In my previous post I said that I needed to find out about associating data files with electronic lab book entries. I think I’ve got it sorted out now. Imagine you are recording an experiment and want to associate the actual data files with the post of your ELN blog. I don’t mean put the actual text there, rather a link to the file of whatever format.

In the post toolbar Upload/Insert area click on the last icon “Add Media”. You should then be in the “Add files from your computer” area. This doesn’t work for me and I have to click on the link that says “browser uploader” instead. Select the file from your computer and upload it. When it has uploaded you will see the details screen. Give the file an informative name as this will be the link text inserted into your blog post by default. If nothing much happens when you click “insert” then make sure you have clicked on the “File URL” button. This will add a link to download the file into your post. The actual files themselves are held in

domainname/wp-content/uploads (then year and month folders).

These data files are not backed up if you ‘export posts as xml’ as your backup strategy, but its easy enough to ftp a copy weekly, or even get a script to do it.

I normally fill my ELN with methods and conclusions and things to do next. I keep the data files and results archived locally and try to include the file name and location in the notebook (if I remember). Now I’ll move to keep both together in WordPress. It feels a much better arrangement, and I hope I will spend less time looking for the exact input file that generated a specific tree.