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From Los Angeles Fire Department Library
Contents |
Logging in
How do I create an account?
- To create an account, select "Log in or create an account" (top left of page) then click on "create an account". You only need to provide a username and password, however if you provide and confirm your email address you will be able to communicate with other members using this system.
Why log in?
- You don't have to log in to read any portion of the Department Library, however, it's still a good idea to log in, for these reasons:
- You will be able to keep track of changes to articles you are interested in by using the watch list.
- You will be able to communicate directly with the Planning Section via the Send a Comment link in the menu bar at the top of the page.
- You will be able to set your own preferences, to change things such as:
- The number of pages displayed in Recent changes.
- The areas of the site searched and the layout of the search output.
How do I log in?
- Click on the 'Log in or create an account' link at the top left of any page. You will then be prompted to enter your username and password. If you haven't logged in before, you will need to use the link provided to create an account.
- If you click the box "Remember me", you will not have to give your password again when you access the LAFD Department Library from the same computer. This feature will only work if your password was not generated by the software.
What if I forget the password?
- If you enter an email address when signing up for the account, or in your Preferences, you can request through the login screen for a temporary password to be sent to your email address. The new password will allow you to access your account. If you did not enter an email address, or the address was out of date, you will have to contact the Planning Section in order to reset your account.
How do I set my preferences or change my password?
Once you are logged in, click on the My preferences link, at the top left of the page, for various options including:
- Changing your password or user profile. To change your password, enter your old password, the new password, and the new password a second time. If you're merely changing the other preferences, you do not need to enter your password.
- Changing your email preferences.
- Changing the number of titles displayed on your recent changes page.
- The Department Library articles are all linked, or cross-referenced.
- Wherever you see text like this sample, it means there is a link to some relevant article or Department Library page with further information elsewhere if you need it. Holding your mouse over the link will often show you where a link will take you. These links mean that articles do not need to cover common ground in depth; instead, you are always one click away from more information on any point that has a link attached.
What's the Topbar (it's on top of the page)?
- On the top of each article are some standard options for navigation:
- Navigation options include:
- Department Library - Articles in the category "Department Library".
- Information Portal - The LAFD Information Portal.
- LAFD Homepage - Everything about the Los Angeles Fire Department.
- LAFD Fire Prevention - Bureau of Fire Prevention and Public Safety. Mostly aimed toward the public for construction services.
- Manual of Operation - Articles in the category "Manual of Operation".
- Recent changes - Most recent changes to the Department Library.
- Reference Material - Reference material published by the Los Angeles Fire Department and other agencies.
- Rules and Regulations - Los Angeles Fire Department Rules and Regulations.
- Library Help - Exactly what it says.
- Send a Comment - Send a comment to the Planning Section.
- Quick Start Guide - How to best use this system.
- Topbar search tools:
- 'Go' button - Allows you to search articles across all of the Department Library.
- Toolbox (on the bottom of the page) includes:
- What links here - useful for tracing where an article is referenced from.
- Related changes - The "Related changes" feature lists the last change in each article linked to from the current page.
What is the "Recent Changes" Page?
- You can track the most recent changes to articles in the Information Portal, from the "Recent changes" page.
- From left to right:
- "diff" links to the diff-page for this edit; it is not available for new pages, or for page moves
- The "hist" link corresponds to the Page history link on the edited page: it shows not just this edit but also older and newer ones. For page moves, the hist link leads to the history of the new page title
- A bold m indicates that the Planning Section marked the edit "minor".
- A bold N indicates that the page is "new", i.e., previously did not exist. It is possible for a change to possess both the "minor" and "new" indicators; this is typically used for new redirects.
- A bold ! indicates that the page is unpatrolled.
- The next link is a link to the current version of the page in question.
- 10:06 refers to the time in UTC. You can change the time to your time zone using your preferences - see preferences.
- For logged in users, the next link is a link to their user homepage (as usual with internal links, the view page if the page exists, the edit page if it does not, the two being styled differently).
- Finally, there is a link to the user's talk page (the same remarks regarding existence apply).
- For page moves, a link is given to both the old and new title.
What is the "Related Changes" Page?
- The "Related changes" feature lists the last change in each article linked to from the current page, but not more than the number specified in the preferences. It's header is "Recent changes" with a subheader of "to pages linked from "xxx" (xxx is replaced with the article name)."
Are there any tips for Searching?
When Searching, Avoid Short and Common Words
- This is the most likely cause of an unexpected failed search. If your search terms include a common "stop word" (such as "the", "one", "your", "more", "right", "while", "when", "who", "which", "such", "every", "about", "onto"), then your search will fail without any results. Short numbers, and words that appear in half of all pages, will also not be found. In this case, drop those words and rerun the search. See the common words page for a complete list of words which are excluded from the database search.
- There is an exception to the common word exclusion list with respect to the search field. If you know the exact title of an article you may enter that title and press the "Go" button. That will display the article even if it contains a "stop word."
Search Field is Case-insensitive
- The searches for "department", "Department" and "DEPARTMENT" all return the same results.
Phrase Search
- There is no method for searching for a phrase. Contrary to what you might expect, enclosing phrases in double quotation marks such as "can of tuna" will retrieve all pages containing "of" "tuna" and "can".
Searching Limitations and Gotchas
- No regular expressions or wildcards
- You cannot use regular expressions or wildcards such as ? or *. If you don't know what that is, don't worry about it. To search for pages with the words "boat" or "boats" search like this: "boat or boats".
- Words in single quotes
- If a word appears in a page with single quotes, you can only find it if you search for the word with quotes. Since this is rarely desirable it is better to use double quotes in pages, for which this problem does not arise. An apostrophe is identical to a single quote, therefore Mu'ammar can be found searching for exactly that (and not otherwise). A word with apostrophe s is an exception in that it can be found also searching for the word without the apostrophe and the s.
- Delay in updating the search index
- For reasons of efficiency and priority, very recent changes to pages are not always immediately taken into account in searches.
How can I search for a word within a browser page?
If you press the 'Ctrl' key and the 'f' key (Ctrl+f) at the same time the browser (Internet Explorer or Firefox) will display a "Find" window. Type the word you are looking for into the field labeled "Find:", and press enter, or click the "next" button with the mouse. The browser will search for every instance of the word entered into the "Find" field. This is most useful after you have found the article you are looking for and want to search the page for a particular use of a word in an article.
What is a Watchlist?
- Anyone with an account may choose to be notified when a certain page changes using the "watch" feature and "my watchlist".
What is the "What Links Here" Page?
- The "What links here" page can be used to see which other articles contain links to one you are interested in. To see this information, choose the what links here link (found in the Sidebar to the left, under toolbox) while looking at any page. A list of articles which links to the specified page are displayed chronologically, from old at the top to most recently linked at the bottom.
Who can I contact for additional help?
- The following is a list of members who have agreed to be the "Department Help Cadre" for the Information Portal Program:
- Daniel Curry daniel.curry@lacity.org
- David Spence david.spence@lacity.org
- Kenneth Herrera kenneth.herrera@lacity.org
- Loc Ngo loc.ngo@lacity.org
- Mark Gozawa mark.gozawa@lacity.org
- Phillip Bowdoin phillip.bowdoin@lacity.org
- Ron Myers ron.myers@lacity.org
- Timothy Kelly timothy.kelly@lacity.org
- William Wells william.wells@lacity.org
- Tim Werle tim.werle@lacity.org