Niord System User Manual for Editors

The default view mode is the Table view mode, where the filtered list of messages is presented in a compact table-like list. See example above.

The user can easily sort the message list by either message ID, date or area by clicking the respective column name in the header row. Click the same header name to toggle between ascending and descending sort order.

The date column can either display the publish dates, the event dates or the follow-up dates of the messages. Click the ellipsis in the header menu to switch between the date types.

When selecting the Grid view mode, messages are listed in a semi-compact fashion with an auto-generated thumbnail image for each message.

In the the Details view mode, each message is listed in detail, similarly to when a message is displayed in the Message Details dialog.

In the Map view mode, all messages are displayed in a map. The list of messages will always be filtered according to the current bounding box of the map.

There is a Search Result panel in the top-left part of the map which contains a compact textual listing of the current set of messages. By default, this panel is collapsed, but the user may click the toggle-expand/collapse button in the panel header to show/hide the message list.

The Domain filter allows the user to search messages of another domain without switching the current domain selection. This is very useful, if you e.g. wish to base a new Notice to Mariner on a copy of an existing Navigational Warning.

As an important security constraint, when filtering on messages from a different domain only public messages will be included in the search result. Public messages are those whose status are either Published, Cancelled or Expired.

The messages of a domain will always be associated with a message series of that domain, which e.g. defines the message ID naming and numbering scheme, etc. As an example, an "NW" domain might have separate message series for local and coastal navigational warnings.

When applying the Message Series filter, the user gets to select which message series of the current domain to show messages for.

If a domain filter has been applied, as described in the previous section, the user can filter by the message series of that domain instead.

The Text allows the user to filter across all textual contents of a message, i.e. message title, details, areas, categories, charts, ID, etc.

The text filter supports a Google-like syntax, as described below:

The Type filter allows the user to filter on one or more message types.

If the current domain supports Navigational Warnings, the types include Local, Coastal, Subarea and Navarea. Depending on the system configuration of the domain, only a subset of these types may be available.

If the current domain supports Notices to Mariners, the types include Preliminary, Temporary, Permanent and Miscellaneous. Depending on the system configuration of the domain, only a subset of these types may be available.

By default, the Messages page will display all published (in-force) messages of the current domain. The Status filter allows the user to select any combination of statuses to filter on.

As an important security constraint, only users with the editor (or admin or sysadmin) role can filter on all statuses.

Users with a User role, or indeed, users that have not logged in, can only filter on public statuses, defined as either Published, Cancelled or Expired.

Message Tags plays an important role in Niord, as they may be used to persistently group sets of messages. A more detailed description can be found in the Message Tags section.

The Tags filter can be used to filter the search result to messages belonging to on one or more message tags. Clicking the button will open the Message Tag dialog, for easy selection of message tags.

Niord allows administrators to define publications such as weekly Notices to Mariners digests. These publications are based on lists of messages. The Publication filter thus allows the user to filter on messages belonging to one or more publications.

Niord allows system administrators to define promulgation types, such as NAVTEX, SafetyNET and Twitter, which may be associated with messages. Please refer to Promulgation Editor Field. The Promulgation filter thus allows the user to filter on messages associated with one or more promulgation types.

The User filter allows the user to filter messages on any of the registered users in Niord, and whether the selected user originally created a message, has ever updated a message, or indeed, is the last person to edit the message.

The process of composing a new NW or NM message often involves multiple users that write up the message and proof-read it. To aid this process, users may submit new comments to a message, and acknowledge existing comments.

The Comments filter allows the user to filter on messages with different types of comments, such as comments that the user has submitted, unacknowledged comments, and unacknowledged comments by the current user.

A message may be associated with a list of references to other messages. The references are typed to indicate if the message e.g. represents a "cancellation" of the referenced message, an "updated repetition", and so forth.

The Reference filter allows the user to search messages by reference hierarchies. The filter consists of a message ID field and a numeric Level field.

The message specified by the message ID will be the base message of the filter. With a level set to "0" only that particular message will be in the search result.

If the level is "1", all messages directly referencing the base message or directly referenced from the base message will be included.

If the level is "2", all messages referencing any of the level "1" messages or referenced from any of the level "1" messages will be included.

And so forth…​

The Chart filter allows the user to filter on messages that are associated with any of a list of sea charts.

Areas are defined in a hierarchical tree by administrators.

The Area filter allows the user to filter on messages that are associated with any of a list of areas including s-areas of the selected areas.

Categories are defined in a hierarchical tree by administrators.

The Category filter allows the user to filter on messages that are associated with any of a list of categories including sub-categories of the selected categories.

The Date filter allows the user to filter on date ranges. The date type menu has the following options:

The Clear Filter function of the Filter menu will clear any current filter.

The Save Filter function of the Filter menu will allow the user to save often-used filter combinations.

These saved filters will appear at the top of the Filter menu for easy access.

Enacting "Print…​" will print the current message list. The print dialog allows the user to adjust page size and direction.

More importantly, it allows the user to select a print report from the Report menu. The set of available reports and their design is configured by a system administrator on a per-domain basis.

All domains include a "Standard" and a "Draft" report. The "Standard" report will print all details of the messages. The "Draft" report will print all language variants of all messages including additional fields, that makes the report useful for e.g. proof reading messages.

Additionally, a domain for Notices to Mariners will typically include reports for printing the NM list as a weekly NM digest, and a report for printing the active T&P messages.

Similar to the Print Action, except that only the current selection of messages get printed.

Niord can be configured to send reports on a scheduled basis to mailing list recipients - please refer to the Mailing Lists chapter.

Sometimes, however, it can be necessary to pull one such report outside its normal schedule. The Report action will open a dialog window with a list of all the mailing list reports that can be executed on-demand. The user can click the "Execute" button and see the result below.

If the result needs to be e.g. printed out, the user can choose the "New Window" function to open the result in a separate window.

The E-mail Selection action is only available when one or more messages have been selected. A dialog will prompt the user to fill out the recipient, email subject and an optional message to the recipients.

When clicking Send Mail, a mail is constructed and sent along, that contains the details of the currently selected messages.

The function can be useful when e.g. following up on the work described in a Notice to Mariner.

The Add Selection to Tag action is only available when one or more messages have been selected.

It will open the Message Tag Dialog and allow the user to select a message tag the currently selected messages should be added to.

Message Tags are described in detail in the Message Tags section.

The Remove Selection from Tag action is only available when one or more messages have been selected.

It will open the Message Tag Dialog and allow the user to select a message tag the currently selected messages should be removed from.

Message Tags are described in detail in the Message Tags section.

Will select all messages in the message list. Please refer to the Message Selection section.

Will clear the current message selection. Please refer to the Message Selection section.

The Compare action is only available when precisely two messages have been selected.

The Message 1 and Message 2 fields allows the user to specify the ID of the two messages to compare. The ID may either be the short ID of the message (e.g. "NM-077-16") or the UID of the message (a system-specific UID that all messages have, even unpublished messages).

Next, the user may toggle between which language variant to compare.

By default, the details of the two selected messages are displayed side-by-side (see above). Alternatively, the user can choose to display the textual changes between the messages:

Colour-coding is used to flag additions (green) a deletions (red) between the two messages.

Lastly, the use can choose to inspect the changes of the underlying message data:

The data-comparison function is somewhat specialized, but also incredible useful, and targeted advanced users. Color coding is again applied to flag changed data (yellow), added data (green) and removed data (red) between the two messages.

Enacting the Export action, will export the current message list as a zip-archive. The exported zip-archive has a format that is compatible with the Import function which is only available to administrators.

The exported data will include any files attached to the messages (used primarily by Notices to Mariners).

The Export Selection action is analogous to the Export Action except that it only exports the currently selected list of messages.

The Import action is only available to administrators, as it is quite advanced and disruptive. It imports a zip-archive, as generated by the Export Action.

The Import dialog options allows the administrator to adjust the behaviour of the import.

The Update Selection Status action is only available to administrators, and only if one or more messages have been selected.

The operation allows the administrator to perform bulk-updates of message statuses, that you can normally only perform message-by-message on the Editor Status page.

For all the selected messages, there is a New Status menu where the administrator can select any of the valid status transitions.

All status changes are applied when the "Save Changes" button is clicked.

The Sort Area action allows the user to perform fine-grained persistent sorting of the messages of a certain area.

An alternative way of accessing the Sort Area dialog is by clicking the "Sort…​" link next to the area name in the message list (when the messages area sorted by area):

The sorting of messages by area is a fairly advanced topic. By default, messages adheres to the sorting of the area tree, as defined by an administrator:

In this example, "Denmark" is sorted before "Faroe Islands", and within "Denmark", "The Baltic Sea" is sorted before "The Sound", etc.

However, it is possible to adjust this sorting administratively. So, for instance, all messages associated with "The Baltic Sea" or any of its sub-areas will be sorted clockwise around the position 54° 30’N - 012° 00’E starting at a bearing of 180°.

Similarly, all messages associated with "The Sound" or any of its sub-areas will be sorted North-to-South.

And so forth…​

This automated sorting of messages by area can then be overridden manually by using the Sort Area action. Once an area has been selected, all the messages of the area can be re-arranged by dragging a message to its proper position using the drag handle.

The last four items of the Action menu let the user select which message field to sort by. This include: Area, ID, Event Dates, Publish Date and Follow-up Date.

Choosing the same sort field multiple times, will toggle between ascending and descending order.

A small arrow will indicate the current sort field and whether ascending or descending order is used.

If the user enters the Edit editor page by clicking Edit on a message in the messages list, there will be a "Back to list" button that will return the user to the Messages page with the same message filter applied as when entering the Edit page.

The "Clear" button will cancel all changes and return the user to the Blank Editor Page.

If the currently edited message has any unsaved changes, there will be a red Save icon next to the "Editor" title:

At the bottom of the page, there is a "Save Message" button and a "Reload Message" button, which will respectively save any changes to the message and reload the message whilst discarding any changes.

The rest of the Edit page is dedicated to the list of field editors for all the fields that make the message being edited.

The list of fields is configured administratively per domain and message type. As an example, Notices to Mariners will support fields such as "original information", whereas Navigational Warnings may have a field for editing its NAVTEX promulgation.

In order to conserve space, all editor fields are "collapsed" by default, showing a read-only version of the field value in the currently selected language. However, clicking at the field title will expand the field and display the field editor in full. See example below withe the Areas editor field in collapsed and expanded mode:

The editor has extensive support for keyboard navigation. The user can use the arrow-up and arrow-down key to shift focus from field title to field title. Use arrow-right to expand the editor field currently selected, and arrow-left to collapse the field. Use tab, respectively shift-tab, to shift focus between the input fields of a field editor.

The remainder of this section will describe the individual editor fields one by one.

The Orig. Information editor field is typically only present when editing a Notice to Mariners. The editor field contains a toggle-button that can be used to flag if the message is based on original information or not.

The Type editor field allows the user specify the sub-type of the message.

For Navigational Warnings, the types include Local, Coastal, Subarea and Navarea. Depending on the system configuration of the domain, only a subset of these types may be available.

For Notices to Mariners, the types include Preliminary, Temporary, Permanent and Miscellaneous. Depending on the system configuration of the domain, only a subset of these types may be available.

All messages must be associated with a message series, which are defined administratively for each domain. The message series are used to group messages and define traits such as the format of the message short ID, and the numbering scheme. There are four possible types of numbering schemes:

The ID editor field lets lets the user select any of the available message series for the current domain and message type. Often there will only be one to select from, in which case, it will be pre-selected.

If the numbering scheme of the selected message series is manual, the ID editor field will also have an input field for the user to fill out the message number.

Lastly, all messages will automatically be assigned a unique system ID, or UID, upon creation, which can also be found in the ID editor field. Although the UID is not very end-user friendly, it can be used to uniquely identify messages even before they are published.

The Title editor field allows the user to specify the main title of the message in all supported languages.

By default, the "Auto generate" option is checked, in which case the title fields are disabled and computed automatically, by concatenating the currently selected areas, vicinity and the subject fields of each message parts.

The References editor field allows the user to manage a list of typed references from the edited message to other messages. It is mainly used for Notices to Mariners, but could also e.g. be used for cancellation references in navigational warnings.

Each reference must specify a message ID which may either be the short ID or the UID of the referenced message.

The reference type is one of reference, repetition, repetition_with_new_time, updated_repetition, cancelled, and signals the nature of the relationship between the messages.

Additionally, the user may add a reference description in all supported languages.

In end-user applications, references can e.g. be used to hyperlink between messages.

Messages can either be scheduled for publication, or published and cancelled manually via the Status Editor Page.

The Publish Date editor field can be used for assigning a publish from and/or a publish to date. If a message has the Verified status, the system will automatically publish the message when the publish from date is reached. Similarly, if the publish to date is specified for a published message, the system will automatically expire the message when that date is reached.

The user can also specify a follow-up date in the Publish Date editor field. The follow up date can be displayed and sorted by on the Messages page.

The Areas editor field can be used to assign one or more areas to a message. The areas to select from are created and managed by administrators in a hierarchical structure - please refer to the Areas admin chapter.

So, as an example, the firing area "EK D 371 Marstal Bugt" is a sub-area of "The Baltic Sea", which is in turn a sub-area of "Denmark".

Selecting an area in the Areas editor field will also implicitly select all parent areas.

In addition to the main area input field, the user can also specify a vicinity in all supported languages. This is used for the specific location of the hazard (such as a harbour name).

If the selected area has an associated geometry, the "Copy Locations" button will copy that geometry into the Positions Editor Field of the message.

Alternatively, if no area has been selected but a geometry has been defined for the message, then clicking the "Compute from Locations" will attempt to deduce the area from the geometry.

The Categories editor field can be used to assign one or more categories to a message. The categories to select from are created and managed by system administrators in a hierarchical structure.

Some categories have been defined as executable message templates. If one or more of these categories have been selected, the will be enabled and allow for execution.

Navigational Warnings in particular often follow a very strict template for how to write the messages so that they adhere to the standards for MSI, NAVTEX, etc. The field thus allows the user to select and execute a template, such as "Light Unlit". Message Templates is an extensive topic, covered in greater detail in the Message Template Execution section.

A message consists of a set of common preamble fields and a list of Message Parts, where each message part conceptually defines the time, place and description of a hazard.

The option for one message to describe multiple message parts is mostly used for Notices to Mariners, not so much for Navigational Warnings, which typically only define a single message part.

Each message part is headed by a message part header panel:

Clicking the plus sign will add a new message part below, and clicking the minus sign will delete the given message part. If more than one message part are present, there will also be an arrow-up and an arrow-down button in the message part header panel, which may be used to re-arrange the message parts.

Lastly, the message part header panel allows for the selection of a message part type, such as "Details", "Time", "Positions" or "Note". The only effect of selecting a message part type, is to hide some of the message part fields. The type field can also be used to improve the end-user display of a message by providing custom titles for each message part. See the example below where the first message part is labelled "Details" and the second one is labelled "Note".

Depending on the message part type, each message part can be assigned a list of event dates via the Event Dates editor field.

Whereas the publication date interval determines when a message is in-force, the event dates pertain to the underlying hazard, such as a future firing exercise.

For navigational warnings, though, the event dates are typically identical to the publication date. Hence, by default, the Event Dates editor field is not displayed for NWs. If needed, the editor field can be enabled from the Action menu.

If no event dates are specified when a message is published, an event date interval is automatically added to the first Details message part, thereby synchronizing the event date interval with the publication date interval. This interval is updated when the message is subsequently cancelled or expires.

The main purpose of event dates, is for clients to be able to use it in route planning, and so forth.

The event date intervals has an all-day flag that can be used to switch between specifying date-and-time or date only.

Depending on the message part type, each message part can be assigned a geometrical extent in via the Positions editor field.

The positions can either be entered as text of via a graphical editor. This is detailed further in the Position Editor chapter.

Depending on the message part type, each message part can be assigned a subject, i.e. a short title for the message part in all supported model languages, via the Subject editor field.

When the full message title is auto-computed, as detailed in the Title Editor Field section, it will be assembled by concatenating the message area, vicinity and the subjects of all message parts.

The Hide Subject checkbox is used to indicate if the subject should be displayed as a heading for each message part, when rendering the message details. Since the subject of a message part is already likely to be part of the message title, there is often no reason to repeat the subject in the message body. However, if the message contains multiple message parts, it may improve the legibility, if each message part is headed by its subject. See example below:

Depending on the message part type, each message part can be assigned a rich-text description in all supported model languages, via the Description editor field.

Most of the editor tools are standard text editor tools for controlling e.g. the text style and color, alignment, bullet and numbered lists, etc.

However, some of the editor tools will be detailed further below.

The Attachments Editor Field can be used to associate files, such as PDFs and photos, with a message.

If a message has an associated list of attachments, the attachments can be viewed and downloaded by end-users when viewing the message details. See example below:

Attachments can also be linked or inserted directly in the rich-text description field of a message part, as described in the Insert/edit Link and Insert/edit Image sub-section.

A new file is attached to a message by clicking the "Browse…​" button and selecting the file, or by dragging the file into the dotted-line panel surrounding the "Browse…​" button.

An existing attachment can be deleted by clicking the trash icon next to the attachment.

An additional caption can also be specified for attachments in all supported model languages.

For embeddable attachments, such as images and videos, an extra Display option will be available:

If either of the display options above is selected, the size of the embedded attachment can be specified in the Width and Height field. If only one of these fields is filled out, the embedded attachment will be scaled proportionally.

As part of the Width or Height values, the user must also specify the unit, which must be one of "em", "px", "%", "cm", "mm", "in", "pt" or "pc".

For Navigational Warnings, there may be a need to promulgate specialized versions of a message to external channels. The availability of these promulgations is configured by system administrators on a per-domain basis.

Niord has a plug-in architecture for adding new promulgation types. By default, it supports distributing NAVTEX and SafetyNET versions of navigational warnings via mailing lists, and support for posting messages at Twitter upon publication.

Furthermore, the Danish version of Niord supports generating an Audio promulgation for navigational warnings. This will promulgate a verbose textual version of the messages, suitable to be read up on radio by non-maritime personal, to a mailing list.

In most cases, the user will create new Navigational Warnings by executing message templates - please refer to Message Template Execution. The templates will automatically produce the promulgations needed for a message.

However, before publishing a message, the promulgations should be proof-read and updated as appropriate. The Promulgation Editor Field thus allows the user to choose which promulgation types to support (via a checkbox in the promulgation tabs), and to update the promulgation contents.

For the NAVTEX promulgation (see screenshot above), ensure that Priority and Transmitter selection is correct, and that the text adheres to NAVTEX standards.

Most promulgation types will have a "Generate" button, that can be used as a starting point if the message has not been created by executing a message template. This will create a crude starting point, that must subsequently be edited and polished.

The NAVTEX promulgation also contains a read-only field for the NAVTEX preamble. This may contain replacement tokens such as "${publish-date}" and "${number-year-id}" that will automatically be substituted upon publication of the message.

For any SafetyNET promulgation, ensure that Priority and Area selection is correct, and that the text adheres to MSI standards.

The Charts editor field can be used to assign one or more nautical charts to a message. The charts to select from are created and managed by administrators - please refer to the Charts admin chapter.

If the "Sort" button is clicked, the current selection of charts will be sorted according to their scale.

If the "Compute from Locations" button is clicked, the charts field will be instantiated with the sorted list of all nautical charts whose geographical extent overlaps with the positions defined for the message will be included. This list should subsequently be verified by the user, since some of the charts may not actually contain the feature (say, a light) referenced by the message.

The Horizontal Datum field can be used to specify the horizontal datum, typically WGS84. The horizontal datum is not currently used anywhere in Niord.

The Publication editor field is used to list the publications relevant to the message, such as the List of Lights, Aids to Navigation, the journal number for an associated case in a content management system, etc.

The publications are maintained in rich-text editor fields, mainly to facilitate hyperlinks to the referenced publications. There is one set of internal publication and one set of external publication fields for each supported model language. Only the external publications will be displayed to end-users, whereas internal publications will be viewable to registered users of Niord as well.

The user can use the tool to insert one of the publications created and managed by administrators in Niord - please refer to the Publications admin chapter.

When the Insert Publication tool is clicked, a dialog pops up that allows the user to add or edit a pre-defined publication:

Some publications will display a parameter input field, where the user can specify additional parameters. This is typically used to e.g. specify relevant light numbers for the List of Light publication, etc.

The user can choose to update only the publication field where the Insert Publication tool was clicked, or update all language versions.

The Source editor field is used to list the sources of the hazard described by the message, such as a harbour authority, a Government department, etc. If a standard abbreviation exists for a source, this should be used to keep the information short and concise. Along with the source, the date of contact should be listed.

The user can click "Add sources…​" to insert one or more of the sources created and managed by administrators in Niord - please refer to the Sources admin chapter.

Upon clicking the "Add sources" button, a dialog pops up that allows the user to select and add one or more of the pre-defined sources along with the date of contact:

The Source field for all supported model languages will be updated with the selected sources.

The Layout editor field is used for controlling the layout of message lists within Niord, and in print reports.

When working with messages in Grid View Mode or Details View Mode, each message will show a thumbnail image. By default, the thumbnail is automatically generated, but the user may specify a custom thumbnail image in the Layout editor field.

From the thumbnail menu, they can either chose to upload a thumbnail image, or generate one using the "Select thumbnail…​" option. This will open the Thumbnail Selection Dialog:

Here, the user can zoom and pan the map, and turn layers on and off, before taking a snapshot to be used as the message thumbnail.

The Layout editor field also has a checkbox option, "Start message on new page in PDF reports". If this option is checked, the message will be forced to start on a new page when printing a message list as PDF. This is particularly useful for long Notices to Mariners messages.

The Print action will print the currently saved version of the message being edited. Please refer to the Print Action action for message lists.

The Compare action will open the message comparison dialog with the currently edited message pre-selected. Please refer to the Compare Action action for message lists.

The Add to Tag Action will add the currently edited message to a message tag via the Message Tag Dialog. Please refer to the Message Tags section.

For each message tag that the edited message is assigned to, there will be a Remove from "Tag Name" action that will remove the message from that tag.

The Expand Fields action is a short hand function that will activate (expand) all field editors on the editor Edit page.

The Collapse Fields action is a short hand function that will deactivate (collapse) all field editors on the editor Edit page.

As described in the General Edit Page Controls section, the set of editor fields displayed by default on the editor Edit page depends on the message type, and may also depend on the selected area, category, etc. For instance, the "Orig. Information" editor field will only be displayed for Notices to Mariners, not for Navigational Warnings.

However, in the bottom part of the Action menu, the user can choose to enable any of the editor fields not displayed by default.

Create a simple point by simply typing a latitude-longitude position on a separate line. When no geometry type is specified, and only a single position defined, then it is assumed to be a Point:

Create a named polygon plus a line-string with named coordinates (the rather elaborate format of the positions in this example, is there to illustrate the flexibility of the text editor):

The topmost row of tools are used for drawing and manipulating features directly on the map. The tools are detailed below.

No matter which tool is selected, the user can always pan the map by clicking and dragging directly on the map.

The next row of buttons is for various actions. Clicking the "Cancel" button will cancel all changes and close the editor.

Clicking "OK" will update the underlying graphical model and close the editor.

Clicking the Show/Hide Features toggle button will alternately show and hide the Features Panel.

The Action Menu contains a multitude of functions for manipulating the features of the Position Editor.

The actual list of functions in the menu depends on the current feature selection.

When the Features Panel is visible, it will list a Feature Panel for all defined features.