Manual editing of primary data file
The ‘File’ drop-down list used to have 2 items, ‘Open for running and editing voltages’ and ‘Open for manual editing’. These have now omitted, but can be restored.
Manual editing is a relic from the time when the databuilder was not available -it is certainly not recommended now.
All users are strongly encouraged to use the databuilder, which always gives the correct formats and which has many options for which the formats are not described or easily deduced.
Other programs rarely have a sophisticated databuilder -and some have no databuilder at all!- so some new users might be accustomed to manual editing, but they should strongly resist the temptation to continue doing this when they switch to the CPO programs.
There are no circumstances in which manual editing is essential but there might be some in which it is convenient for example if an external program is used to generate the data files (when it might be convenient to use the electrode curvature option). The option has therefore been retained. To activate it a file named ‘manual.dat’ must be created in the folder that contains the cpo*.exe files. The first line of this file must contain 3 separate integers, for the present year, month and day, such as ‘2013 12 18’.