Desktop

Application Desktop

Why the Desktop ?

The HRT application Desktop replaces the old Main Menu .

The Desktop gives you the same functionality as the old menu but in addition to this, it allows you to customize your desktop to suit your personal needs and working style.

The aim of the new Desktop is, not only to provide a more modern style and layout, but to make it more easy to use for our users by allowing them to adapt the Desktop to how they work.

For instance, a planning officer may mostly use the planning reports and SMT reports. With the Desktop he can create his own welcome page with exactly those reports just one click away. A Training Office might instead whish to put the training reports on his welcome page.

Not only can you reorganize the normal reports in a manner that suits you best but you can also put stored reports or Information Center reports on your personalized Desktop. You can even put any hyperlink you consider relevant on the Desktop.

Below is an example of the standard Desktop layout at the time this documentation was written.

Supported Browsers

HRT and the HRT Desktop is supported on up to date versions of all the major browsers. The following are the officially supported browsers...

• Internet Explorer v7

• Firefox v3.x

• Opera 9.5x

• Safari (Windows/Mac) 3.x

It has also been tested on Goggle's Chrome but since this browser, at the time of writing this document, is still a beta version, it is not officially supported.

Also note that for the above browsers we support the standard configuration (in the case of Internet Explorer the CERN standard installation) only.  Any configuration changes or add-ons are done/installed entirely at the users responsibility.

General Information

The Desktop page provides you with some general information such as who is logged on, the current access rights and the date of the last successfull extraction.

	The currently logged on user can be found together with today's date in the top right corner of the Desktop.
The currently selected access right(s) of for the logged on user can be found in the upper left corner of the Desktop.
	The date of the last successfully executed data extraction can be found in the upper right corner of the Desktop, just below the display of the currently logged on user.

Tabs

The main part of the desktop is divided into a set of tabs. Each tab contains a set of reports logically grouped together. You can navigate between the tabs by clicking on the tab handle at the top of the Desktop just below the Desktop header.

In the various tabs for Persons, Career, Planning etc. you will find all the reports available in HRT. Note that not all reports may be available to you dependant on your access rights to HRT.

In addition to this, the most commonly used reports are also found on the Welcome tab.

Notice that the reports are grouped into two link groups. More about link groups will follow in the chapters below.

You can also modify the welcome page, create your own tab(s), links groups and generally organize your favorite reports and links as you whish. More about that under Customizing The Desktop.

Toolbars, Context Menus and Drag & Drop

Much of the functionality of the Desktop is activated from the toolbar at the top right corner of the Desktop, using right click to activate context menus or simply by dragging and dropping items around.

To activate commands from the toolbar, just click on the desired icon. The icon over which the mouse is positioned will zoom up slightly and if the mouse is kept over the icon a small explanatory popup text will appear.

To activate a context menu, simply right click on the item for which you whish to activate a context menu. Note: The Opera browser do not properly implement the left click context menu event. Users of this browser must hold the control/command key down while doing a left click to activate a context menu.

Drag and drop can also be used to move items such as reports, hyperlink and link groups around. Simply left click on the item that you whish to move, hold the mouse button down, move the item to the desired position and release it.

Note the following when dragging and dropping...

• When dragging a report/hyperlink click on the icon to the left of the link and not on the link itself since most browsers do not understand it when you click on the link.

• When dragging a report/hyperlink into a link group, drop the item on the title of the group since the browser might be confused.

• When dragging an object out of a link group and onto the tab canvas directly it will be positioned at a default position at the top left corner of the tab canvas.

• If you drop a item on the handle of a tab the item will be moved to that tab.

Services

In the top right corner of the report form just below the header bar, there is a small link called "Services". By clicking the link, a small menu is opened. This menu serves as entry point to the most important application services and is reachable from most parts of the application. It allows you to quickly reach key services you may want to use when working with the application.

Customizing The Desktop

There is many things that you can change, modify and customize with the desktop. But let's first look at what you can not do.

You can not modify any of the standard tabs such as Persons, Planning, Career etc...

So, now when that is out of the way let's see what you can do.

You can freely modify the welcome page and you can create your own tabs and populate the with report and links. The following paragraphs will explain how that is done.

Add a report

Add a hyperlink

You can also add any hyperlink to your desktop either using a context menu or by clicking on the Add Hyperlink icon in the toolbar.

A generic hyperlink will be placed on your tab canvas or inside the link group if applicable.

You can then proceed to give the hyperlink a name of your choice as well as register the hyperlink itself by right clicking on the hyperlinks icon and activating the context menus for Change URL and Rename.

Add a link group

A link group is a collection of links. You can use link groups to structure the content of your tabs. A link group can be moved around, copied and deleted together with it's links by dragging and dropping it or by activating it's context menu.

Hint, when working with the mouse cursor on a link group always click on the title of the group since otherwise you may click on one of the links in the group instead.

In the same manner as a hyperlink can be added you can add a link group using the Add Link Group icon in the toolbar or, via a context menu or using copy paste from one of the standard tabs.

Link group layout and sizing

This functionality is still under evaluation.

Link groups can be laid out horizontally or vertically. The default layout is vertical. However, the layout can be changed using the context menu of a link group. Upon choosing the Layout menu item you will be presented with the following dialog.

Use the drop down to select whether you whish vertical or horizontal layout. You can also select how many items that are going to be placed in the chosen direction before a new row/column is started.

Finally you can control the size of the link group (in percentage of the browsers window size) by entering the desired percentages in the width and height fields.

Leaving a field blank will cause the link group to revert to default behaviour.

Add a tab

You can also create your own tabs and put whatever you whish onto those tabs.

Again, you add a new tab by using the Add Tab icon in the toolbar, the tab's context menus or by copy pasting an existing tab.

When you create a new tab it will be placed as the last tab. You can reorder the tabs (including the ones you can not otherwise change) by dragging a tab handle onto another tab. The dragged tab will then be placed before the tag you drag it onto.

Copy, paste & delete

You can copy and paste any item on the desktop. You can also delete any item which you are allowed to modify (items on the Welcome tab and items that you have created your self.

Copy, paste and delete are done using the context menus. Right click (control/command left-click on Opera) on the item you whish to copy, paste to or delete and select the action you whish to perform.

Note that you can copy any item. Also those that you can not otherwise do anything with. Thus you can copy reports, link groups and tabs from the set of standard tabs that are pre-defined in the HRT Desktop.

Whoops

Oh no, I just deleted the wrong tab.

Well we did ask you if you where sure that you wanted to delete that tab didn't we?

Oh well, luckily we do have a Whoops function. By clicking on the Recover Desktop icon in the toolbar you will be presented with a dialog where the latest versions of your desktop can be reloaded.

You can choose to recover an earlier version or to reset the desktop entirely to it's initial state.

Note that resetting your desktop will mean that you loose any customizations made.

The storing of backup versions will not be made after every single change that you make (for storage space and performance considerations). Backups will be made as follows.

Every time you make a persistent change to your desktop the server will check if a backup is to be made. 

If the latest version is more than 24 hours old a new version will be saved.

Versions older than 30 days will be removed.