OI Tutorial

There is a somewhat out of date tutorial for the OI at http://www.comics.org/docs/tutorial/ which will be updated and incorporated into this wiki soon.

Here is the text from that tutorial, for future possible use: Logging in 1/15

Log into the system by using the username and password supplied by the coordinator (Matthias Hofmann). If you have problems logging in, check if you've got the caps lock on - it may affect the login procedure. Fill in the two fields and click "Log in".

You should have cookies turned on in your browser. If the first thing that comes to mind is Oreos, you've probably got them on already...

Sometimes the system is a bit slowed down, so it may take a few seconds before you're let in.

Your first screen 2/15

When you enter the system you get a tabbed interface - this varies between the indexer, editor and administrators. Indexers have only two tabs to start with - "Personal" and "Indexing". In Personal you'll be able to change your password, edit your email address etc.

The indexing tab has several sub-areas - reserved books, pending books and indexed books as well as a button for adding new reservations. We'll go through all of them in time.

The first screen will list your reserved books (the first 50 if you have many. You can delete a reservation if you want or you can click the books name to add data to it. Until submitted, an index will remain here under reserved books. For partially indexed books the status will be "Being indexed" to indicate that you're working on it.

If you have many books reserved, you can browse them alphabetically by using the letter list on the left hand side or search using the field on the right.

Making a reservation - finding books 3/15

Okay, I'd like to reserve a new book for this tutorial, so I'll click the "Reserve new books" button and I get this search field. Grabbing a random book from my recent box from the store gives me an issue of Powers - now let's look to see if it is reserved or not...

Enter the title in the search field, choose your search method (exact, contains or begins with) and click find. Now, let's see the results...

Making a reservation - search results 4/15

More than one book matched my query here and their status differ. If a title has "Reserved" listed after it, it means that all registered issues for that title are either indexed already or reserved to someone. Once there are open issues, the listing will read "Reserve" and be clickable, just like the entry for Powers here. I got lucky...

Now, I click the "Reserve" link for the title I'd like to reserve issues from and it gets me...

Note: If you don't get any hits here it probably means that the book you're looking for is not entered into the system yet. You should then contact the coordinator to have the book included. A message with the e-mail address to contact is shown when this happens.

Making a reservation - choosing issues 5/15

...this screen, listing all registered issues in color coded fields. If a field is green it means it's already indexed, if it's red it means it's reserved and orange means that it's pending approval. Only white fields have checkboxes since they're the unreserved ones.

Check the issues you want to index (or click the "Check all" shortcut if you want 'em all). I'm just choosing one here, #20, since that's the one I pulled out of my box. When finished selecting, click the "Register reservations" button below the matrix.

Back to the registered books listing 6/15

This brings us back to the listing of books. As you can see the Powers issue is now at the end of my list.

I click the issue to start indexing...

The issue screen 7/15

I now have an empty issue, with very little data. I start by uploading the cover image as I scanned it earlier - to do so, click on the dummy image and you'll get the (possibly) familiar scan upload page opening in another browser window. This routine is well documented in it's own right, so I won't go into that here. Adding a cover scan is optional - some kind soul may have done it already or maybe someone will soon.

After uploading the cover I click the "Edit issue data" to add some basic info about the issue.

Adding issue data 8/15

In the issue data you enter volume number, keydate, a published date and the cover price. Image books aren't always dated, so I go by Previews and gamble on this book being on the stands in time in April. Since it's from my last box it could be late, but we can change that later if needed. Try to be accurate first time, though. More detailed info is in the format docs and will be available in the online help.

I click "Update issue" and back to the issue screen we go...

Back to the issue sceen 9/15

Now we see some more info here as well as the coverscan. Time to add some credits...

Click the "Add new sequence" to add a new sequence.

Adding the first sequence 10/15

When no sequences are registered yet, the first one will default to being the cover. For the time being, we register the total number of pages in the book here.

The name of the storyline is sometimes printed on the cover too, or it has some sort of catchy phrase written there. If no title is shown, leave it blank. The cover only depicted one (live) character, so I added his name to the Character appearances. In Genre you can add several, just separate then with a semicolon and a space (i.e. "Superhero; sci-fi").

This cover was in b/w so no coloring credit here. It was lettered though, so I added a credit to the listed letterer.

When finished, click "Add sequence" and you'll be back to the issue screen again.

This is beginning to look OK... 11/15

Back at the issue screen we now see cover credits listed with the cover, as well as a line for the first sequence, with number, type, pages, title/feature, a shortlist of credits (S, P, I, L, C and E shown for the fields entered), an updated date and the options of editing or deleting the sequence.

Now that we have sequence data, a new button for submitting the index is shown too. It's a bit early for that, so we'll continue with adding another sequence.

Adding a story sequence 12/15

Deja-vu! Almost... We've been here before, but some things have changed. As this is a new sequence we'll have the sequence number field open for entry as it isn't locked to cover anymore. It does however have a number filled it already - one higher than the highest registered. This means that if you register the sequences in order you'll have it pre-filled out, but if you delete an earlier sequence, say number 3 of 6, the system will suggest 7 when you want to add it back so you should keep an eye on it.

The type of sequence is now a pop-up list of common types - story, cover, pin-up etc . The rest is covered by the format document.

Now let's add this one too.

The issue screen is getting crowded... 13/15

Now we have a minimum of data entered for an issue, sequence-wise: a cover record and a story record. For this particular book I could have registered a letter column and some house ads as well, but I passed on that.

I can preview what the record will look like i the front end by clicking "Preview issue" - it will bring up a page looking just like an ordinary issue detail page. The regular one filters out non-approved issues so that's why we use a special preview page for this.

I feel confident about typos etc. now so I click "Submit index" to get this issue out of my hands and into the editors...

My indexed issue is now pending... 14/15

To show you the new status, you get transported to the pending books page. Your index will remain here until the editor either approves or rejects it (you'll probably get an explanation from the editor as to why if it is rejected). You can still make changes by clicking the edit link, though.

My indexed books 15/15

The indexed books button will list all your previously indexed and approved work, but only (at least yet) the indexes submitted via the online interface.

Currently you cannot edit it further after approval, but this will change in the near future.

Note: I did not index Suspense Comics #4, it's just a test entry which will be removed. Jaguar God #2 is semi-indexed and will probably be cleared out as well.

Over the coming months we'll add features to this system - if you have any suggestions, let us hear them on the mailing list.

Thanks for your patience in this walk-through and happy indexing!

The GCD Online Index Beta Team