[ ] [] [ ]


FAQ


Contents

Questions and Answers

What's the default username and password?

A. It's username ``user'' with the password ``letmein''.

I get an error message saying FATAL: no pg_hba.conf entry for host "XXX.XXX.XXX.XXX"

A. When you started ASM for the first time, you selected option 5 for a sheltermanager.com hosted database when you don't have one (you have to buy one at http://www.sheltermanager.com). Open Windows Explorer and delete the .asm folder in Documents and Settings/YOURUSER. If you restart ASM now and select option 1 (new local database) ASM will start with a new local database.

Can I have a demo of the software?

A. No. This software is free - free as in gratis, free as in libre/freedom, you can download it, you can give it your friends, you can take the source and adapt it to your needs (as long as you give your changes back to the community). There is no demo. Just download the software and enjoy!

My shelter/site is very interested in your software! Can I have it please?

A. Yes, download it. People go to great lengths to email me this question and don't even bother looking at the website.

Can I phone you up and ask you some questions?

A. No. I donate my time and effort for free in making this software for you - I therefore don't do phone support. If you want to chat about ASM or ask specific questions, please direct them to the forums or mailling list. I get this question most from people in the US - please be aware that I'm in the UK and it would also cost you a lot of money.

.. please, I can't understand your website.

No offence, but if you're too lazy to learn, I'm too lazy to help you. Go find someone who knows a bit about computing and get them to help you (and read this site).

This is really free? Are you mad?

A. Yes and no, I'm not mad. I don't get anything for doing ASM and I devote my spare time to doing it. All I ask is that if you like and use the software you might consider donating something or helping out. I'll never make a living doing this, since by definition my userbase has no money, but even if you just give me enough to a buy a beer or a pizza by way of saying thank you, it would be much appreciated.

Help! How do I [something] (eg: change animal codes, create a diary note, etc.)

Read the ASM user manual ( http://sheltermanager.sf.net/help )

How can I brand reports for my shelter?

A. Reports in Animal Shelter Manager are generated as HTML for viewing by web browsers. The internal report viewer in Animal Shelter Manager is actually an HTML browser. When constructing reports, it uses a header file and a footer file to surround the report content. These two files, header.dat and footer.dat are located in the reports directory of your media server. They are both plain text HTML files which can be edited to change the style and content of reports. You may even use images and brand your reports with your company logo - ASM will automatically retrieve the image from your FTP server and integrate it into resulting reports for you.

You can access these files by going to System->Media Files, picking the reports directory, highlighting these files in turn and hitting the ``download'' button to save them to your hard disk. There, you can edit them and then use the ``upload'' button to reupload them back to the media server.

Use this same technique to edit the files under the templates directory accordingly for your shelter.

How do I back my data up?

A. If you are using ASM's local (HSQLDB) database, just copy all the files starting with ``localdb'' in Documents and Settings/[your user name]/.asm/ to another disk/CD/whatever. If you are using MySQL or PostgreSQL, see the manuals for those products.

How can I brand my published internet sites?

A. Internet publishing is handled in almost the same way as reports, except the files are located in the internet directory and called pih.dat (header) and pif.dat (footer). There is also an additional file located here called pib.dat. This represents the body of each animal entry in the published web pages and as well as changing the layout, you can also change the information shown by using the standard substitution strings used by the document publisher.

How can I create my own document templates?

A. Document templates are stored in your database. You can browse the tree of media files by going to the System menu, then picking ``Media Files''.

You can then download an existing template (from the template directory), change it and reupload or simply upload new templates.

Do I have to use the inbuilt report viewer?

A. As reports are generated as HTML, you are free to use an external browser for viewing and printing them instead of Animal Shelter Manager's built in report viewer. To do this, go to the Preferences->Settings menu option and untick the "Use internal browser" box. ASM will open reports with whatever association it has for html files (see System->Configure File Types)

How can I change a file association?

A. Filetypes are configurable from the System->Configure File Types option.

We want the numbering scheme to fit in with our existing data and use higher numbers - can ASM do this?

A. Yes - every code ASM generates it looks at the existing data for the previous highest so all you have to do is enter an animal and manually overwrite it's code with the number you'd like to start at - ASM will carry on counting thereafter.

Can I store other information in ASM?

A. The media tab allows you store any type of document with any type of record. This could be used to attach weight charts, medical information, etc. to animals. ASM offers an edit button to allow you to edit these documents with their appropriate package and will automatically store them on the server again when you are finished.

Note that there is a limit on size - you cannot store files larger than 8Mb as a media attachment.

What development environment do you use?

A. I develop under Linux (Gentoo and Debian), using Sun JDK 1.5.x, GIJ/GCJ 4.x, the IBM Jikes compiler, Ant (http://ant.apache.org) as the build tool and a combination of Eclipse (http://www.eclipse.org) and Vim (http://www.vim.org) for editing the code. If you want to help, or hack about with the code yourself, feel free to use anything you like.

How do you manage the project?

A. With great difficulty - I'm just one guy and I get some great help from volunteers, but since ASM doesn't pay the bills, I fit it in around a full time job.

We're not happy with the wording and terminology of some of the items in ASM - can we change them?

A. Yes - see the translation HOWTO under the Documentation link above. No, I won't incorporate them into the main program as most ASM users are familiar with the existing terminology.

Can I pay you to make changes to ASM for our shelter?

A. Certainly! Contact me for a quote - bobintetley@users.sourceforge.net

Do you have documentation for the database?

A. I'm working on it - unfortunately it keeps getting shunted to the end of my TODO list. The most important tables are animal and owner (fairly obvious what they're for), adoption contains all the movement records (it's historic) - you can probably guess what the others are for from there.

Can I use MySQL for my database?

A. Yes. The procedure for Windows users is:

  1. Download and install MySQL from www.mysql.com. It will set up Windows services for the databases, etc. etc.

  2. Copy the mysql.sql file from C:\Program Files\ASM\data\sql to C:\

  3. Open a MySQL console. If there's no start menu item for it, go to C:\Program Files\MySQL\bin and double click "mysql"

  4. Enter the following SQL commands at the mysql> prompt:

    CREATE DATABASE asm;
    USE asm;
    SOURCE c:\mysql.sql
    (lots of output will be displayed)
    GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON *.* TO root@'%';
    QUIT;

  5. Edit the file:

    C:\Documents and Settings/YOURUSER/.asm/jdbc.properties

  6. Replace any existing contents of the file with this line:

    JDBCURL=jdbc:mysql://localhost/asm?user=root&zeroDateTimeBehaviour=convertToNull

  7. For each machine on your network, substitute "localhost" in the above line of that file for the IP address of the machine running MySQL.
For Linux/other platform users the procedure is the same, except you should install MySQL from your distribution and ``cd'' to the asm/data/sql directory and just use ``SOURCE mysql.sql'' when executing the database commands. Documents and Settings can be replaced with $HOME.

Can I use PostgreSQL for my database?

A. Yes. In the ASM installation directory, under data/sql, you'll find a postgresql.sql file containing the database schema for PostgreSQL. I'm going to assume if you're wanting to use PostgreSQL that you know what you're doing.

Troubleshooting

Help! I picked the wrong database option at the beginning and now I can't change it!

A. If you open Windows Explorer and look at Documents and Settings/[your user name]/, you'll see a directory called ``.asm''. Delete this directory and restart ASM - this effectively resets ASM to be a brand new installation.

If you are a unix user, remove $HOME/.asm

When I try to generate documentation, I can't see any templates?

A. Go to System->Options and make sure that you have chosen the correct word processor - it's this that determines the file name extension ASM will filter on when displaying templates.

When attempting to view the printable help, I get an error ``no file type for pdf''?

A. You need Adobe Acrobat installed. If you installed it after ASM, you will need to go to Preferences->Configure File Types and enter the path to Acrobat against the pdf entry. An easier method is to delete ``Documents and Settings\[YourUser]\.asm\filetypes.properties'' to have ASM rescan filetypes when it next starts up after Acrobat is installed.

When attempting to create a document, I get an error ``no file type for sxw''?

A. You need OpenOffice.org installed to use the supplied templates (visit http://www.openoffice.org to download it). Once you've done this, you'll need to set the paths accordingly in Preferences->Configure File Types. An easier method is to delete ``Documents and Settings\[YourUser]\.asm\filetypes.properties'' to have ASM rescan filetypes when it next starts up after OpenOffice is installed.

If you have Microsoft Office and would prefer to use that, select ``Rich Text Compatible'' as your word processor under System->Options and go to Preferences->Configure File Types and verify that the path to winword.exe is set against the rtf entry (ASM should do this automatically when it is first run if Microsoft Office is available).

I upgraded to 2.0.0 and no templates appear when I try to publish!

A. 2.0.0 renamed the word processors used (you couldn't get some of them any more), as well as adding support for OpenOffice 2.0 and AbiWord. As a result, you have to reselect your word processor in System [IMAGE png]Options before you can publish again.

I'm using Linux/Kaffe and I run out of stack space!

A. Edit the startup script and add ``ulimit -s 300000'' to the top. Change the Xss switch to 128m instead (the default for ASM 1.40). Alternatively, use GIJ-4.0 which works just fine.

About this document ...

FAQ

This document was generated using the LaTeX2HTML translator Version 2002-2-1 (1.71)

Copyright © 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, Nikos Drakos, Computer Based Learning Unit, University of Leeds.
Copyright © 1997, 1998, 1999, Ross Moore, Mathematics Department, Macquarie University, Sydney.

The command line arguments were:
latex2html -no_images -ascii_mode -split 0 faq.tex

The translation was initiated by Robin Rawson-Tetley on 2008-01-31

[ ] [] [ ]
Robin Rawson-Tetley 2008-01-31

Animal Shelter Manager is Copyright(c)2000-2008, R. Rawson-Tetley