User Guide to the APW Digital Edition

Technical User Information

Screen Layout

The screen is divided into four areas. Along the top, there is a horizontal menu bar; underneath that, the navigation pane is on the left-hand side; the text pane is in the middle; and after choosing one volume or doing a search query, the filter/document pane runs down the right-hand side. The navigation pane allows access to the APW volumes through the hierarchical structure of the edition (series, sections, volumes). The text pane shows either the search results or the document view. The document view displays the volume that contains the selected document as well as the document’s heading. There are navigation buttons (the single arrow allows you to navigate through the document) as well as buttons to call up an XML version of the document or scans and PDF downloads of the print version. Annotations and comments in the text are marked by a question mark symbol and are shown as pop-ups when you mouse over them. The pop-ups remain open on the left edge of the screen if you click on the symbol; to close them, either click again on the symbol or click on the “X” in the upper right-hand corner of the pop-up window. At each page break, a link to the image file of that page can be found. The filter pane/document pane contains a list of all the documents and texts of the respective volume when in document view mode.

Search Function

The search view has a text input field for search terms and an area listing the search results. When in search view, the filter pane/document pane allows the search results to be further filtered by volume (short title), year, type of document, or by place of issue. The results listing is sorted by relevance and instances of the search term are highlighted in an excerpt of their surrounding text. The syntax of the search query allows the use of the Boolean operators AND, OR and NOT. The "?" and "*" symbols replace one or more characters in the search, respectively. They can be used at the beginning of a word (left truncation), at the end of a word (right truncation) and in the middle of words. The search is not case-sensitive. A fuzzy string search, which also searches for related terms, can be performed by selecting the check box beside the search field. Boolean operators cannot be employed in a fuzzy string search.

Chronological Access

The Calendar option in the menu bar enables chronological access to the documents in the APW. You can select a year on the left-hand side of the screen. When you click on a date, a calendar view shows a list of all the documents that are dated on that day. You can directly access the individual documents through this list.

Events

On the left-hand side of the Events page, the scope of the chronological overview can be selected. You can also choose to display the overview as either a linear list of events or an interactive timeline, and filter the events by year and topic. In interactive mode, you can scroll along the timeline at the bottom of the screen with your mouse. Clicking on a date that is entered on the timeline brings up a description of that date’s events. The dates above the event header are for the purpose of keeping the events in order. Events lasting a longer period of time are ordered by the first day of that time period.

Concise Biographies (Biograms)

You can select individual people through the alphabetical list on the left side of the screen to bring up their biograms. In the biogram pane, clicking on a name or a variation thereof initiates a search of this character string. Clicking on the Integrated Authority File number (GND number) calls up the respective record at the German National Library.

Interactive Map

The map, including place names and any additional information, was automatically generated based on the index entries of the APW volumes. Only volumes whose indexes contained place names were included. To the left of the map, either the normal map or a map of Alsace in 1576 (which was published in volume APW II B 3/2) can be selected as layers. Below this, places can be filtered by volume or selected by name from an alphabetical list. In the upper left-hand corner of the map, there are arrows for panning around the map, and plus and minus buttons for zooming in and out. Mousing over a place marker on the map brings up a tooltip with the name of the place. Clicking on the marker brings up a pop-up with spelling variants of the place name as well as any additional info. Clicking on the short title of the APW volume brings up a list of the documents in that particular volume to the right of the map. To close the pop-up, click elsewhere on the map.