3.4.1. Manage Elements

Change and manage Elements

Once the Mz3 book is filled with content, sooner or later there is a need for change.

Without help in analyzing the content of several configuration files it’s difficult to find answers on questions like these:

• Why is my image not visible?
• Why are two images displayed at the same time?
• Why do I not see pages in the other language?
• Why does the link not work?
  

These and similar questions and tasks can be answered in most cases with the tools this window is offering..

Overview

Table View

This table shows all the elements according to the set “filter criteria”. In the above example, only the elements of the currently open page are displayed.
This is very helpful if you need information about the elements of a selected page.

Select other Pages

You can change the page, and the overview is immediately rebuilt and shows the elements of the new page.

Sort

A click in the header of a column sorts the corresponding column. Another click reverses the sort order.

Select a row*

A click in a cell of the table shows all control options that are supported for the respective element (change language, change priority, pop-up menu / commands options).

Via the button Select all elements all elements can be selected. A next click toggles the selection, i.e. all elements become unselected.

Filter

• Pages: List elements of the current or all pages
• Type: Show only items of the selected ELement type
• Language: Only elements of a selected language, without language specification (used for all languages) or everything

Overview

This field provides general information:

• Languages used
• Total number of collected elements
• total count by element (images, page images, audio, links)
• Number of currently displayed/filtered elements
• Number of selected elements
  

CleanUp

Tidying up … If unused elements are detected, this button appears and with a click on this button, a summary is shown with the option to clean (delete) all unused elements, or only elements of selected types. This helps saving disk space.

Re-Assign Language

In case of a multilingual Mz3 book, the language assignment for each item can be changed.
In this example, “de” is set, i.e. an element only is shown if “de” is selected as the language.

If this assignment is not correct, the preferred different setting can be selected from a drop-down list.

Options;

• “* en *”: change the assignment to “en” instead of the current setting with “de” as the language
• “* – *”: Do not assign a language instead of “de”.
  The item will then be displayed in all books; regardless of the language you have set.
  

Change Priority

Each element type has a priority that determines the order in which overlapping elements are displayed.
The default priorities per element type are:

• Prio 05 – Page Images (Page Images, Page Background Image)
  lowest priority: Page Images are always in the background among all other elements
• Prio 10 – video element
  low priority; Pictures and links are over video elements
• Prio 15 – Image Element
  High priority: Pictures are over videos and the page background, but links are above pictures
• Prio 20 – Link / Area Element
  highest priority (except sound element, which is not visible and can not hide elements)
  Links lay on top of all other elements

In addition, the time when elements are added to pages defines the order in which elements of the same priority are stacked. Newly added elements are placed on top of elements of the same priority that were added earlier.

This is the natural order of the elements on pages. In most cases, this is in line with expectations.
Only if e.g. an image element should be covered by a video element or the order of the image elements should be changed, this can be achieved in manually adjusting the priority.
If the priority of a selected element is increased and set to a higher value than the priority of the element that actually covers the element. the stack order is changed and adjusted to the new priorities.

Commands

If one or more elements have been selected, the “Command” button is activated.
Clicking this button opens a pop-up window with a selection menu.

These menu items can be used to edit the selected elements.
This pop-up menu also opens with a right-click in a row of the table: The row/element is selected and the pop-up menu opens

The following options are available in the PopUp Menu:

• Copy element
  The element is copied and marked as selected in the preview area.
  It can be positioned as usual, added on a different page and scaled.
  When the element is saved, it is saved as an additional element on the selected page and position in the set size.
  The selected element remains unchanged an remains at the old position.
• Move / Modify
  Similar to the Copy menu item, a copy of the selected element is first created and the copied element then can be repositioned and scaled. Only after the element was saved, the old element was copied is deleted.
  This acts as a move: The element disappears at the old position and reappears at the new position.
  This procedure can be aborted, and the original element remains in place.
• Add New Element
  The “Add Element” window opens. The element type corresponds to the element type of the selected element.
  Alternatively the menu item Commands - Add Element To Pages - Add xxx (element type of the selected element) can be used.
• Delete selected Elements
  The selected elements are deleted (if more than 1 element is selected, a security prompt has to be confirmed).
  This does not delete the element itself; just the reference in the configuration file!
  If this element is not used on another page, it can be eventually deleted using the “CleanUp” option.
• Load Settings
  
  Loads the parameter settings of the current element. The respective Settings Window is opened and the parameters can be checked and adjusted. The parameters then can be assigned to other elements (of the same type).
  With this a transfer/copy and adjustment of element settings is possible.
  

• Assign Settings *
  This is the counterpart to the Load Settings command: The actual parameters (probably loaded from another element) can be assigned to the selected element (i.e. to another element).
• Clean Unused Elements
  This command is an alternative to the CleanUp button (see above).
• Close
  The pop-up window is closed. The command has the same effect as closing the window with the “X” at the top right of the window (in case of WIndows) or the red button at the top left in a MAC OSx window.

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