The "Focus™ Platform Manual" introduces the main functions of Focus™, which are independent of its core functionality of managing topics, roadmaps and actions.
It is complemented by the "Focus™ Topics, Roadmaps, Actions Manual", which ellaborates on that.

Splash

When you first invoke the URL of Focus™, you will face the Focus™ splash screen, which introduces you to starting your session:

(Focus™ splash screen)

If you click on the splash screen, it will switch to the welcome screen, including the menubar on top.

Later after login, you can configure a different URL in your profile, which you want to be invoked when clicking on the splash screen.

Welcome

The welcome screen appears automatically after starting Focus™.
It gives you a quick overview of what Focus™ is all about.
Feel free to read through it before you continue.

(Focus™ welcome screen)

Menubar

On top of the screen, you can see the menubar.
Immediately after first starting Focus™, there are only few options available (not logged-in yet).
The number of options can vary, depending on your login state or on your authorization level after login.

(Focus™ menubar, without login)

(Focus™ menubar, after login)

Home

The Home screen shows all available options of Focus™, depending on the current login state and authorization level:

(Focus™ home screen, without login)

(Focus™ home screen, after login with full administrative privileges)

Additionally, short explanations are available next to each item.

This is the best option to make yourself familiar with the available functionality associated with your user account.

Menu

The menu is available from the upper-left part of the top-level menubar.
It shows the same options as the Home function, only in a more compact version (like a drop-down menu).

(Focus™ drop-down menu)

About

The About screen gives you a high level overview of the major 3rd party components used in the Focus™ platform.
It also shows the copyright and the current version information.

(Focus™ about screen)

Documentation

The Documentation function offers you the full set of Focus™ application documentation.
And if you read this, you are already reading the documentation ;-).

(Focus™ documentation main overview)

Search

The Search function is only available after you successfully logged in.
It allows you to perform a quick wildcard search in the name fields of users and topics.

(Focus™ quick search field in the top-level menubar)

Just enter part of a user name or part of a topic name and click the Search button to view the results.
Clicking the Clear button will remove the previously entered filter again.

For more ellaborate searches you can use the user browser or the topic browser from the home screen.

Settings

The Settings screen allows you adjust a couple of different settings, which are valid only for your current session in the current browser (they are stored in browser cookies).

(Focus™ settings screen)

Here is an overview of the different settings:

• Silent
  By default, Focus™ plays a click sound when a function is initiated (clicking a button or a link in the GUI).
  Furthermore, there is some music played in the splash and the about screen.
  You can enable or disable these sounds here.
• Presentation Mode
  This toggle is also available as the leftmost button in the breadcrumb in the roadmap view.
  In presentation mode, all distracting buttons are hidden and the top level menubar is not shown, so that full focus on the content is possible.
• Editor
  This toggle enables or disables the integrated WYSIWYG HTML editor used when editing topics or actions.
  The topic and action editors also include local buttons to toggle this.
• Render Detail
  This toggle enables or disables the rendering of topic detail information on the roadmap view.
  Remember that details are only rendered, when enabled in the individual topic, too.
  This toggle allows you to show or hide the enabled details globally.
• Render Percent
  This toggle enables or disables the rendering of estimated topic completion percentages on the roadmap view.
• Render Involved
  This toggle enables or disables the rendering of the involved people in topics on the roadmap view.
• Hide Buttons
  This toggle allows you to globally hide buttons, independent of presentation mode (if you prefer a clean uncluttered display).
• Export Mode
  Here you can define the export format when using the various export functions in Focus™.
  The ZML format can be re-imported into another Focus™ instance.
  The CSV format can be imported into a spreadsheet program (e.g. Excel™).
• Size
  This allows you to select the size of a timeslot on the timeline in roadmap view.
  Larger numbers mean more room for the individual topic, but less timeslots on the screen without scrolling.

Register

The Register screen allows you to register a new user account with the Focus™ platform:

(Focus™ registration screen)

Just fill in your full name, your personal email address and a short description of your user.
All of this can be changed later, after registration.
But the initial values are reviewed by the owner of the Focus™ instance on which you are registering.
If you downloaded Focus™ and register on your own instance, then this is you (changing your hats quickly ;-).

Now click the OK button at the bottom of the screen.
If you filled all fields correctly, a 2nd button called "Register" will appear.
Clicking this button will complete the registration.

(Focus™ registration screen after clicking the "OK" button)

Registering a new user account will create a new user object, which represents your user.
Your user account will have a new random personal secret certificate and is still deactivated.
It is now waiting for a review and approval by the owner of the Focus™ instance you just registered on.

The Focus™ instance owner needs to review the new user and set the "active" field and the "login" field to "yes", so that the user can login (they are set to "no" by default).

Other attributes (for example the correct keys or the "editor" field) also have to be set, depending on your instance configuration.

Be patient (or if you are the owner of your own instance, do the above ;-).

Recover

The Recover function allows you to enter an email address, which previously registered a user account with this Focus™ instance:

(Focus™ account recovery screen)

Clicking the Recover button will try to locate the user account.
If a user account associated with this email address was found, an email is automatically sent, which contains the personal secret certificate of the user for login.

Login

The Login function allows you to paste your personal secret certificate (a random 32-character string):

(Focus™ login screen)

You usually received your personal secret certificate by email.
You may also copy and paste it into a safe place (your own password manager or encrypted disk drive).
If you do not have it at hand, you can try to recover it by using the recover screen (see above).

Make sure that your personal secret certificate stays secret!
Do not share it with anyone.
Do not store it in an insecure place where other people have access to.
Treat it like a physical key to your appartment.

Profile

The Profile function allows you to update certain aspects of your user account.

(Focus™ profile screen)

Here are some explanations on the different fields:

• Name
  The full name of the user (firstname lastname).
• EMail
  The email address of the user (used for account recovery by email).
• Detail
  A detailed description of your user (for example role in the company, phone number, etc.).
• Avatar
  An optional upload of a JPG, PNG or GIF image, representing the avatar of your user account.
• Subscriptions
  This is for future extension.
  At the moment you can subscribe to the "daily news" service to receive notification about new actions on a daily basis or subscribe to the "simple UI" to make the user interfance appear less complex.
• Home URL
  An optional URL, which should be invoked when you click on the splash screen.
  By default, the welcome screen is displayed.

Security-relevant fields

• Certificate
  Your personal secret certificate, in ghosted form (barely readable) for the purpose of mark-copy-paste and store in a safe place.
• Keys
  The keys owned by the user account (which provide access to topics).
• Admin
  The account is either an administrative account or a user account.
  Administrative accounts have full access to everything in Focus™.
  Can be turned off and on, if the account has the "togadmin" key.
• Editor
  The account is either an editor account or a read-only account.
  Editor accounts can edit topics and actions, depending on the key+lock configuration.
  Can be turned off and on, if the account has the "togeditor" key.

User-Interface-relevant fields

• Background
  Allows you to select a different background picture from a collection of server-side backgrounds.
• Clicksound
  Allows you to select a different click sound from a collection of server-side mp3 files.
• Font
  Allows you to select a different font from a collection of server-side truetype font files.
• Fontsize
  Allows you to select a different font size for text.
• Iconset
  Allows you to select a different icon set form a collection of server-side icon collections.

Make the necessary changes and click the Save button to save.

Click the Cancel button to return to the home screen.

Recertify

The Recertify function is only available after you successfully logged in.

The recertify screen allows you to generate a new random personal secret certificate for your current user account.
It will be changed immediately on-the-fly:

(Focus™ recertification screen)

If you click the Recertify button, you can continue with your session normally.
All other sessions on other devices are immediately invalidated and need a login to continue.

Use this screen if you suspect that your personal secret certificate became compromised somehow.

Logoff

The Logoff function is only available after you successfully logged in.

The logoff screen allows you to logoff from your current user account:

(Focus™ logoff screen)

Be sure that you have your personal secret certificate ready, if you want to login again later.

Resume

The Resume function is only available if you became a different user from an administrative user beforehand.

It resumes the original administrative user and thereby ends the impersonating of another user (for example for support purposes).

(Focus™ resume screen)

Code

The Code function shows a list of all the code modules, which together form the Focus™ application.

You can filter for a subset of modules by name.

If you specify a wildcard filter, only the modules will be shown, which wildcard-match the provided filter.

For example entering

lang

will show you all the language translation libraries of Focus™.

(Focus™ code screen)

The list will show you the following information:

• The filename, which is the name of the module.
• The Details, which are part of the header of the source file as a ZML [codedoc] tag.
• The number of lines of code of the source file (LoC).
• The date and time of the last modification of the source file.
• The size of the source file.

You can click on the filename (or the View button on the right) to display the color-highlighted source code, if you want to study the code in detail.

Please note that this command does not allow editing of the source code.

(Focus™ code detail screen)

Find

The Find function allows you to search all source code files of Focus™ for a certain phrase.

This is helpful, if you want to do code modifications and need to assess the code segments, which you have to change.

For example:
If you want to understand, which modules use the listTopicByParent() function, you can simply search for

listTopicByParent(

The function will list all source code files, which contain this phrase.

(Focus™ code find screen)

You can click on the filename (or the View button on the right) to display the color-highlighted source code, if you want to study the code in detail.

Please note that this command does not allow editing of the source code.

Missing

The Missing function requires the specification of a translation language file available in Focus™.

It allows you to validate, if all phrases in the application are really translated or whether one or more of the translations are missing.

To verify this for example for the german translation, enter

lang_german.go

By default, the currently selected language file is being rendered (english).

This function is used by the application developers during code quality assurance.

(Focus™ missing translations screen)

Superfluous

The Superfluous function requires the specification of a translation language file available in Focus™.

It allows you to validate, whether there is one or more superfluous translations in the specified language file, which can be removed.

This command is used by the application developers during code quality assurance.

(Focus™ superfluous translations screen)

Import

The Import function allows you to import a previously exported file containing any of the Focus™ data objects into your Focus™ instance.

This function can also be used to move data from one instance to another.

Import data is formatted in ZML.
Here is an example for an export file containing two roles:

[state]
[id]c29f96642ccf4fddac2b788adb95227b[/id]
[name]Planned[/name]
[detail][/detail]
[active]1[/active]
[final]0[/final]
[sort]1[/sort]
[style]background-color:#808080;color:#ffffff;[/style]
[percent]-1[/percent]
[/state]

[state]
[id]29753ded64eb49caa82b20c21d1f89ed[/id]
[name]Started[/name]
[detail][/detail]
[active]1[/active]
[final]0[/final]
[sort]2[/sort]
[style]background-color:#d0ffd0;color:#000000;[/style]
[percent]-1[/percent]
[/state]

Export files can also be modified before importing them again, because they are plain text files.

Such a file can contain a collection of different Focus™ object types.

If an object with the same ID already exists in the database, Focus™ will skip the object during import (not performing an update).

To initiate an import, select the Import function from the main menu or the home screen:

(Focus™ import screen)

Click the Browse button and select a ZML file from your local storage.

To start the import, click the Import button.

The Cancel button will return to the home screen without performing the import.

At the end of the import, Focus™ will show an overview of how many objects of a given type have been successfully imported or ignored (due to duplicates).

Please note again, that exporting as well as importing requires administrative privileges.

Integrity

When you import data into your Focus™ instance, it might happen that you import data, which has relations to other data objects, which are not present in your Focus™ instance.

For example you may have imported some topics which use a custom state (e.g. "in decision" with the ID "decision"), which is not available in your Focus™ instance.

The database of Focus™ does not directly enforce these foreign key relationships for flexibility reasons; instead the Focus™ application assures the proper checking of relations during (for example) a delete operation.

You can use the Integrity function to verify all relations in the entire database (for example after an import), to make sure everything is in place.

Select the Integrity function from the main menu or the home screen:

(Focus™ integrity screen)

Focus™ will list all data objects and their primary ID foreign key relations.

Whenever something is encountered, which has a missing key, the concreted key ID is dumped in RED to the screen.

This gives you a chance to manually add the missing record and thereby fix the situation.

What will happen if foreign keys are missing?

In nearly all the cases, the related record will simply not show up in the frontend of Focus™.

If you for example imported a topic with a state, which does not exist in your instance, the topic will simply not show up in the lists or the search and the record cannot be edited.

As soon as you add the missing state, the topic will automatically appear again.

Audit

The Audit function allows you to browse the internal audit log, which records any incoming web transaction for auditing purposes.

You can also delete all records in the current audit log, if you no longer need the information (You can use the "Export" function prior to delete to save the accumulated audit log locally).

(Focus™ audit screen)

Update

The Update function will contact the official website www.litehouse.dev and will try to locate any official updates.

If updates are found, they will be automatically downloaded.

To activate a successful update, you need to restart your Focus instance afterwards™.

(Focus™ update screen)

Restart

The Restart function will gracefully shutdown the currently running Focus™ process and will restart it.

This function is helpful after an update of the server-side configuration (for example if you made changes to the global configuration file "focus.ini") or if you deployed a new release of Focus™.

(Focus™ restart screen)

Shutdown

The Shutdown function will shutdown the Focus™ server process in a graceful manner by closing all resources and exiting.

This function is provided for an emergency situation (for example if you need to stop all access to the Focus™ instance for security reasons), as you need operating system access to restart the process afterwards.

(Focus™ shutdown screen)