Signing Up
There are 2 ways to login to Clowder. Through a third party application or a local account.
Signing Up with a Third Party App
The first one is to use a third-party network, like google, crowd, facebook, twitter, linkedin. They are enabled in some instances on Clowder, and you can ask your Clowder administrator to enable them if they are not.
You need to go to your clowder instance, for example: https://clowder-dev.ncsa.illinois.edu/clowder
If you want to login using this method, you can click on the Login button in the top-left corner as marked by a green square on Figure 1.
After that, you can click on the icon of the third party app you want to login with. I will use google as an example, but the process is similar for all the 3rd party libraries.
After clicking on the Google link, it will ask you to login for your google account, and on the first time it will ask you for permissions to get your name and email from the google account.
After you click on the Allow button, you will be redirected to the Terms of Service page. Which you must accept before getting access to Clowder.
After accepting the terms of service, you will be redirected to the Clowder Home Page.
Signing up through a Local Account
Click on the highlighted link in blue in your Clowder instance (https://clowder-dev.ncsa.illinois.edu/clowder)
It will ask you for your email
After you input your email and click on create an account, you will receive an email with instructions to continue the signup process
After clicking on the link you will get redirected to the sign up page
After input your information, and desired password you can login with your email and password used in the step above
And you can login to Clowder
Note: Some instances require users to be approved before being able to use clowder.
Spaces
A space is a group of collections, data sets, and files with defined user access rights. Spaces are used to share data within datasets and collections with other users. There are different permissions assigned to each role. The 3 most common roles are Admins, Editors, and Viewers. In summary, a viewer can only see the datasets, files and collections within a space. An editor, besides the view privileges can add new datasets and collections to the space, as well as remove them, it can also edit the datasets and collections within the space. An admin can do what an editor does and also edit the space itself, invite and remove people from the space, edit the extractor available. Note: Roles are customizable there is a section below about permissions and roles.
Creating a Space
You can create a space from your home page, by clicking on the button in the blue box below
Or using the create dialog in the top navigation. Click on the Create dropdown in the top navigation (in blue on the image below) And then select Spaces (in green in the image below)
Or within the space list page. Click on the Create button in the top right of the page. (The list spaces page is accessed by clicking on Explore > Spaces)
After starting the create process by either of the 3 methods above you can start creating your space by filling up the information in the next figure (The only required field is the name).
You click on the create button at the end of the page and are then redirected to the space page.
Editing a Space
You can edit the name, description, external links, logo and banner for your space at any time. To do so, click on the Edit Space button highlighted in blue in the figure
Then you can edit the values and click on the update button in the bottom.
Inviting Users and Adding users to a Space
When you want to invite users to collaborate in your space, you can invite them by email if they don't have an account on Clowder, and if they have an account on Clowder you can add them to your space.
In order to do so, in the space page click on the Manage Users button in the right column, as marked by the blue box in the next figure.
After clicking on the link above, the screen below shows up. You can click on either of the 3 roles select fields, and when you do so, the list of all the members of clowder not in the space show up. You can select them. And after selecting all the people you want in the different roles you click on the submit button at the end of the page. In this page, you can also remove current members, there is an x next to each current member of the space. When you click on the x, the member is removed from the space (no need to click on submit).
To invite people by email, click on the Invite shown in a blue box in the image below.
You can fill up the emails for the users you want to invite, select the role and an optional message. The people you invite will get a link to register to clowder and will get added to your space once they join clowder. The current invites you have out for people show up in the right with the roles they were invited as.
Requesting and Granting Access to a Space
If there is a space that you would like to participate in, but you are not a part of, you can request access to it. In the space page you click on the button pointed by the green arrows in the image below.
When you submit your request, the admins of the space will get an email and can then accept you to the space.
To accept people that have requested access to one of your spaces. You first go to the space and then click on the Manage Users (as when inviting people above)
List of All Spaces
To access a list of all the spaces, you click on the explore button in the top navigation (in blue in the next screenshot). And then click on the spaces button (in green in the next screenshot). The list of all available spaces in the space will be displayed.
Deleting a Space
A space can be deleted within the list of spaces or inside the space itself. If you are also the creator of the space you can delete it from your home page.
To delete a space from the list of the space. Go to the list of spaces, as indicated above, click on the explore dropdown in the top navigation, then select spaces. If you have the right permissions to delete the space the delete button will be enabled. In the screenshot below the delete button is shown in a blue box for the 2nd space.
You can click on a space within the list of spaces, or the home page and when you are on the space itself, you can click on the delete button indicated by a blue box surrounding it in the next picture
If you are the creator of the space you want to delete, you can go to the home page, click on the my spaces tab and delete like in the first scenario. The spaces tab is highlighted in blue in the next picture and the delete button in green.
Datasets
Creating Datasets
Datasets can be created from the home page, the dataset list page, the top navigation, within a space and within a collection
To create a dataset from the home page select the Create Dataset button displayed in a blue box in the next figure.
To use the create dialog in the top navigation. First click in the green dropdown button shown in blue in the next figure, and then select Datasets in green in the next figure.
To create within the dataset list page. Click on the Create button in the top right of the page. (The list datasets page is accessed by clicking on Explore > Datasets)
To create a dataset within a space. Go into a space page and selected the Create dataset button displayed in a blue box in the next picture.
To Create a dataset within a collection. Go into a collection page and select the create button displayed in a blue box in the next picture.
After selecting either of the above methods to create a dataset. The picture below shows up to create the dataset. The dataset only requires a name. You can optionally select a space you want to share the dataset with. If you start the creating process within a space. The space will be preselected, and can be changed or removed. To Create the dataset click on the create button in the bottom of the page
The create dataset is a 2 step process. After adding a name, you can add files to the dataset. This can be done by dragging files to the interface and then selecting the Upload button (pointed by the blue arrow). Or you can click on the Select files button (pointed by the green arrow) which opens a navigation page within your system to select the files you want to upload, and then clicking the upload button.
Adding Files
You can also add files after creating a dataset. Just click on the Add Files button displayed in the picture below within a blue box.
After that a page similar to the 2nd step of creating a dataset is presented. You can drag files or use the 'Select Files' button to look for files in your machine. After that click on the Upload button to upload your files. You can go back to the space page by clicking the left arrow next to the title. The dataset link with the dataset name below the title or in the breadcrumbs. The three ways for going back to the dataset are surrounded by blue boxes in the image below.
Collections
- About Permissions
- About the Home Page
- Spaces
Creating- List
EditingDeleting- I
nviting Users - Requesting Access
- Datasets
- Creating
- Adding Files
- Creating Folders
- Moving Files
- Adding to a space
- Moving from a space
- Copying to a space
- Adding Metadata
- Collections
- Creating
- Adding datasets
- Creating Child Collections
- About Extractors