🧪Markers User Guide

Experimental applet for saving timestamped data labels known as markers.

How to Use

  1. Click New Marker File to define the filename (and optional header).

  2. Click Define Markers to define the number of markers and their corresponding labels.

  3. Click Record.

1. New Marker File

The first step is to create a new file. You may do this with the New Marker File button or from the menu bar using File > New Marker File.

The New Marker File may be accessed from File in the menu bar.

File Name: Name the file. The creation date will be appended to your filename. Header (optional): You may also include text that will be included in the output file. Save: Creates a text file that will save the timestamped marker recording. Files will be saved to the same location as the Markers application. Cancel: Discards changes made in this window.

Input fields to name a new marker file and provide an optional header value.
The main window shows a new file named Demo File Name was created.

Save: Saves your input and returns you to the main window. Notice the Filename text has changed from None to reflect the name of the new marker file.

In the root directory (the same folder location as the application), you should also see your newly created file. It includes the file creation date and time and the header. If you did not define a header, default_header is used.

The new file is located in the same folder as the Markers application.
The date, time, and header appear in the newly created marker file.

Next, hit Define Markers.

2. Define Markers

Set the number and names of markers.

From the main window, hitting the Define Markers button should display a new window. Select the number of markers to define (up to 18).

Up to 18 markers may be defined.

Then, with the number of markers selected, type the marker labels to use in your recording. Alternatively, you may skip this step and the default labels will be used.

Input fields may be used to define each marker.

Skip (use defaults): A label will automatically be generated for each marker. (e.g, marker0, marker1, etc.)

Save Markers: The markers will override active markers and you will be returned to the main window.

Cancel: Discards any changes and returns you to the main window.

If everything worked correctly, your newly defined markers should appear near the Active Markers label.

The active file name and markers appear in the Setup frame.

The setup process is complete. Next, hit Record.

3. Recording

Begin logging markers to the file.

  1. Press a marker button to add it to the marker file.

  2. Repeat until you are ready to finish the recording.

  3. Hit Stop to end the recording and save the Marker File.

The Recording markers window is displayed with four markers with default values.

Keep window on top: Set this checkbox to selected to keep the Recording window on top of other windows for ease of access.

4. View the File

The marker file will include the updated log of labels and timestamps.

The marker file lists the markers and the LSL timestamp of when they were pressed.

That's it!

If you followed along and made it this far, congratulations! You learned how to record custom markers to a file.

One thing you might do next is to combine the marker file with the data log files saved by Metrics to enrich data sets.

Pro tip: Use Metrics and Markers together to add labels to data streamed from a muse device. This combination can be powerful for training machine learning models.

Warning Messages

You may see these warnings if certain items haven't yet been defined.

Define File: If you see this warning message, a new file has not been created and saved. Close the warning to return to the main window. Create a new marker file and hit Save.

Warning message: Before defining markers, you must create and save a new marker file.

Define Markers: Before you can Record, markers must be defined. Hit OK or close the window to return to the main window. Then, define markers as described in the Define Markers section of the documentation.

Warning message: Before recording, markers must first be defined.

Help and Feedback

If you experience problems with the application, you may return to this User Guide from the Markers app by going to Help > User Guide.

Additionally, you may reach out to the community on the official Petal Discord Server by visiting Help > Petal Discord.

The User Guide and Petal Discord links are listed under Help in the menu bar.

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