This section describes features of the Librarian Interface that are not associated with any particular view.

This section explains the preferences dialog, accessed by opening "File" → "Preferences".

The preferences window opens at the "General" tab. The first option is a text field for entering your e-mail address. This will be used for the "creator" and "maintainer" collection metadata items for new collections. The next option is a pull-down list of the languages in which the Librarian Interface can be presented. If you change the language by choosing one from the list, the Librarian Interface will restart itself in order to load the new language. A font specification text box is also supplied: a good setting for displaying Unicode is "Arial Unicode MS, BOLD, 14".

If "View Extracted Metadata" is checked, the various controls dealing with metadata always show all metadata that has been extracted automatically from documents. De-selecting it hides this metadata (although it is still available during collection design, and within the final Greenstone collection). If "Show file sizes" is checked, the file size is shown next to each file in the Workspace and Collection file trees in the Gather and Enrich views.

The "Mode" tab is used to control the level of detail within the interface. At its lowest setting, "Library Assistant", the design and format views are disabled. The user can add/remove documents, add/edit metadata and rebuild the collection. The Create panel is in its simple form. The "Librarian" mode provides access to all of the features of design and format, with the simple form of the Create pane. "Expert" mode includes the full Create pane, and allows the full output from the collection building to be recorded in the logs. To change or review modes, click the radio button next to the mode you are interested in. You can see what mode you are in by looking at the Librarian Interface's title bar.

The "Connection" tab lets you alter the path to the locally-running Greenstone library server, which is used when Previewing collections. It also lets you set proxy information for connecting to the Internet (e.g. when downloading files; see the Downloading Files from the Internet section for details). Check the box to enable proxy connection and supply details of the proxy host address and port number. The proxy connection is established when you close the Preferences dialog.

During the course of a session the Librarian Interface may give warning messages which inform you of possibly unforeseen consequences of an action. You can disable the messages by checking the "Do not show this warning again" box. You can re-enable warning messages using the "Warnings" tab. Check the boxes next to warning messages you want to see again.

The Librarian Interface uses particular application programs to open particular file types. To alter file associations open the "File" menu and click "File Associations…".

To add an association, select the target file extension from the pull-down list, or type in a new extension (do not include the "."). Next either type the command that launches the desired application in the appropriate field, or choose the application from the "Browse" dialog. "%1" can be used in the launch command to insert the name of the file being opened. Once these are filled out, "Add" is enabled and can be clicked to add the association.

To edit an association, select an existing file extension. Any existing associated command is shown in the "launch command" field. Edit it, and then click "Replace".

To remove an association, select an existing file extension and click "Remove".

File associations are stored in the Librarian Interface's main folder, in a file called "associations.xml".

Greenstone can export the contents and/or metadata of a collection to several standard formats, including METS, DSpace and MARCXML.

To export a collection, open the "File" menu and choose "Export…". You can choose which format to export to by selecting it in the "Export to" drop-down list. Specify a name for the directory where you want to put the exported files—the files will end up in <path to greenstone>/tmp/exported_xxx, where xxx is the name you specified. Select one collection in the list of available collections, then click "Export Collection".

There are other options specific to the various formats. You can specify XSLT files which will be applied to the resulting XML document(s) in order to customize the output format. Exporting to MARCXML uses a mapping file to map Greenstone metadata to MARC fields. The default mapping file maps only Dublin Core metadata. You can specify a custom mapping file to be used instead.

Greenstone can export one or more collections to a self-installing CD/DVD for Windows.

To export a collection, open the "File" menu and choose "Write CD/DVD Image". A list of Greenstone collections appears; click on any one to see its description. Tick the check boxes of the collections to export. You can enter the CD/DVD's name in the "CD/DVD name" box: this is what will appear in the Start menu when the CD/DVD has been installed. You can choose whether the resulting CD-ROM or DVD runs directly from the disk drive, or installs some files onto the computer. Then click "Write CD/DVD image". The process involves copying many files and may take a few minutes.

Upon completion, Greenstone will show the name of a folder containing the exported collections. Use a CD/DVD writer to copy its contents to a blank CD/DVD.