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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. You can then download the OT from the OT page in the ALMA Science Portal. Please follow the detailed installation instructions there; in case of any problems you can consult the Troubleshooting page. 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). A splash screen with different options will appear. To follow the step-by-step guide for creating a new Cycle 3 proposal submission, please select the first option 'Create a new proposal' 2.1.

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Image didyouknow If you would like to re-submit a proposal from Cycle 0, 1, or 2 as a new Cycle 3 proposal you can simply open the old version saved on disk in the OT, edit it as needed, and submit it. This project will then be assigned a new (Cycle 3) project code. You will however not be able to edit proposals from previous cycles retrieved from the ALMA Science Archive. If you did not save a local copy of the .aot file you would like to re-submit, you can retrieve the old proposal from the archive and open it as a template. This will allow you to at least copy individual Science Goals into a new Cycle 3 project; the proposal information must however be filled from scratch.
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Alternatively, once the OT has opened you can select the green New Proposal (Phase 1) button from the toolbar in the OT. You will 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. You can expand and collapse parts of the tree by clicking the node icon to the left of each component
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. 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

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Image didyouknow 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. In particular, you may want to change the font size or colour scheme, or preferentially show certain editors.
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next up previous contents
Next: Proposal creation and submission Up: ALMA Observing Tool Quickstart Previous: Scope   Contents
The ALMA OT Team, 2018 Sep 25