· Planning your file structure

Before you begin entering information into First Look Pro, it’s a good idea to do a little pre-planning.  Making a few decisions now could save you a lot of trouble later.  This is especially true if you plan to use First Look Pro on multiple computers, such as a desktop computer at the station and mobile computers in vehicles.

Choose a “database administrator”.   It’s a good idea to have one person who can make sure there is always a “master version” of the database where changes are made and which is regularly backed up.  Changes would ordinarily be made on a desktop computer in the station.  The master database and all related files such as diagrams, images and tactical plans, can then be copied to the mobile computers, allowing the data to be searched and viewed in the vehicles.

 If multiple people are allowed to make changes to the database on multiple computers, you could end up with a situation where different computers contain different versions of the database.  If you do make changes to the database away from the master version (on a mobile computer, for example), you must remember to Update the master version when you return to the station.  The database administrator can limit who can edit the database using the Users & Passwords functions.  See Setting Up Users and Passwords for details.

Establish a standardized folder structure for your database and all the files that go with it, such as diagrams, images and tactical plans.  This is especially important if you are using First Look Pro on multiple computers. 

An example of a standardized location would be to create a folder called “First Look Pro Files” in the same location on every computer and then create subfolders for the different kinds of files you use with First Look Pro, such as diagrams and images.   So the path for your diagram files might be:

C:\First Look Pro Files\Diagrams\

And the path for your tactical plans would be:

C:\First Look Pro Files\Tactical Plans\

Note that the drive or partition letter can be different from computer to computer as long as you set the default drive for each computer.  You can do that in First Look Pro Preferences (File menu). 

Make sure that the drive you decide to store your diagram and image files on has plenty of free disk space. Ideally you want at least 10 Megabytes of disk space for every 100 diagram files, depending on complexity. If you are planning to use images, be aware those files can be large, so you will need even greater free space.