Capturing with a mask

A capture mask is a page of input widgets. You enter what happened and press save; that becomes a record.

How a mask is built

Three terms carry everything:

• Save button — writes the record. It names the record tag it appends to. A mask without one cannot be submitted.
• Input — says which save button it belongs to and which data field it fills. That pairing is set explicitly and never guessed.
• Data field — comes from the data model. The datatype lives there; a mask cannot override it.

A mask may carry several save buttons. Each produces its own record, and required fields apply per save button — not per mask.

The widgets

Widget	What it is for
Input field	one data field. The input follows its datatype
Selection	a text field with a list of suggestions — line, station, shift
Long text	a multi-line field for observations
Row group	several rows per entry: one per defect, per measurement, per sample. All rows are saved in one go
Stopwatch	measures cycle and downtime on the device, with Start/Stop and Lap as equally large buttons; the measured runs are saved together. Stopwatch types with categories and downtime reasons are available on the stopwatch of a board
Calculated field	a number computed from the fields of this mask. It is shown, never captured
Text	a heading over the fields below it, or a sentence of explanation
Save button	writes the record

While setting one up

In Edit mode widgets can be dragged and resized at their bottom right corner; inputs are inactive meanwhile.

Every change is saved as you make it — adding, configuring, moving or removing a widget takes effect at once; there is no separate save step. Done only leaves edit mode; it confirms nothing, because nothing is waiting. Undo changes undoes the changes made since you opened the editor: the widgets, their settings and their arrangement on the mask you are on go back to that state. It touches only the mask you are on — creating, renaming or deleting a mask is its own action and “Undo changes” leaves it alone.

Settings worth knowing:

• Keep the value after saving — for fields that stay the same across entries: shift, line, station. They are not cleared when a record is saved.
• Suggestions from a tag — the list (the shift models, say) is maintained in one place instead of in every mask. It is read when the mask is opened and kept on the device, so it is there without a connection too.
• Free text — switched off, only entries of the list are accepted. Two spellings of the same thing take every evaluation apart.
• Parent field — narrows the list to the rows belonging to the value selected there: the stations under the selected line.
• Value column — for a list from a tag: the column whose value is stored, a code for instance, while people read the label column. Two entries with the same label but different codes both stay in the list; such a label shows its code in brackets so the two can be told apart. Empty: the label itself is stored.
• Preselect the first entry — until somebody picks, the first entry of the list is chosen; sort the query so the likeliest one comes first. A pick made by hand stays.
• After a record was saved, every list on the mask is read again - a new entry that the save itself produced (the next order, say) is offered at once.
• Scan — puts a scan button next to the input, for a barcode or a QR code. A pattern can cut the wanted piece out of the scanned code.
• Suggestion from formula — fills the field with a computed proposal that can still be overwritten.

“This mask cannot be submitted yet”

Before anybody stands in front of it with gloves on, the mask checks itself and names what is missing: no save button, a save button without a tag, an input without a save button or without a data field, a data field that no longer exists, a required field not placed, a field placed twice, more than one row group on one save button.

Without a connection

If the connection drops, entries are kept on the device and sent later. The mask says so, and the number of waiting entries is shown with a Send now button beside it.

Two things matter here:

• The time stamped is the time of saving, not the time of sending. An entry that goes out hours later still lands in the right shift and the right key-figure window.
• Space on the device is finite. When it is full the mask says so (“This device has no room left”) instead of reporting an entry as saved that is not there. Send the waiting entries first.

Photos are kept together with the entry and uploaded first when it is sent.

Capture as an app of its own

Capture can be reached under a path of its own in the browser and installed on a phone as an app — without the desktop frame. That path exists only while the capture package is installed and switched on.

On a phone-sized window

A mask opened inside the full program (not the app of its own) now gets the same single-column layout on a narrow window — a phone, or the phone app this product also ships as. Fields stack top to bottom in the order they are meant to be filled, and the save button stays reachable at the bottom of the screen while the fields above it scroll. Building or rearranging a mask still wants a wider screen; Edit works the same as before once the window is.

In your language

A mask’s labels — its name, the heading over a group and the text above every input — are your own words, not TrakState’s. They follow the language picker at the top right as soon as somebody has entered the matching words under Settings → Translations. Without an entry the text stays exactly as it was typed.

The options of a choice list are not translated: what you pick there is what gets stored, so a translated option would write a different value into your records.

The one exception is an option you mark with $t: — typed into the list or delivered by the tag, say $t:Early shift. It is shown in the operator’s language (in a repeat group’s listed column too), but what gets stored is still the original, $t:Early shift. The word itself is entered under Add a word by hand — see Translating your own words.