Projects and libraries

A project is a library and everything you make from that library. Each project has its own library on Pangur's server, and the catalogue, transcriptions, Ask conversations, analysis, arrangements, drafts, research documents and exhibitions you build from it all belong to the same project. Most people keep one project for each area of work, so a thesis and a separate edition would usually be two projects rather than two collections in one.

What a project holdsCopy Anchor Link

The library is a project's list of items. An item is the library's entry for a work or an object (a book, an article, a manuscript, a recording, a dataset) and it can carry files, notes and highlights of its own. An item can sit in any number of collections, and its tags are kept on the item itself.

Everything else in the project is built on the library. The catalogue describes repositories and manuscripts, with their folios and photographs. Copies of each resource hold its page images, and transcriptions are made from those images. Ask conversations, analysis corpora and the people, places and events a reading finds, arrangements with their source groups and vocabularies, drafts and research documents, and exhibitions (where your deployment offers publishing) all live in the project too.

This has one consequence worth knowing early: a feature can only see what is in its own project. Ask answers from the current project's library, a corpus can only hold that project's sources, and a draft can only cite that project's works.

Projects compared with collectionsCopy Anchor Link

A collection groups items inside one library, much like a folder. An item can be in several collections at once, and deleting a collection leaves its items in the library. A project is a separate library altogether. An item in one project is not in another, and search, Ask and analysis never reach from one project into the next.

Use collections to sort the works of one area of research. Use separate projects when the work should stay apart, for example when you do not want the Ask conversations or analysis of one body of work to draw on the other.

If you do need the same works in two projects, select them in the library and choose Copy to project…. Pangur copies the items into the other project with their files, notes and highlights and leaves the originals where they were. Collections, relations, photographs, transcriptions, analysis, documents and Ask conversations are not copied. If the other project already has an item (the same key, DOI or ISBN, or the same title and creators), Pangur reports it as already there rather than copying it twice. You can copy up to 200 items at a time. The steps are in Work with items and collections.

The project you are working inCopy Anchor Link

Every project has an address, which appears in the browser after /p/, as in /p/thesis/library. Links you copy from the web client include the address, so a link always opens in the project it came from.

The project menu in the sidebar switches between projects, and All projects lists them all. The one you opened most recently is marked Opened last.

The default project for apps, the command line and assistantsCopy Anchor Link

The project you opened last, on any device, is your default project. Pangur for iPhone and iPad, the command line and any connected assistant work in the default project unless you name another one. This means that opening a different project in the web client or the Mac app also changes which project your assistant and the pangur command use from their next call.

An assistant can name another project on almost every call. It finds the projects' ids and addresses with the list_projects tool (Assistants and Pangur). The command line takes --connection followed by a project's id or address on most commands, although a few commands always use the default project (command-line reference).

The default is per person. In a shared organisation project, each member's default is simply the project they opened last.

Scoping a project to one collectionCopy Anchor Link

Scoping narrows a project to one of its collections for assistants and the command line. While a project is scoped, an assistant or the command line can read only the items in that collection, any items they add are filed into it, and an attempt to read or write outside the collection is refused with a message that says the item or target is outside the connection's collection scope. The web client is not restricted in the same way, but while the scope is set the library hides its collections sidebar and the toolbar's collection filter.

Scope belongs to the project rather than to a particular connection, so it applies to every assistant and every command-line session that uses the project. To set it, open Project settings from the project menu and, under Project, choose a collection in Scope to collection:. Whole library removes the scope. Only the project's owner can change it.

Note that scoping is different from browsing a collection. Choosing a collection in the library's sidebar changes what you see on screen and nothing else.

Personal and organisation projectsCopy Anchor Link

A personal project belongs to one person, who is its owner. Nobody else can open it. To show colleagues particular references from a personal project, share them by email.

An organisation project belongs to an organisation and has members, each of whom is an owner, an editor or a viewer. Members share the project's library, catalogue, analysis and exhibitions, while each member's Ask conversations, documents and drafts stay their own. Organisation projects are not offered on every account or deployment. Work in an organisation and Project members and roles describe how they work.

Creating, renaming and removing a projectCopy Anchor Link

To create a project, choose New project in the sidebar's project menu or on the Projects page. Give it a name and, if you want to choose the address yourself, fill in Address (optional); the dialog shows how the project's links will start. When you choose Create, the new project opens at its empty library.

An address is made of lowercase letters, digits and hyphens, up to 40 characters, and starts and ends with a letter or digit. If you leave it blank, Pangur makes one from the name and appends -2, -3 and so on if another of your projects already uses it. An account can have up to 12 personal projects; organisation projects do not count towards that number.

To rename a project or change its address, open Project settings and choose Rename. Only the owner can do this. Bear in mind that changing the address changes every link to the project, so links you copied earlier will stop working.

To remove a project, open Project settings, choose Remove, type the project's name and confirm. This deletes the project's library and everything built on it, and it cannot be undone. Pangur will not remove your only personal project, and it will not remove a project while one of your imports is still running; in both cases it tells you why. The exhibitions of a removed personal project are moved to your default project rather than deleted. If you want to keep a copy of the project first, use Export this project on the same settings page (Export your work or delete your account).