Navigation in AtoM¶

Add¶

The Add menu’s options will redirect users to blank records in edit mode, ready for data entry. Using the Add menu, users can quickly create new accession records, archival descriptions, archival institutions, authority records, functions, and terms.

All records are created independently of other records, and will not be a part of a pre-existing hierarchy - that is to say, they will be top-level records.

Find more information on working with:

• Accession records
• Archival descriptions
• Archival institutions
• Authority records
• Functions
• Terms

Manage¶

The Manage menu allows authenticated (i.e. logged in) users to quickly access browse lists for key entity types in AtoM - accessions, donors, physical storage, rights holders, and taxonomies. When selecting from the Manage menu’s drop-down, the user is redirected to a browse page for the selected entity or record type. Users can also access the Jobs page for managing asynchronous jobs run in the background - for more information, see: Manage jobs

The Manage menu is distinct from the Browse menu (available next to the search box in the header bar), in that it offers users direct access to browse pages that are not available to unauthenticated (i.e. not logged in) users - public users who are not logged in cannot view accessions, donor records, physical storage locations, rights records, or access the full taxonomies list and the jobs page.

Find more information on working with:

• Accession records
• Donors
• Physical storage
• Rights
• Taxonomy terms
• Jobs

Import¶

The import menu allows authenticated (i.e. logged in) users with sufficient access privileges to import records into the application. By default, only administrators have access to the import menu - however, administrators can also change user and group permissions (see: Edit permissions and Manage user accounts and user groups).

Two options are offered in the dropdown menu - XML (short for eXtensible Markup Language) and CSV (short for Comma-Separated Values). Selecting one of the options from the Import drop-down menu will redirect the user to an import page specific to the format chosen. Using these options, an administrator can import descriptions and terms into AtoM.

Find more information on:

• Importing descriptions and terms

Admin¶

The admin menu allows users with administrator access to customize AtoM to meet institution-specific requirements and to manage user accounts, user profiles and access privileges. An administrator can also create and manage static pages, alter application menus, change the visibility of elements in the header bar, and change other application default settings.

By default, the admin menu is only visible to users with administrator privileges. However, an administrator can also change user and group permissions (access privileges) via the Admin menu.

For more information working with Admin menu options, see: Administer

• Manage user accounts
• Manage digital object storage
• Edit user permissions
• Manage static pages
• Manage menus
• Manage plugins
• Themes and theming
• Settings
• Default language
• Site logo
• Search for updates
• Visible elements

Back to top

Title bar¶

The title bar is a contextual element that appears throughout AtoM on various different page types, offering the user an indication of the type of page, and/or the name of the record, currently being viewed.

On a view or edit page, the title bar displays the name (title) of the current entity. The title bar appears at the top of core entity records in AtoM, including archival descriptions, authority records, archival institutions, functions, and terms (such as subjects and places), as well as at the top of physical storage locations. On archival descriptions, the title bar also displays the level of description of the displayed description.

On Donor and accession records, the title bar displays a message indicating whether the record is in view or edit mode, with the record’s name/title display below (as a sub-title).

On Browse and Search pages, the title bar displays the number of results returned for the current query. Elsewhere in the application, the title bar gives context to the user about the page type currently being viewed.

Text links¶

Blue text always represents a link to a related entity (for example, from an archival description to the authority record of the record’s creator). When you hover your cursor over a link, the text darkens in color. Text links behave similarly to internet hyperlinks, and can be used as navigational elements: clicking on a text link will cause AtoM to redirect a user to the related record referenced in the text of the text link.

Context menu¶

The context menu appears on all view and some edit pages to provide greater contextual information about the record currently being viewed.

AtoM’s view and edit pages are generally displayed in the user interface in either a 2 or 3 column layout - the current record’s display data is presented in the central part of the page, while the side column(s) are generally used to provide additional options and further contextual information to enhance user orientation and navigation.

Context menu (on left and right sides) on an archival description

On archival description view pages, this includes the name and/or logo of the archival institution or repository who holds the archival unit the current record describes, and the treeview, which shows the current record’s relationships to other records, with links, on the left-hand side of the screen. The right-hand side of the screen includes links to related people and organizations (i.e., authority records), subjects, and places, as well as available formats for export and printing. Links in the right-hand column of the context menu are drawn from

When viewing an authority record for a person, family, or corporate body, the left-hand side of the screen will show any relationships with archival descriptions, where the agent (the person, family, or corporate body described in the authority record) is linked as either a creator (or as an agent in any other event), or when added as a name access point. The right-hand column of the page includes available export formats.

When viewing an ISDIAH record for an archival institution, the context menu displays the institution’s logo and a list of holdings on the left-hand side, with contact information for the repository provided on the right-hand side of the record. The contact information is drawn from the information added to the “Contact” area of the archival institution record.

On Browse and Search pages, the context menu includes facet filters that allow the user to iteratively narrow the results presented. If the browse page is for a term that can be organized hierarchically in a taxonomy (such as a place or subject term), a version of the treeview is also presented, showing users the terms position in the hierarchy as well as related “sibling” (i.e. on the same level) terms.

Find more information on using the Context menu:

• Context menu
• Treeview

Column headers¶

Name and Updated column headers in the Browse Rights holders page

Column headers appear at the top of the lists on list pages and some browse results (e.g., subject and place browse pages), and give the name of the field for whatever is being listed below. On some pages, the column headers include a caret icon next to the column header field name - when pressed, these icons will reverse the sort order of the data in the list based on that column (i.e., changing from A-Z to Z-A, or from most recently updated first to oldest update first).

Column headers appear wherever display data on a page has been organized into a table, and are used extensively throughout the pages available in the Admin menu.

Information areas¶

The Identity and Context Areas in an ISAD(G) archival description

Information areas appear on view and edit pages of any standards-based description template in AtoM, and group related fields based on the organization of elements of description in ICA or other supported descriptive standards. They are comprised of a number of fields in the body of the information area, and an area header, whose name is drawn from the related area or section of the standard upon which the descriptive template is based.

By default, when no data has been entered into a field in an information area’s edit template, the field is not displayed when in view mode. Consequently, the size (length on a page) of an information area will depend on the amount of data that has been entered (or imported) by a user.

Clicking on the area header of an information area toggles it between closed (all fields in that area hidden) and open (all fields visible) when in edit mode; in view mode, clicking on an area header will result in opening the related information area in edit mode (if the user is logged in and has sufficient access privileges to edit a record.)

For more information, on supported standards, see:

• Descriptive standards
• Data entry / templates

Carousel¶

The carousel shows sets of thumbnails of digital objects associated with archival descriptions and allows the user to scroll through the thumbnails using a mouse or keyboard scroll arrows. It is similar to the cover flow used in “the Macintosh Finder and other Apple Inc. products for visually flipping through snapshots of documents, website bookmarks, album artwork, or photographs.”

An example of the carousel with the “Show all” button visible

In AtoM a carousel viewer appears at the top of archival descriptions (but below the title bar)whenever there are associated lower-level descriptions that have digital objects attached. The carousel includes:

• Thumbnails of lower-level digital objects
• The title of the description to which the digital object is attached (titles are truncated with an … ellipsis after 25 characters)
• A draggable slider bar (for navigating with touch or using a mouse - right and left arrow keys can also be used for keyboard navigation)
• If the lower-levels of description include more than 10 digital objects, a count of all digital objects at lower levels, and a button to view all in a browse page.

The carousel is intended as a navigational element, and is not optimized for viewing or browsing all related digital objects. Using the carousel, a user can quickly browse the first 10 results - clicking on a thumbnail will load the related lower level of description (child record), where a larger version of the image and its description can be viewed. By default, whenever there are more than 10 digital objects at lower levels, only the first 10 will be displayed; a total count of related digital objects, with a button to “View all” digital objects in a tile-based digital object browse page appears to indicate to the user that there are more digital objects than those displayed, and providing an option to view them all.

Using the carousel

• Drag the slider left/right to scroll through the thumbnails
  • If no slider appears, this means there is only one digital object at a lower level of description.
  • You can also use your keyboard right and left arrows to scroll
• Click on a thumbnail to view its archival description and a larger version of the digital object that the thumbnail depicts
• If there are more than 10 digital objects, click the “Show all” button to view them all in a tile-based browse page. Click on a thumbnail in the browse page to navigate to the related archival description and a larger version of the digital object that the thumbnail depicts.

Facet filters¶

In information science, a facet is a clearly defined component (based on a particular concept group, characteristic or aspect) of a class or subject. Facets are used in a system of faceted classification, which “allows the assignment of an object to multiple characteristics (attributes), enabling the classification to be ordered in multiple ways, rather than in a single, predetermined, taxonomic order.” (Wikipedia).

Facets are made up of clearly defined, often mutually exclusive categories drawn from the properties of a group of information elements. When applied as filters, facets allow a user to access and order query (search or browse) results in multiple ways dynamically. Faceted searching and browsing has become popular in both library catalogues and e-commerce websites (such as Etsy, Amazon, Walmart, etc) to help users narrow down results to specific categories - for example, a music website might categorize its music by adding an artist facet, a genre facet, a price-range facet, and so forth. Users can then click on a particular sub-class to narrow the results displayed to only those that match the selected facet - choosing “Virginia Woolf” from an author’s facet in an online library catalogue would display only books where Virginia Woolf was listed as the author.

Facet filters available on an archival description browse page

In AtoM, facet filters are available to users on search and browse pages as a means of grouping and narrowing results by a common characteristic. They are drawn from available fields within the entity or record type being browsed or searched. A count of the records included in each facet appears next to the facet label, giving users a sense of how many search/browse results fall under each facet result.

Facet filters in AtoM are configured so that each facet displays its results with the highest number of matches at the top. Currently, AtoM will only display a maximum of the top ten matched results in each facet. Facets are displayed in the user interface as drop-down menus; each facet can be expanded to view its available results/matches, or collapsed to hide match results, by clicking on the facet title - facet titles are highlighted in dark grey when opened in AtoM’s Dominion theme.

Available facet results appear below each facet heading as blue text links. When clicked by a user, the search/browse results on the page will reload, filtered to show only results that match the facet filter selected - for example, selecting “Series” in the Level of description facet on an archival description search/browse page will reload the page results to display only series-level descriptions; clicking “Ontario” under the Places facet will reload the page to display only results that have a name access point of “Ontario” added to their descriptions.

When a facet match result has been selected, the text changes from a blue text link to black underlined text. By default, all facet filters are set to “All” when a user first arrives at a search/browse page (unless a user has arrived from a pre-filtered query - for example, clicking “Browse all holdings” in the context menu of an archival institution page will take the user to a browse page filtered to the holdings of that institution). the “All” filter will become a blue text link when another filter is engaged; clicking “All” will then remove the current facet filter and refresh the results page. When a filter is applied, all other facet results will be refreshed to reflect the current selection, presenting filter results that apply to the current results - for example, when “Ontario” has been applied as a place filter, the “Levels of description” facet results will now display results that apply only to the records being displayed (records with an “Ontario” place access point), until the previous facet filter is removed.

Button block¶

The button block with all options visible on an archival description

The button block allows authorized users to add, edit, delete, move, and duplicate content and to save or cancel changes made in the edit pages. It appears to authenticated (i.e. logged in) users with sufficient access privileges at the bottom of all descriptive template view and edit pages, including accessions (and deaccession records), archival descriptions, archival institutions, authority records, terms (such as places and subjects), functions, physical storage locations, donors, rights records, as well as on any other page or content type where a user might have to add, edit, or delete data (e.g. static pages, user and group permissions pages, etc). In short, the button block appears anywhere a user will need to perform actions (add, edit, delete, move, and/or duplicate) on user data and/or data entry templates in the application via the user interface.

The button block on an archival institution

The options available in the button block depend on the possible actions associated with an entity or record type. For example, the button block on an archival description’s view and edit pages includes a “More” button that does not appear in any other button block throughout the application - when clicked, further user options are revealed, including: Link physical storage, Link digital object, and Import digital objects (actions which only relate to archival descriptions).

Examples of buttons found in the button block throughout AtoM:

• Edit: Changes the current record from view mode to edit mode
• Delete: Deletes the current record (a confirmation is required first)
• Add new: Opens a blank record in edit mode. If you are viewing an archival description when you click “Add new”, the new record will be created as a child record of the current description - i.e., it will be added as a lower level of description.
• Duplicate: Only available on archival descriptions. Creates a duplicate of the current description and opens the duplicate in edit mode. This option exists to simplify the workflow for users working with many similar descriptions; by editing only what needs to be changed (title, identifier, etc.) a user can avoid unnecessarily repeating data entry - see: Duplicate an existing archival description
• Move: Only available on archival descriptions. Allows a user to move an archival description to a new parent record (or make it a top-level description) - see: Move an archival description
• Cancel: Aborts the current operation - no data entered is saved; the page will reload in view mode
• Create: Only appears when a new record is being created (when editing an existing record, the “Save” button will appear instead). Saves all user-entered data in the new record and reloads the page in view mode
• Save: Saves the current record when in edit mode. All additions and changes made by the user to the current record are saved; the page will reload in view mode.
• More: Only available on archival descriptions and accessions. Reveals several further options. On archival descriptions, these include: Rename, Update publications status, Link physical storage, Link digital object, Import digital objects, and Create new rights. See: Rename the title or slug of an archival description, Physical storage, and Upload and manage digital objects. If a digital object is already linked to the description, “Edit digital object” will be available instead of the link option - see: Edit digital objects. If rights have already been added to the description, the option to “Manage rights inheritance” will be available in addition to Create new rights - see: Manage rights inheritance. On accessions, the More menu includes the option to create new rights - see: Rights.
• Edit theme: Only available on archival institutions. Opens an edit page where an administrator can customize the theme of a repository by changing the background color, uploading a logo and/or banner, and adding custom descriptive content - see: Edit the theme for an existing archival institution

For more infomation on adding and editing content in AtoM, see:

• Add/edit content

Breadcrumb trail¶

A breadcrumb trail is a navigational element in a user interface that provides contextual information about the current location of a user in an application or document. Breadcrumb trails provide links back to each previous page the user navigated through to get to the current page or — in hierarchical site structures — the parent pages of the current one.

In AtoM, a breadcrumb trail is displayed to add contextual information and to facilitate navigation in several places:

• On archival descriptions, the breadcrumb trail is located at the top of record’s view page when viewing a child decription to provide information about where in the hierarchy the current description appears.

An example of a breadcrumb trail (below the title bar) on a lower-level archival description

• When moving archival descriptions (see: Move an archival description), a breadcrumb trail is used to indicate where in a hierarchy the Move browse results are currently showing.

An example of a description hierarchy expressed as a breadcrumb trail in the Move screen

• At the top of archival institution and authority record view pages, the breadcrumb trail is used to provide a link back to the Browse page for each kind of record.

An example of a breadcrumb trail (below the title bar) above an archival institution record

• Additionally, taxonomy terms (such as places and subjects) that are organized hierarchically will also display parent terms as a breadcrumb trail when added to an archival description - for example, if the subject term ‘Apple’ is a child of the term ‘Fruit’, then when ‘Apple’ is added as a subject access point to an archival description, it will be expressed as: Fruit >> Apple. These terms will be displayed in the “Access” information area of the related archival description, as well as in the context menu on the right-hand-side. (See: Terms for more information on working with taxonomy terms such as subjects and places in AtoM)

An example of a hierarchical place term expressed as a breadcrumb trail in the “Access points” area of an archival description

In AtoM, breadcrumbs (i.e. individual components of a breadcrumb trail) are expressed as hyperlinks, and can be clicked to navigate to the related source or parent record. Clicking a term such as a subject or place in an access point will bring a user to a Browse page listing results for other desriptions that have also been tagged with the same access point.

Sort buttons¶

An example of the sort buttons on an archival description browse page

The sort buttons (Sort by and Direction) are navigational tools that appear on some browse and search pages throughout AtoM. They allow a user to change the sort order of the results being displayed. Common values used in the Sort by button as it appears in AtoM include: Alphabetic, Relevance, Identifier, Reference code Most recent, or Start date and End date. The Direction sort button reverses the direction (ascending or descending) of items according to the Sort by option.

On search and/or browse pages, the Sort buttons appear as small drop-down menus at the top right of the results. Hovering over the buttons reveal the option(s) currently not selected - a user can click the desired option in the drop-down menu, and the page will reload in the new sort order.

When the sort order is set to “Alphabetic,”results are organized A-Z. Note that this is an ASCII sort - see the IMPORTANT note below for more information.

When results are ordered by “Most recent,” the most recently added and/or edited records in the results will appear at the top of the list, allowing users to discover new or recently updated content.

When the sort order is set to “Identifier,” results are displayed by the identifier, based on an alphabetic ASCII sort (more information on ASCII sort is included in the IMPORTANT note below).

When the sort order is set to “Reference code,” (on the archival description browse page) results are based on the full inherited reference code, and NOT on the individual identifiers of each record, regardless of whether or not reference code inheritance is turned on in Admin > Settings or not. For more information on reference codes vs. identifiers and display options, see: Inherit reference code (information object).

When the sort order is set to “Start date” or “End date” (currently only available on archival descriptions), AtoM will order the results by the internal, ISO-8601 formatted (e.g. YYYY-MM-DD) start date or end date values - not the display date shown to public users, which is a free text field allowing users to express approximation or uncertainty. Results without a start date value or end date value will appear last.

Important

Elasticsearch does not naturally apply alphabetic sort in a human-friendly way (what is often known as “natural sort” in computer science) - instead, it applies what is known as ASCII sort, based on the order of the characters in the ASCII character encoding scheme. Consequently, some results may appear out of order, depending on how the titles have been entered. Artefactual hopes to improve sorting in AtoM for future releases. In the meantime, below is an image of an ASCII table - sort order is determined based on this schema - so that a description whose title starts with “A” will be preceded by one starting with a number, which in turn will be preceded by one beginning with a quotation mark, which will be preceded by a description that begins with a space before its first character. If you are concerned about sort order, be sure to consider this when naming your records.

Sort buttons appear for the following records when on search, browse, or list pages:

• Accession
• Archival descriptions
• Archival institututions
• Authority records
• Donors
• Functions
• Rights holders
• Browse digital objects
• Clipboard results page
• Taxonomies

Sort buttons are customized for particular entities. For example, on the browse page for accessions, the sort button has been customized to offer sorting options specific to accession records, including:

• Accession number
• Most recent (created or updated)
• Title
• Acquisition date

Institution logos¶

Institution logos are theming elements that can be added by an administrator to an archival institution record. As part of the institutional theming module, an archival institution record can be customized by adding a logo, banner, custom background color, and/or customized descriptive content - see: Edit the theme for an existing archival institution. Some theming elements, such as a logo or a custom background color, will also be applied to any related archival descriptions, offering user a visual cue as to which institution holds the current description. When a logo has not been uploaded, a placeholder, which displays the institution name, will still appear on the institution record and any related archival descriptions.

In addition to providing a customized look and greater context when viewing related archival descriptions, the institutional logo also acts as a navigational element: the logo (or its placeholder if no logo has been uploaded) operates as a hyperlink to the related archival institution. This allows a user to quickly navigate to the institution’s record to find out its location, opening hours, etc. as well as to view a list of other holdings held by the archival institution.

On archival institution records and related archival descriptions, the institution logo appears on in the top-left hand corner of the page, in the context menu. On related archival descriptions, it is positioned above the treeview; on the archival institution record page, it is positioned above the list of related holdings.

An example of an institution logo on a related archival description

Additionally, institution logos are used on the archival institution browse page (available via the browse menu), the logos (or logo placeholders if no logo has been uploaded) are presented to the user in a tiled browse layout, with the title appearing below the logo in grey.

Institution logos on the Archival institution browse page. In the image, the Alberton Museum and the Alex Youck School Museum represent institutions without uploaded logos, showing placeholders instead.

For information on adding a logo to an archival institution, see:

• Add/edit a logo to an existing archival institution

Back to top