ALiX Notebook

The Notebook can be open with the Windows >> Notebook menu item (Shortcut: Ctrl+N).

The window is resizable and can be navigated using the mouse, keyboard and scrollbar to the right.

Messages automatically generated by ALiX are appended to the text as operations proceed.

The user can type in text in this window and can select/copy/paste text or data (images) from and to the window (for instance, graphs or indicators can be copied and pasted in the Notebook using the Copy Data context menu item of these objects and then, the Paste (Ctrl+V) action in the Notebook window).

The text area is a rich text box object and supports different style commands (their complete list can be consulted by opening the Context Help Window):

Additionally, selected text can be formatted (style and color) using the right-click menu (1):

Beware that typing while the software outputs a message or picture will interrupt the user's text input. In other words, it is recommended to add user comments in the window during idle (or long computation) periods.

The File menu of the Notebook window allows saving the Notebook (Save, Ctrl+S) at the end of or during a session (2). The file format is rich text format (default extension ".rtf").

If the Notebook has already been saved previously, a dialog window will ask the user whether the previous file should be overwritten or not.

There is an option to Save As... (Ctrl+Shift+S) to save the Notebook under a different name.

A previously saved Notebook file can be opened (Open, Ctrl+O), which is useful when resuming a previous analysis session.

Upon closing the Notebook (Close, Ctrl+W), a dialog window will show up if the Notebook hasn't been saved or was modified since the last save:

If you close the Notebook window without first saving its content, the content will not be lost. Re-opening the Notebook will restore the previous Notebook content.

If the Notebook is closed (or was never opened) when quitting ALiX, a dialog window will pop-up, giving the user a chance to save it before quitting:

In case of a crash or Windows Task Manager "End Process" action, the last backup copy of the Notebook for each running ALiX copy can be found in the User Temporary Directory, as ALiX x.y.z Notebook nnnn.tmp, where x.y.z indicates ALiX version and nnnn the Windows process ID number. This number is arbitrary but unique for each process, therefore there will be as many temporary Notebook files as there are running ALiX applications. These temporary files are deleted when the corresponding Notebooks are closed.

Notes:

1. When right-clicking on a selected text, the selection highlight disappears. However, the selected style will be applied to the previously selected text.

2. The shortcuts in the Notebook window only apply to the Notebook window. For instance, Ctrl+S, which is used to perform a Burst Search in the main window, is instead saving the Notebook when that window is in focus.