There are two ways to open a CASA table: on the command-line or
through a file chooser dialog.
- Command-line: See Usage.
- File Chooser: Once a CasaBrowser window has been opened,
files can be opened by selecting the File - Open Table menu
option or by using the Ctrl+O keyboard shortcut.

If opening the table succeeded, the table should appear in a new
tab. If opening failed, an error message will appear with details
on the failure.
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To open a table with TaQL (see
links
for documentation), use the
File - Open TaQL (Ctrl+Shift+O)
command. You will be presented with a dialog to enter your
TaQL command. There is a rudimentary TaQL command builder, but
currently it is somewhat primitive and only supports the
SELECT command. If using the builder, be sure to click the
"Generate" button to generate the TaQL command before clicking
"Accept".
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There are three ways to close a table:
File - Close Table
(Ctrl+W), which closes the currently selected table;
File -
Close..., which allows you to choose which of the opened
tables you wish to close; and
File - Close All, which
closes all opened tables.
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When you close a CasaBrowser window, the default behavior is to save the
currently opened "view." A view consists of:
- The last directory you opened a table from,
- A list of currently opened tables,
- Which table was currently selected.
- For each opened table:
- Which columns (if any) were hidden,
- Where each column was moved to (if they were moved),
- Which rows were loaded,
- The current row filter, if there was one,
- The field formats, if there were any,
- The current sort order (if any) of the fields.
If you do not wish the view to be saved, this may be turned off in the
Options (see Browsing:Edit Options).
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Options for the CasaBrowser can be edited with the
Edit - Options
command. Currently, two options may be adjusted:
- Save View on Close: indicates whether, when the CasaBrowser
is closed, the current view should be saved. (See Browsing:Saved
Views).
- Debug Threshold: affects how much debugging output is
printed to the console. Messages that have a debug level that
is greater than or equal to the threshold are printed. For
example, if the threshold is set to High, then only messages with
a High level are printed, whereas a threshold of Medium will print
High and Medium messages.
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Information about an opened table can be viewed by using the
View - Table Information (Ctrl+I) menu command. A table
information panel will open on the right side of the currently
selected table. Information about tables provided include:
- Location on disk
- Total number of rows
- Whether the table allows for insertion and/or deletion of
rows
- List and description of fields:
- Field name
- Field type
- Field unit (if given)
- Field UCD (if given)
- Field ref (if given)
- Field precision (if given)
- Field width (if given)
The side panel can be closed with the "Close" button.
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Each opened table has three tabs associated with it; the first and
topmost of these tabs is the data tab. The data tab has two
primary components: the data table and page navigation.
- Data Table: a spreadsheet-like interface for viewing
table data. The column headers consist of the table fields, and
the row headers indicate which rows of the table are currently
being viewed.
Clicking on a cell will highlight the cell, its row, and its
column. Double-clicking on a cell, for most data types, will
enter into editing mode (see Editing);
some data types, however, have special behavior for
double-clicking:
- Arrays: Text displayed in the data cell for an
array will either be a (potentially abbreviated) view of
the array itself in the case of a one-dimensional array,
or the shape of the array. In either case,
double-clicking will open an array viewer in a side panel
on the right of the data tab. The rows and columns in the
array viewer table correspond to the rows and column in
the underlying array. In the case of an array having
dimension greater than two, a two-dimensional "slice" of
the array can be viewed at any given time.

- Tables: Double-clicking on a table will follow the
reference to that table and open it in a separate tab (if
the table exists).
- Page Navigation: only a set number of rows are loaded
from the table at one time. Thus, conceptually, the table can
be seen as being separated into "pages", each page containing
the number of loaded rows. At the bottom of the data tab are
components that allow for page navigation and control.

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Each opened table has three tabs associated with it; the second and
middle of these tabs is the table keywords tab. Each table keyword
is displayed in a table in this component. Table keywords consist
of the keyword name, the keyword type, and the keyword value.
One of the most common uses of the table keywords are to show the
table's subtables. For these subtable keywords, the number of rows
are also shown. Additionally, double-clicking on any subtable
keyword
will open the specified table in a new tab.
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Each opened table has three tabs associated with it; the third and
bottommost of these tabs is the field keywords tab. Each field
keyword is displayed in a tree in this component. Field keywords
consist of the keyword name, the keyword type, and the keyword
value.
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Any data item that has an integer type can be used as a row
reference into a subtable. Right-clicking on a suitable data item
will bring up a context menu that will allow you to follow the
reference to any subtable defined in the table keywords. If the
subtable is not currently open, it will be opened; if the subtable
is open, its tab will be selected. The open table will then
scroll to and highlight the row referenced by the data item.
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To view field options and information, right-click on a column
header. A context menu will be presented with the following
options:
- Field Information: Displays a pop-up dialog with the
field name and type along with any field keywords.
- Statistics: For numerical fields, statistical
information can be displayed. This includes the
minimum, maximum, and mean. NOTE: the statistics
are only for the rows currently loaded in the browser.
- Format Field: see Format Data
Display.
- Hide Column: see Show/Hide Columns.
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The ability to filter rows based on data content is available
through the
View - Filter on Fields (Ctrl+Shift+F) menu
command. (
Note: Rows are filtered just on the display, not
on the underlying table!) A filter consists of a set of rules;
each rule is a logical statement involving the values of one table
field. Multiple rules are logically "and"ed together to form the
filter.
For example, suppose that all rows in which the VALID column is not
1 should be filtered out. To do this, enter the rule: VALID is
equal to 1 and then run the filter. All rows that do
not
pass the filter rules are hidden in the view. If the page is
changed, the filter is applied to the newly loaded rows.
The current filter can be cleared with the
View - Clear Filter
(Ctrl+Shift+C) menu command.
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Rows can be searched for by using the
Edit - Find (Ctrl+F)
menu command. A search is based on a set of rules; each rule is a
logical statement involving the values of one table field.
Multiple rules are logically "and"ed together to form the
search.
For example, suppose that you want to search for rows in which the
VALID column is equal to 1. To do this, enter the rule: VALID is
equal to 1 and then run the search.
The first rule to match the search rule is highlighted in the data
tab. Running search again will open a new rule dialog. To find
the next row that matches the search rule, use
Edit - Find Next
(F3), or to find the previous row that matches the search
rule, use
Edit - Find Previous (Shift+F3).
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There are two ways to sort rows by their field values. The first
is to click the field header in the data view, which will
alternate between sorting on that row in ascending and descending
order. The header will have an arrow indicating the sort
order.

The second way is to use the
Tools - Sort (Ctrl+S) command.
A dialog will appear that will allow you to sort on multiple fields
simultaneously. The sort is performed starting with the top field
and ending with the bottom field. The header of the first field
will have an arrow indicating the sort order.

Note that sorting only sorts on the currently displayed items,
not the entire table.
To clear the current sort, use the
Clear Sort button at the
bottom of the data display.
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Displayed data can be formatted according to its type. To format
data, use the
View - Format Display... command and then
choose the field to format. Depending on the type, different
formatting options may be displayed. Once a desired format has
been configured, it can be applied with the
Set Format
button.

Once a format has been set, it can be cleared by once again
invoking the
View - Format Display... command and then
clicking the
Clear Format button.
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Any column can be shown or hidden in both the data and the keywords
tab. Columns can be shown or hidden in the
View - Columns
menu, or by right-clicking on the column header.
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Any column in the data table can be moved to an arbitrary location
in the table view.
Note: this does
not change the
order of the columns in underlying table on disk; it is merely a
display change. To restore the columns to their original order,
click the "Restore Columns" button.
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