Conversion Creating

Overview

The admin conversion creating popup, shown in the following figure, allows admin users to create a new conversion on an OED site. It is accessed from the admin conversion viewing page by clicking the "Create a Conversion" button near the top of that page. Further information on conversions is available and this page assumes one understands about conversions.

All information shown on this page is based upon the documentation example.

Usage

As shown in the figure above, the following information can be entered:

1. Source. This dropdown menu allows for the selection of the source unit of the conversion. The result of clicking this dropdown menu is shown in the following figure.

All the available units will be shown and any one can be selected by clicking it. Note that units that are not displayable to all users are also included. This field will be outlined in red until a unit is selected as is shown in the figures. If you change the source unit after selecting the destination unit then the type and existing errors can occur as described for the destination unit.

2. Destination. This dropdown menu allows for the selection of the destination unit of the conversion. The menu is the same as the one for the source dropdown. All the available units will be shown and any one can be selected by clicking it. Note that units that are not displayable to all users are also included. This field will be outlined in red until a unit is selected as is shown in the figures. Note the destination unit cannot be a meter unit and if you select one of these an error pop up will occur as in the following figure:

After clicking "OK" the selected meter unit will be used and must be changed before the conversion can be saved. Also, the destination unit cannot be of a different unit type and if you select one of these an error pop up will occur as in the following figure:

After clicking "OK" the selected meter unit will be used and must be changed before the conversion can be saved. Finally, the destination unit cannot create a conversion that already exists and if you select one that causes this an error pop up will occur as in the following figure:

After clicking "OK" the selected meter unit will be used and must be changed before the conversion can be saved.

Even though OED excludes certain types of conversions, great care should be taken in creating a new conversion as they can cause undesirable behavior at the site. For example, one can create a conversion between kWh and kg because they are both quantity units. However, it probably does not make sense to convert electrical usage into mass. Thus, only desired and correct conversions should be added into OED. (Note one might create a conversion between kWh and CO₂ which is a type of mass unit but is different and not a general mass unit. This is done by using a suffix unit.)

3. Bidirectional. This dropdown menu can be "yes" (default) or "no". "yes" indicates the conversion is bidirectional and goes in both directions and "no" indicates the conversion is unidirectional and only goes from the source to destination. OED will automatically invert a bidirectional conversion to the other direction with the correct values.
4. Slope. This inputs the slope of the conversion from the source to destination. Default is zero and that is generally not desired so it should be changed. The last digit cannot be deleted from this input field when typing in a number so care should be taken in entering values. Note that you can select the entire field and then enter new values by typing.
5. Intercept. This inputs the intercept of the conversion from the source to destination. Input is similar to slope. Default is zero and that is often the desired value.
6. Note. This allows input of additional information about the conversion that one wants to store.

There are two buttons at the bottom of the pop up:

• Discard changes. Clicking this button will remove all entries and close the popup. This means the next time that "Create a Conversion" is clicked all the values will be the default ones. Clicking outside the popup but within the OED web browser window will have the same effect.
• Save all. Clicking this button will save the new conversion with the provided entries.

Details

Saving a conversion requires a change to the OED database that necessitates a refresh of the web browser window to show the admin the updated information. As a result, all the currently selected meters/groups/language, etc. will be lost and the page shown will be the main OED graphic page. OED plans to eliminate the need for doing this in the future so one would remain on the units page.