New
When you want to setup a new trial select 'New' menu item or press Control+N. The start setting up the trial. At least following data must be entered to complete the initial setup of the trial: trial title, trial description, at least two groups, at least one variable with at least two levels. Other values have a default setting which are selected when you start a new trial setup. After entering the above mentioned values, you have to save the trial setting to make it ready for subject assignment (See the Save menu item). When you select the 'New' from file menu if you were at the setting phase of the trial you may be prompted for confirming. If you are working on a saved trial, no prompt will appear. Therefore if you have changed the title, description or properties of a saved trial please hit Control+S to save the changes.
Open
To open a previously defined and saved trial select 'Open' from the file menu or press Control+O. A dialog will show the files and folders of your computer. Go to the location where the file is saved and select it. The click open to open the saved trial. Then you can continue working with the trial, that is allocation new subject. Depending on the program preferences (see Preferences), when you start the program, the last saved trial will be opend automatically. When you select the 'Open' from file menu if you were at the setting phase of the trial you may be prompted for confirming. If you are working on a saved trial, no prompt will appear. Therefore if you have changed the title, description or properties of a saved trial please hit Control+S to save the changes.
Save
After you have defined necessary aspect of a new trial, you have to save it before you can assign subject to it. To save a trial setting, select 'Save' from file menu or press COntrol+S. A dialog will appear asking for your confimation. Click yes to confirm or no to cancel saving and continuing trial set up. In addition there is another button with label 'Trial Details'. Click this button to see the details of trial setting in a separate window. After clicking Yes you will be prompted for the location and name of the file. Go to the location where you want to save your trial file and provide and name for it. The click the save button to save it. If this is a network trial you may be prompted for a username and password for the network repository (its url has been entered previously). Please note that in the case of the network trials, the file that you are saving on your computer is an information file for finding the real data file on the network. Actual dat file is located in the network repository at the url you have specified in trial setup. If other computer and user want to use this network trial you have to send them this trial info file which is saved on your computer. You can send them this file by email or you can hand them. Other user must have their own username and password to be able to access the trial on the repository. Depending on the propran preferences (See Preferences) the program has the ability to cash the username and password, and therefore it is not necessary for subsequent work on the trial located on the same repository. After saving a trial, the settings are locked and you are no longer able to change trial settings, other than trial title, trial description and trial properties. For example you can not change the groups or variables after saving a trial. Please remember that whenever you changed the trial title, description and properties, select 'Save' from the file menu or hit Control+S to make changes saved. After saving trial setting, you can start assigning subject to the trial. To unlock a trial and restart the trial setup firstly the subject list must be empty (delete all subjects) and then click the delete button for another time to unlock the trial. Of course you have to save again after restarting the trial set up, before you can allocating subject to trial. Please note that there is no need to save the trial after assignment of each subject to the trial. That is the changes automatically will be saved after allocation of a new case or deletion or any other operation on the allocated subjects.
Refresh
There is no real indication for using this Menu item. In network trial you may like to refresh the list of subject. To do this click the Refresh button in Allocation tab or select Refresh menu item from the file menu. Please note that before or after allocation a new subject there is no need to refresh the subject list. The program will automatically refreshes the list before any changes applied to it. Another time where you may need to refresh the list is after an error occured in the trial operations. For example when you are allocating a subject to a network trial and some error occured due to network connectivity, the displayed list may need to be refreshed. An alternative to the refresh is to restart the program.
Quit
Select 'Quit' from the file menu or hit Control+Q to exit the program. If you were at the setting phase of the trial you may be prompted for confirming exit. If you are working on a saved trial, no prompt will appear. Therefore if you have changed the title, description or properties of a saved trial please hit Control+S to save the changes.