StrataBugs Control Panel
StrataBugs v2 is divided into six different modules; each is represented by an icon on the control panel. If you are a previous user of StrataBugs v1.8, you will find the control panel familiar.
Wells & Outcrops is for managing your well list.
Samples and Interpretations enables you to add samples, edit their attributes and record occurrences of taxa in them. You can also work interactively with single-well charts.
Schemes and Interpretations is a project-orientated module which enables you to work with schemes and interpretations in several wells at once; you can view and edit interpretations for entire projects.
Taxonomic Database is for managing your taxon dictionary.
Organiser is primarily for importing data to your database and exporting data to files.
Charts enables you to plot data from your database onto charts. You can save chart layouts and output charts to a plotter.
The panel at the bottom shows you (from top) the current StrataBugs user (and their ID), the current database connection, the licensee and the licensee's location.
The text at the bottom-left of the control panel shows the data refresh rate. You can set this by selecting Config | Set data refresh rate - see below for details.
Select an icon representing the module you wish to use. You can have all the modules running simultaneously if you wish, and some modules allow you to have more than one instance running at the same time.
Control panel menus
File
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Change database - will enable you to close the current connection database connection and launch the login process so that you can connect to another database.
Manage connections - opens the Connection Manager dialog which allows you to edit the list of stored database connections. This is the list of options which appears when you login. You may wish to review the list and delete any redundant connections to make the login process less cluttered.
Load database - loads the entire database into memory. All the data you use as you use StrataBugs has to be loaded, but usually it is loaded as and when you need it (e.g. if you open a well) - you will sometimes notice slight delays when you open certain things. Consequently, loading the whole database can be useful, for example if you need to perform operations which involve frequent searches of the database when the connection to the server is slow. Warning: this operation could take a long time, especially if you have a large database or if your server connection is slow.
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SBChart - opens the legacy Charts module. You can use this to view charts from previous versions of StrataBugs. The legacy module will only work in Windows environments. Note that you should not use this for routine chart creation as it is not a formally supported component of StrataBugs and may be removed in future versions.
- Exit - closes StrataBugs, including any modules you are currently running.
Config
- Abundance schemes - opens the Abundance Schemes dialog so that you can add, edit or delete abundance schemes, find out which wells they have been used in and see if there are similar schemes. It is available from this menu so that you do not have to open a well to manage abundance schemes.
- Personnel - opens the Personnel dialog, where you can view a list of users of your database and to add or edit their details.
- Wireline log header defaults - opens the Wireline Log Header Defaults dialog, which enables you to edit the display attributes of wireline logs.
- Misc colours - opens a dialog in which you can select the colours that are applied to various items displayed on charts. Currently restricted to systems tracts. Press the ellipsis (...) to open a Colour Chooser if you wish to change the colours.
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Depth scales - Edit the list of default chart depth scales. Any user can use a scale not in this list by typing in a new scale on the relevant chart properties dialog. Only super users can edit the default scale list.
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Default sample depths - This setting affects defaults for generated samples with single depth values (rather than a range). Generally in US systems, a single depth represents the top of a sample range, while in other systems, a single depth represents the base of the range. You must be a super-user to change this option. When you import data, you will be given the option to import single depths as tops or bases, even if you are not a super-user.
- Set data refresh rate - If you are working on a multi-user network you can set the time interval after which the data are refreshed so that you can see the latest additions to the dataset made by the other users on a regular basis. If you have a single user licence this feature is not required and is switched off.
- Image storage - Opens a dialog where you can configure image storage. You have the option to store images in the database or to create links to external files. The fields at the top of the dialog show the number of images which are linked and stored. If you are working on a multi-user network, any changes you make will not cause any immediate changes for other users until they restart their session, BUT we recommend that this operation is performed only when no other users are logged in. This feature is useful if, for example, your database contains many images and you need to email it to StrataData for examination; you can remove the image into files to make the database smaller before sending.
Linking an external image to a taxon occurrences is carried out in Samples (Occurrences tab).
To switch the images from linked to stored, select the Store images in database option. You will be asked to confirm that you want to import all images from their file references. Select Yes to proceed.
To reverse the process select the Link images to source files but do not store option. You will be asked to confirm that you want to export all the images to files. Select Yes to proceed. A file selector will appear. Select the location folder for the images and press Open. The original file location, from where the file was imported, is retained in the database, and it checks this first to see if the original file still exists. If it does, it does nothing i.e. it deletes the image data from the database and retains the link to the file on disk (so it can still be seen in the application). If the file no longer exists in the original location, then a new file is written out in the folder you selected, and is given the name
"sbugs_<image id number>.jpg".The long field is a progress bar which is activated when you switch options.
Additionally, you can select a folder in which taxon 'type' images are stored. This is a useful option if you have access to a taxon image library, but is restricted in that you can't make your own image set groupings or add your own captions. The file names should be the full species name (including qualifiers), followed by an underscore and any other information (e.g. image serial number). For example, "Chatangiella niiga_8767.jpg". Please contact StrataData if you would like to use a different format. The images will be captioned with their filename. You will be able to view one image set containing all the images found for a particular species alongside linked image sets in the Taxon Images dialog, and also in overlays.
- Data export - this sub-menu lets you choose settings for exporting data with a single user ID. More about this feature...
- Event prefixes - Allows super-users to set system preferences for displaying events. StrataBugs uses a default of "top" and "base" for both well events and composite standard events.
- Sentinel (dongle) tester - opens a dialog from which you can find out the expiry date and licensed name of a Sentinel SuperPro dongle. These are the dongles which have been supplied recently to StrataBugs users and include all USB dongles and some parallel port dongles (with 8mm deep plastic housing).
- Show screen configuration - displays the configuration of the screen(s) you have connected to your computer in a message similar to the one below. This maybe required for troubleshooting issues with a secondary or touch screen if one is used in Samples & Interpretations to record fossil occurrences.
- Look for updates... opens the StrataBugs Updater.

Tools
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Copy database - this option creates a table-for-table copy of your database into another database. You may need to do this for creating copies for testing purposes or for migrating to a different database platform, since the copy can be made into any data source identified through the ODBC setup. Consult StrataData for further advice on database platforms. The first dialog shown will be a connection dialog for the database to be copied into. You will then be asked whether you wish to create the tables. If you answer YES to this question, you will be asked to select the text file containing a description of the database schema. This file can be supplied by StrataData or created using the "Describe Schema" button on the StrataBugs 2 conversion program application, having first connected to the existing v2 data source.
Note: if you create the tables in this way they will not have the primary keys or constraints set, so we advise against doing this. Instead, make sure that you copy into an existing database using the Access database template (sbugs2-0.mdb) or the Oracle tables created by running the table creation script (supplied on request).
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Add Oracle grants for user - run this option only for an Oracle database. This will have the effect of running a GRANT ALL on <table> for each table in the database. You will be prompted for the name of the user or role for which to create the grant.
Note: We recommend that you create an Oracle role for each user, and the role is granted permissions on the tables. To add new users they only need to be granted the role rather than permissions on all the tables.
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Show SQL - this option will display the SQL commands used for getting data to and from the database, for troubleshooting purposes. To see the output, you must have already started the control panel from a command prompt window. If you started the control panel from a shortcut or by double-clicking [an error occurred while processing this directive], then a command prompt window will not, by default, be created. To start from the command line, open a command prompt window, use the CD command to navigate to the StrataBugs 2 folder, then type the following command: java -jar [an error occurred while processing this directive]
Help
- Contents - opens the main help page.
- Set help location - gives you the choice of connecting to the web-based help or a locally stored version. If you have a good internet connection, it is best to use the web-based version, as this is likely to be the most up-to-date. The locally stored option is intended for users with poor or no internet connection (such as on some rigs), and is an offline copy of the online help, stored in a local folder (but still navigated using your browser).
You can download the help file jsbugs_help.zip file using the Updater. It is not automatically downloaded, so you will have to make sure the box is ticked. You should update this file periodically using the Updater. You do not need to do anything to this file.
Choose default browser Internet Explorer etc or default browser Firefox, depending on your Windows settings. If you do not set this correctly, the help pages will not display properly. There is also an option to set the local help folder. This is not generally necessary, but if you wish to use it then you must first extract jsbugs_help.zip to another folder, and then navigate to this folder when prompted.
- Describe database - opens a simple table giving information about the amount of data in your database. The numbers are derived by literally counting the rows in the relevant database table. The size of the database is displayed if you are using an Access (.mdb) file. Note that Access files have a 2 GB size limit. This was generally not an issue in previous versions, but now that you can store image data and wireline log data, you might find your file approaching this limit. You can (and should periodically) "compact and repair" the database file (ask StrataData if you are not sure how to do this), but if you are still close to the limit you may wish to consider moving to a different database platform.
- About... - opens a message which provides information about the installed copy of StrataBugs including the Build date and Licence expiry. You may be asked to check the build date when reporting a problem to StrataData.