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Getting started

In order to access the ALMA Archive and submit an observing proposal, you must have previously registered with the ALMA Science Portal at www.almascience.org.

You can download the OT from the ALMA Science Portal Proposing Observing Tool page, which also contains detailed installation instructions. The OT is designed to run on all common operating systems, but requires Java 6 or higher to be installed and set as the preferred Java Runtime Environment (JRE). For more information on Java versions, updates and troubleshooting please see the troubleshooting page accessible from the Science Portal.

The OT can be downloaded in two flavours: as a Web Start application or in tarball format. The Web Start application has the advantage that the OT is automatically updated upon startup whenever a new version becomes available. Note that it does not work with the ``Open JDK'' versions of Java, such as the ``Iced Tea'' flavour common on many modern Linux installations. The tarball version of the OT requires a manual download and installation but will work with most versions of Java, and is also available with the appropriate JRE already included (Linux only).

You start the OT either by clicking on the ALMA OT icon (Web Start) or from the command line by typing ./ALMA-OT.sh in the installation directory (tarball). You will then be given the options of creating a new proposal, creating a new DDT proposal, opening an existing proposal from a file on disk, or retrieving a proposal from the ALMA Archive. To follow the step-by-step guide for Cycle 2 proposal submission, please select the first option 2.1. Alternatively, you can select the green New Proposal (Phase 1) button from the toolbar in the OT. You will then be presented with the window shown in Fig. 2.1, which illustrates the main Graphical User Interface (GUI) components:

Menu: Allows access to all functions available in the OT via pop-up submenus.
Toolbar: A selection of icons for some of the most frequently used functions in the Menu.
Project Structure Pane: Visualisation and navigation of the Project tree, which describes the structure of the project. You can expand and collapse parts of the tree by clicking the node icon to the left of each component, e.g. by clicking on the Project node, the Proposal node will appear, and underneath the Planned Observing node (which is later completed by adding one or more Science Goals).
Editor Pane: The technical specifications of the project are filled and edited in this pane. The content of the editor pane changes depending on the branch of the Project tree selected. Note that for the spatial and spectral setup the editor panes are composed of several tabs.
Feedback Pane: Provides feedback on the validation process and allows you to identify problems with your proposal.
Overview Pane: Informative summary of the proposal creation process and contextual help.

Figure 2.1: OT Graphical User Interface.
Image fig1

Before starting work on your proposal, you can customize the GUI according to your needs. The size of the different panes can be modified by clicking and dragging their borders, or maximised/minimised by clicking on the triangular arrow symbols. You can toggle the Overview and Feedback panes by clicking on View Feedback / Overview in the Menu, e.g. in order to maximise the Editor pane. The Feedback pane will normally not be visible upon starting the OT, but it will pop up when the project is validated (see Step 3.10). You can customise the OT further by selecting File Preferences. For more information please see OT video tutorial 1: Useful to Know.




next up previous contents
Next: Proposal creation and submission Up: ALMA Observing Tool Quickstart Previous: Scope   Contents
The ALMA OT Team, 2014 May 21