First-Aid Help for eRules

Selecting a publication

Fig 1 - The Publications Box

The first step is to select the publication you would like to consult from the list of publications. All publications are shown in the publication box in the top left corner of the screen. Initially, they are shown ordered by organisation, but the title dropdown menu allows to reorder the display by, for example, language or publication date.

To select the publication simply click on its title. Some publications may not be available and are displayed in gray. Once selected, the publication title will be displayed differently (see figure 1, the "December 2003 edition of the Rules for Classification of steel ships"). Also, at the same time the Table of Contents will be loaded in the the Table of Contents box underneath the publications box.

Navigating the Table of Contents

Fig 2 - The Table of Contents Box

The behaviour of the Table of Contents is modeled after the Windows Explorer behaviour. This means the following:

• A simple click on the Table of Contents entry will display the corresponding contents.
• A double click on the Table of Contents entry will display the item's children nodes, and display the corresponding contents.
• A simple click on the plus/minus icon of an entry will open or close this entry.
• A double click on the plus/minus icon of an entry has no associated action.
• A double click on the book icon opens or closes an entry in exactly the same way as a simple click on the plus/minus icon does.
• Holding the Control key while pressing the plus/minus icon will force a reload of the corresponding item's children.

Navigating the Contents Using the Previous/Next Buttons

Fig 3 - The Previous Next buttons

When browsing a document, the most convenient way to change pages is to use the Previous and Next buttons which are always visible in the main menu bar (see figure 3). In figure 3, the previous button is disabled, as the document is at the very beginning.

The small icon in between the two buttons indicates the browse mode, which by default is the page mode. Other modes are the table and figure browse mode (see section Switching from Table of Contents to List of Tables to List of Figures further down).

The Enter key on your keyboard is associated with the Next button which allows you to browse the complete document just by pressing the Enter key. The same is true in the reverse direction: Click the Previous button once with the mouse, and you can now press Enter until you reach the beginning of the document.

Fig 4 - Title appears in tooltip

If you keep the mouse hovering over an active button, the title of the next (or previous) page will be displayed in a tooltip (see figure 4).

Switching from Table of Contents to List of Tables to List of Figures

Fig 7 - Changing the browse mode

The default browse mode is by Table of Contents entries. There may be times when you would like to browse all tables of a publication, or all figures. For this, there are different browse modes which can be selected by choosing another entry in the Table of Contents box (see figure 7).

Fig 8 - List of Tables in action

Once selected, several elements in the user interface will change (see figure 8):

• In the Table of Contents box, only items of the selected mode will be shown (in figure 8, tables)
• The previous and next button will now go to the next or previous table (or image). See figure 9 for an example, the tooltips shows that the previous item is a Table 1 in Sect 2.

Fig 9 - The adapted Next/Previous buttons

Quick Search

Fig 10 - The Quick Search form (disabled)

In the top-right corner the quick search form is available at all times. When starting the application you will notice that the box is disabled (see Figure 10); you cannot search, because you haven't selected a publication yet. As soon as you choose one, the box will become active (see Figure 12), and you can enter a search term.

Tip: you can use Alt+q to move the cursor to the search field. No need to use the mouse!

Note that in Firefox 2.0 to use the access keys, you need to use Alt + Shift + shortcut key.

Fig 12 - The Quick Search form (normal state)

Advanced Search

Currently, the Advance Search Interface offers you a number of more advanced features, in particular: Search simultaneously more than one document, and Restrict your search by some document-specific criteria.

To search several documents at once, you can use Shift and Ctrl buttons to select a range of sequential or interspersed documents (see Figures 13 and 14).

Fig 13 - Advanced Search Interface - Sequential documents selected using the Shift key

Fig 14 - Advanced Search Interface - Non-sequential document selected using the Ctrl key

Fig 15 - Advanced Search Interface - Documents of the same "family" selected; document restrictions remain active (compare with previous figures)

You may choose not to search the complete body of a document, but to restrict your search to a certain structural type, such as "tables", "titles" or "rule requirements". This may help you to blend out results you're not interested in. See Figure 15, the second yellow arrow points to the dropdown menu where you can choose from a number of possible restrictions.

Note: The choice of items depends on the type of document selected (obviously, a rule requirement will not be available in an IMO publication). Also, if you select more than one document to search, and they are not 'compatible' in the sense that they belong to the same 'family' of publications, the menu will be disabled, grayed out.

Search Results

Fig 16 - Search Results

When you click the go button, it will take a while to display the results in the main contents area on the right-hand side of the screen. This is particularly long for the very first query, but once it has finished, you will see a screen like the shown in Figure 16. At the top of the screen you can see a tab labeled Steelships (101). This indicates that for the publication "Steelships" (i.e. the Rules for the Classification of Steel Ships), 101 matches have been found.

Underneath this tab, the white horizontal area is used to show data about the search, such as the search expression ("bulk carrier" in the figure shown), there are no "restrictions" (see the next help topic, Advanced Search, for more information), the time it took to execute this query, and the "navigator" to be used to go from one page with results to the next.

The search results are displayed in a list form (reminiscent of today's modern search engines). Each match is shown in some context to make it easier for the user to decide whether the hit is interesting or not. This "Keyword in Context" box is clickable and will transport you to the place in the publication where it occurs. The yellow arrow in the figure highlights this fact.

If the number of search results is too large, the results are paged, use the « previous results and next results » buttons to move forward and backward inside the result set.

Fig 17 - Publications box and Toc box reflect the search results

Apart from the list of search results shown in the main contents area, the publications box and the Table of Contents box also reflect the search results by displaying next to each node the number of matches contained inside (see Figure 17). This will also work when you change to type of the Table of Contents to List of Tables or Figures. Also, when you change the publication, your search will be remembered.

Another change is that in Browse mode the menu will have two additional buttons, « previous hit and next hit ». Clicking these buttons will take you directly to the Rule Requirement (or similar unit) that contains the match. Sometimes, when your screen is relatively small, and the match appears toward the end of the Rule Requirement that some scrolling is still required.

If you want to clear up everything, you can simply click the clear query button in the Quicksearch Interface, and everything will be cleaned up.

Search Expressions

You can use a number of search expression to make your search more specific. Just a couple of examples (a more exhaustive list will be forthcoming):

Print and PDF

Print PDF (where available)

Fig 18a - The PDF icon indicates this section is available as a PDF

For Bureau Veritas publications, and the official Rules for the Classification of Steel Ships in particular, PDF equivalents are available. They are accessible through icons next to the begin of each Section or Appendix (see figure 18a).

Problems

Sometimes, when you want to view the current publication, eRules displays the previous publication.

The problem comes from the browser's cache of Internet Explorer or Firefox.

You can avoid it by cleaning the cache. Please refer to the following instructions:

Internet Explorer:

1. Click Tools on the Menu bar and then choose Internet Options. The Internet Options dialog box appears.
2. Click the General tab.
3. Click the Delete Temporary Files button in the Temporary Internet Files section. The Delete Files dialog box appears.
4. Click OK in the Delete Files dialog box.
5. Click OK in the Internet Options dialog box.

1. Go to Tools located on the Navigation Bar.
2. Select Clear Private Data... Ctrl+Shift+Del.
3. We are just clearing the cache so uncheck all option except Cache.
4. Click Clear private Data Now.