A.4.1 Filestore Browser

Filestore Browser window

Filestore Browser window

By clicking the Filestore Browser button in the Load Window, you can obtain a file browser which will display the files in a given directory. The way this window works is almost certainly familiar to you from other applications.

Unlike a standard file browser however, it can also browse files in remote filestores: currently supported are MySpace and SRB. MySpace is a distributed storage system developed for use with the Virtual Observatory by the AstroGrid project, and SRB (Storage Resource Broker) is a similar general purpose system developed at SDSC. To make use of these facilities, select the relevant entry from the selector box at the top of the window as illustrated above; this will show you a Log In button which prompts you for username, password etc, and you will then be able to browse the remote filestore as if it were local. The same button can be used to log out when you are finished, but the session will be logged out automatically when TOPCAT ends in any case. Access to remote filesystems is dependent on certain optional components of TOPCAT, and it may not be available if you have the topcat-lite configuration.

The browser initially displays the current directory, but this can be changed by typing a new directory into the File Name field, or moving up the directory hierarchy using the selector box at the top, or navigating the file system by clicking the up-directory button or double-clicking on displayed directories.

All files are shown, and there is no indication of which ones represent tables and which do not. To open one of the displayed files as a table, double-click on it or select it by clicking once and click the Open Table button. The Table Format selector must be set correctly: the "(auto)" setting will automatically detect the format of VOTable or FITS tables, otherwise you will need to select the option describing the format of the file you are attempting to load (see Section 3.1). If you pick a file which cannot be converted into a table an error window will pop up.

Because this browser only works at the file level, there is a limit to what tables it can access. For instance if you select a FITS file, the table opened will correspond to the first TABLE or BINTABLE HDU within it. For a more table-aware view of the file system, use the Hierarchy Browser instead.