The present version of our notebook provides the following functions divided into two classes: those that modify the notebook and those that just view pages in the notebook.

Navigation Functions

First - show first page of notebook.
Previous - show page previous to present page.
Next - show next page.
Last - show last page entered in the notebook. (default on startup)
Contents - show the table of contents for the notebook.
also lists the URLs of all images uploaded into the notebook in case they are needed for reference in other pages.
Search - brings up a form that accepts a search string. (Can include wildcards.)
Returns a table-of-contents-like page listing the notebook pages containing matches.

Modifying Functions

Add - Creates a new page and puts your entry on it. It brings up an input form that has three options. Input of text/html, uploading a file (eq. image or graph), or draw and insert a sketch. Entry of name and title fields are required. User can cut and paste html source or text into the text input field. For example from netscape composer or Word97. By default the notebook assumes plain text was typed into the input field and it preserves its formating. Once the input is complete, select the appropriate MIME type at the bottom of the form and press submit. This entry will be added to the end of the notebook.
Instead of using the text input field, the user may upload a file into the notebook, for example a gif or jpg image. After submission, the image will appear on the new page and the user can then add more text or images to the page using the "edit" function.
Pressing on the draw sketch link, starts up a Java applet sketchpad. When the submit button is pressed at the bottom of the sketchpad, the sketch is converted into a gif and sent to the new notebook page. In addition to simple sketches, images (Note only those stored on the notebook server) can be dropped on the sketchpad and then sketched over, highlighted, or annotated.

Edit - Modifies the present page. It brings up the same input form as Add with the same three options. The image and sketchpad inputs are appended to the end of the page. The text input field is filled with the contents of the presently viewed page. Text can be added and an image uploaded at the same time in the "edit" form. On the other hand, the sketchpad should be used alone. The user can edit the contents (for example to correct spelling or formatting) or add additional information to the end or middle of the existing text. Select MimeType "html" and press Submit to put this edited page back in the notebook. The revision log at the top of the page tracks who and when entries were altered.
[Notarized entries can not be edited or deleted]

Delete - deletes the presently viewed page from the notebook. It is equivalent to tearing out a page of a paper notebook. The original page is not actually deleted and is still preserved inside the notebook, but would require a system administrator to manually restore it. The default notebook setup, has this feature disabled.

Annotate - allows the user to add entries to the bottom of the currently viewed page, for example, to add comments to someone else's entry. Annotate brings up a copy of the present page with an input form at the bottom. It does not allow the original contents to be changed. Annotation is allowed on pages with Notarized entries. (The annotations themselves can be notarized)

Notarize - Notarize stamps the present page as uneditable, and undeleteable by anyone. (It can still be annotated).

Eventually this function will also electronically notarize the viewed entry, but this is still under development.

The new Versions of the notebook can be setup to allow some groups to only read a notebook while other groups can have full read and write access to it.

The notebook's table of contents is automatically updated to reflect the new page and keywords describing its content. Secure Web server technology can be used to provide the secure transmission of notebook information over the internet.