What follows is a quick review of the steps normally followed in doing a seriation from start to finish. For more detail click on the appropriate links.
There is no need to open a file to get started. OptiPath starts with an open file, by default the file OptiPath.ops. The location of the current file can be seen by clicking Current on the Files menu. A file can hold multiple data sets and in most cases there will be no need to work with files although the options to open, save, copy and close files are available. You can backup, or archive, your data sets by copying the current data file (Save Copy... on the Files menu).
The first thing to do is create a data set. You may import your data set from Excel or from a tab delimited text file or you can create a data set from scratch in OptiPath. In either case you will want to spend some time setting the parameters for the artifacts and features, as well as for the seriation. You may have as many data sets as you want but you can only work with one at a time.
Creating a data set will automatically create a seriation. However, you can create a new seriation without changing data sets or creating a new data set. You will want to set the parameters for the seriation before seriating. You may have as many seriations as you want but you can only work with one at a time.
If you import a data set from Excel, or if you add a new seriation to an existing data set, you will automatically have a fully populated features table. If you are creating a data set from scratch you will need to create features. At any time you can add/delete/edit features from the Features table.
If you import a data set from Excel or a tab delimited text file, or if you add a new seriation to an existing data set, you will automatically have a fully populated artifacts table. If you are creating a data set from scratch you will need to create artifacts. At any time you can add/delete/edit artifacts from the Artifacts table.
You can create assemblages or add/delete/edit assemblages from the Assemblages table.
If you did not already set the seriation parameters while creating a new seriation, now is a good time to do it. The best time to set seriation parameters is after creating features and before setting feature parameters. This is because choosing a default seriation Technique (such as occurrence seriation or shortest path seriation) for a feature causes OptiPath to automatically set many of the feature parameters for that feature (which you cannot override without setting the feature seriation Technique to Custom in the seriation parameters).
If you did not already set the feature parameters while creating features, now is a good time to do it. The best time to set feature parameters is after creating features and after setting seriation parameters. This is because choosing a default seriation Technique (such as occurrence seriation or shortest path seriation) for a feature causes OptiPath to automatically set many of the feature parameters for that feature (which you cannot override without resetting the feature seriation Technique to Custom in the seriation parameters).
If you did not already set the artifact parameters while creating artifacts, now is a good time to do it. If you are going to use assemblages, you must create assemblages before setting the assemblage for each artifact.
Assemblages are not required. They are an option if you have data for individual artifacts but want to perform frequency seriation on collections, or assemblages, of the data. OptiPath will automatically calculate the frequencies for each assemblage and create an assemblage data set to use in seriation. You can set assemblage parameters in the same way as setting artifact parameters but you must first choose Use Assemblages from Assemblages on the main menu.
If you import a data set from Excel, or if you add a new seriation to an existing data set, you will automatically have a fully populated Data table. Otherwise, once you have set up your artifacts (and assemblages) and features, you will need to select Show Table from the Data menu and enter your data.
Once you have your artifacts (and assemblages) and features and data you are ready to seriate. Select Seriate from the Seriate menu to seriate your data.
At last, you can inspect the results by selecting Show Table from the Results menu. You can also graph your results from the Graph menu.
You can export your data set to a tab delimited text file. Tab delimited text files are easily imported by spreadsheet and database programs.
You can also export graphs as graphics files in the format of your choice (GIF, JPEG, PNG, BMP, TIFF, EMF).