After defining a new measurement type it is usually required that the methods that are used to process the measurement data (if any) are also defined.
The Experiment Database program uses a relational database model. It means that the data is stored in tables and rows. The tables are bound by relations and they are the same for all table rows, hence for all data stored in the database. That means that all data stored has to have the same structure, although not all data fields has to be filled.
In case of the measurement database this restriction means that in order to be able to compare different results it may be necessary to introduce methods that do nothing. In such a case, when defining a method, user has to specify whether the obtained measurement IS a result as well. In such cases the same file name will be displayed twice in the database tree: once at the measurement level, the second time one level down, as the result.
Methods are defined using the ‘Method’ screen, called through the [View|Method...] main menu command. Only the method name is mandatory. It is also possible to define a default file location and file name extensions.
One should keep in mind that there is no built-in support for graphical data representation of user-defined result types. It means that it is possible to create, display and sort data sets, but there is no way to display their data in diagrams using the Experiment Database program.