can right-click on the data table to bring up a menu which allows you to:
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, "attributes" refers to the variables or columns contained within a table.
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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.
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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 divider 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.
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The next section describes how to open an existing data package.
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