C.O.M.E.T Instructions:
- COMET is a software tool to implement custom order entry of Y-STR DNA markers into the Haplogroup & Haplo-'I' Subclade Predictor. Not everyone maintains their databases with their markers in standard FTDNA order and so COMET allows the order of markers pasted into the data window to be passed on to the Predictor in your custom order. Another utility allows your custom marker order to be portable so that it does not need to be specified on your next visit.
- COMET consists of three tool areas; marker checks, panel buttons, and data windows. At the top of COMET is the array of marker checkboxes or checks. These will toggle individual markers into or out of your custom marker list. There are also buttons for toggling entire panels of markers on or off. These panel buttons correspond with FTDNA's Panels of Y-DNA STR markers. To the right of the 'Add Panel 4' button is the 'Clear Custom List' button which clears all checks and empties the contents of all windows in COMET. This also resets the Predictor in anticipation of new data.
- There is no need to create a custom order marker list if your data is already in standard FTDNA order - the order the Predictor uses them in. As long as you are using FTDNA standard order and marker convention, you can simply paste your data into COMET's yellow data window, click the 'Submit My Marker Data to the Predictor' button, and the markers will be filled into the Predictor sequentially beginning with DYS393.
- You may toggle individual markers, on or off in any order, in combination with the panel buttons. Experiment with the controls; they have been designed to be very flexible to meet everyone's needs. Note: Your chosen markers are displayed in the blue text area IN EXACTLY THE ORDER YOU ENTERED THEM. Here is an example: Suppose you want to enter all Panel 1 markers except for DYS439. Click the 'Clear Custom List' button. Now click the DYS439 check and you should see 439 show up in the blue marker window. Now click the 'Add Panel 1' button. Did you see what happened? The panel buttons TOGGLE all markers in the panels. Now we see all markers in Panel 1 checked with the exception of DYS439. Now let's say you decided you made a mistake and want to include DYS439 back in again. When you click the 439 check note that 439 is added to the END of the list. Markers are added in exactly the order that you entered them. Deleted markers are deleted from the list and added markers are added on to the end of the list.
- When your customized marker list is completed, the display in the blue custom marker list window should match what is displayed across the top of your spreadsheet or whatever document it was that your data was copied from. Data can be copied from YSearch, documents, spreadsheets, webpages, wherever you want, as long as it consists of marker data only. Now simply paste your marker data into the yellow data window and click 'Submit My Marker Data to the Predictor' button. Your marker data will be automatically entered into the correct marker dropdown boxes in the Predictor above. You may if you wish edit your data in the Predictor now by making use of its dropdown boxes. Note that markers you have changed in the Predictor are NOT reflected in the marker entry tool. If you later resubmit data to the Predictor from COMET, remember that COMET resets the Predictor to a clean slate before resubmitting the data.
- It doesn't matter what the separator characters are in your marker data as long as there is just one separator character between each data point. Multiple separator characters are interpreted as markers with no data and are skipped. Please use 999 repeats to indicate a 'null' value for a marker in your data, or leave it blank and edit the marker to 'null' in the Predictor itself.
- Check the entered results carefully for errors! In the case of a fault on a marker, the Predictor will simply skip over it. If you unintentionally have two separator characters between two data points, the Predictor will fall out of step and sporadic data entry will result.
- The COMET TAIL: Every COMET has a TAIL - and so does this one. The COMET's TAIL in this case is a small bit of text that remembers your custom marker order. Suppose you use the same database every time you run the Predictor and your database marker order does not match the Predictor's FTDNA standard order. This means you would have to reconstruct your custom marker order every time you visited the Predictor page. The COMET's TAIL solves this problem. Working with the COMET TAIL is just like working with marker data except the TAIL is marker ORDER data.
- Creating your COMET TAIL: First, build your custom marker order list so that your markers are properly displayed in the blue custom marker list window. Now, type a single @ 'each at' symbol in the yellow data window ( do NOT hit enter ) and click the 'Submit My Marker Data to the Predictor' button. Notice that the @ symbol disappears from the yellow data window and some odd text appears in the blue custom marker list window. The odd text is the COMET TAIL and will look something like this: @(12,3,7,5,4,2,6); which you should be able to copy and save somewhere safe, perhaps within your database. Save the whole string, from the 'each at' sign to the semicolon at the end. You can continue working now, your custom marker order is still active. Just looking at your TAIL won't disturb any work in progress.
- Using your COMET TAIL: To get your TAIL working the next time you visit, paste your TAIL in COMET's yellow data window and click the 'Submit My Marker Data to the Predictor' button which will now function as a 'Submit My TAIL to the Predictor' button. The TAIL will disappear from the yellow data window and your custom-order markers will 'magically' appear in the blue marker list window. Now you're ready to paste your data and work as you normally would. The marker data you enter now will be lined up with the custom-order marker list stored in your COMET TAIL and the appropriate dropdown boxes in the Predictor will be automatically filled with your data.
- Oh, and if you happen to lose your own TAIL, please don't ask me to help you look for it. As helpful as I'd like to be, I'm afraid you're on your own with that one! :-)
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