BREPOLiS databases - Frequently Asked Questions

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Brepolis - Frequently Asked Questions

Please select among the following categories:

Brepolis General Info
Browser Specific Issues
Application Specific Questions & Errors
License Questions
Other

Brepolis General Info

All Platforms

Q.: What is the URL of Brepolis?

http://www.brepolis.net; from here click on the "enter database" button to go to the application

Q.: Can I directly go into the application?

No; you need to click on the "enter database" button on the www.brepolis.net page. This action launches the authentication and authorisation procedure.

Q.: Is there another reason why I fail to login to the applications?

In order for the database login to succeed, your browser must accept cookies from the BREPOLiS-server. If you have a problem logging in, check your cookie settings. In Internet Explorer you can select Internet Options in the Tools Menu and check the security settings.

Q.: More questions?

Please mail us in English, Français, Deutsch, Español and Nederlands at brepolis@brepols.net! We will do our best to help you.

Q.: Is there a preferred browser?

The online applications at Brepolis.net are not general search tools, but they have very extensive search features and lots of specific functions that cannot be built using general HTML. Many of our databases also contain a wide range of foreign language characters.

Therefore most of our applications use a lot of JavaScript, extensive XML features and use the Unicode codepage. From our web site statistics we know that most of our users use very recent versions of Internet Explorer, Netscape, FireFox and Safari. These browsers can handle most of the functions and content we use at Brepolis. We officially support Internet Explorer for all our applications, and FireFox (Mac and PC) support is being built in for the new titles and new updates to existing applications. Where possible, we also try to support Safari as well.

The CLCLT is a little different in its support of browsers. The CLCLT is a very extensive database that uses a lot of advanced XML functions. These functions are available on a limited number of browsers only. We choose to officially support both Internet Explorer (version 6 only) and FireFox 1.x (Mac or PC). We guarantee that the CLCLT can be used with these browsers, as they are the only browsers with a larger user base that can handle all the specific functions that are used in the CLCLT.

Much to our regret, Safari cannot be used to access the CLCLT. We like Safari very much, but it does not support client-side processing of XML documents. This technique is used in the CLCLT to support much of the special functions in that product. The product would not exist without this technique. Therfore, Mac users are limited to FireFox for Mac in order to use the CLCLT.

It is also very important to realise that no browser on Mac OS 9.x is supported for use on Brepolis. Mac OS 9.x does not fully support Unicode. The discussion above only focusses on browsers for Mac OS X 10.1 - 10.4.

Browser Specific Issues

Platform: Mac OS X 10.x

Q.: [Safari 2.x (Mac)]: Why does Safari display the error message 'If the menu system does not load, please click here' when I click on the 'Enter Databases' button?

There is a bug in the core engine of Safari, WebKit, when loading XML documents with redirects.

This bug was filed with the developers of the WebKit platform. You can check on the bug in the WebKit Bugzilla (Bug 3745). In the meantime this bug is fixed, but unfortunately it did not make it into the Mac OS X 10.4.2 Update, released on July 12th 2005. (The update brought Safari to version 2.0 build 412.2.) If you have the Mac developer tools on your system (XCode), you can download the latest version of the WebKit source code, Instructions are located on the WebKit site. Compile the downloaded CVS tree on your machine. When you run Safari using this freshly compiled WebKit, the bug does not occur.

We hope that the next update of Safari will incorporate the bugfix.

UPDATE 2005/08/19: Apple released Security Update 2005-007 for Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger which contains an update of WebKit and Safari. Safari was updated to version 2.0 build 412.2.2. With this latest version the error on the Brepolis homepage does not occur.

Application Specific Questions & Errors

All Platforms

Q.: I cannot move to the next page of results in the hitlist and I get the error message "the parameter is incorrect"

Probably you are working from a PC on a network with a proxy-server, and it is the proxy-server that connects to the WWW. If this proxy-server caches pages that it then delivers to the PC you are working on, things will go wrong. Indeed, search results pages are composed dynamically by the BREPOLiS-web server and have to be accessed directly. Caching pages on the proxy-server causes these errors. To solve this, please contact your network administrators and ask them to deactivate the caching.

Q.: The "hitlists" (search results) are not sorted in the order I want?

Simply click once or twice on the header of the column ("author", "article", "year")

Q.: Can I use the French or German interface?

Simply click once on the language button (in the menu on the left side of your screen) for French. Clicking twice will switch the interface to German. After a third click you return to English.

After selecting the language, the "select database" screen reappears.

Q.: Export as HTML doesn't work. Why?
- The export-functionality uses standard features from the operating system. In some cases the settings within a particular PC might generate problems. Please contact your computer-support staff.
- In some cases the export doesn't offer an extension to the file. You can add the extension .htm manually in the prompt box.
- Recent versions only of Microsoft Office software support the HTML features.

Q.: The blue buttons at the bottom of the search page (partly) disappear?!
- Please check the resolution of your screen (a resolution of 800 x 600 pixels or higher is recommended)
- If necessary reduce the width of the "favourites" or "history" column, or simply hide it.
- In Internet Explorer you can increase the size of the screen by clicking F11 (click F11 again to return to the previous lay-out)

Q.: Est-ce qu'il n'y a pas une version française ou allemande?

Si, cliquez une fois sur le bouton 'language'pour obtenir l'interface français, deux fois pour l'interface allemand et trois fois pour retourner à l'interface anglais.

Après la selection de langue, l'écran "select database" réapparaîtra.,

Q.: What is the difference between an "Export as HTML" and a normal "Export"?
- "Export as HTML" exports the data you see on the screen with the HTML layout tags. So, using this gives you the same layout as in your browser, assuming that you use programs to open the file which support HTML, such as Word, Excel or Internet Explorer
- Export" of the Hitlist (search results) exports all available data about every entry selected but without any layout tags. It can be opened immediately in Excel (where you can delete columns containing information you do not need). You can also save the data on disk (within the permitted limit of the number of records downloadable):
  - as an Excel file or
  - as a plain Comma-Separated file (.CSV) that can be opened in WordPad or other databases etc. E.g. in Excel you can import the CSV file as follows: Go to the menu Data and select External Data, choose Import file, select Text File, and open the file you exported from the IMB, tick Comma delimited and finish the wizard.
NB: you can also copy and paste everything you see on the screen!

Q.: When I login to the IMB/Papal Letters/In Principio, my browser asks me to download IMB.exe or BREPOLS.exe. I cannot use the online application.

There are two possible solutions to this problem:
- In some versions of Internet Explorer a bug causes the browser not to recognise the content of the online application because of the .exe extension in the URL. You can solve this by upgrading to the newest version of Internet Explorer.
- One of our customers reported that Netscape Smartdownload causes this dialog to appear in Internet Explorer. The removal of Netscape Smartdownload restores the ability of Internet Explorer to display our applications correctly. Users with the correct security permissions on their system can remove Netscape Smartdownload by going to the Windows Control Panel -> Choose Add/Remove Programs -> Select Netscape Smartdownload and click 'Uninstall'

Platform: Windows 2000/XP/2003

Q.: Papal Letters and Citrix Terminal Servers...?

Installations of Papal Letters have been known to cause problems with the display of images when you access the application from a Citrix client. In order to solve this problem on a Citrix Metaframe XP release 3 server, you can change the behaviour of a feature that is known as "API-hooking". To enable this, create the following registry key on the server:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Citrix\CtxHook Name: ExcludedImageNames Typ: REG_SZ Value: BREPOLS.EXE

This feature is documented in the Citrix support article with document ID CTX101908, scroll down on this page to issue #257394.

Adding or changing registry keys is dangerous and can damage the registry. Please perform these changes only if you are familiar with the Windows Registry. Changes at your own risk.

License Questions

All Platforms

Q.: I get the following error message; why? "All accounts on the multi-user licence you are using are in currently use, please try again later. We apologize for the inconvenience"

Where an institution is limited to access for three simultaneous users, access can be denied. When you exit the program without using the "exit"-button, the login-session remains open for a period of time. In this case, try again a few minutes later.