While context-sensitive help is available in PubGizmo to assist with specific functions, here are the basics for using the solution.
Conventions
Capitalization
Entities that are represented in the system as records are capitalized, i.e., Titles, Contacts, Editions, Contracts, etc. So while in the real world, you have contracts with authors to publish their titles, in PubGizmo, these are each stored in a Contact record, a Contract record, a Title record. Generally, the word “record” is omitted, so where the text says, “create a new Edition,” the meaning conveyed is, “create a new Edition record.”
Terms
- Primary Module/Record: a module in the system accessible by a button on the Home screen, and representing the primary record types.
- Sub-module/Record: a table of data containing records subordinate to the primary record types is referred to as a sub-module, and its records are sub-records; e.g., a Contract is a sub-record of both a Title and a Contact or Organization; a Contract is actually a “joiner” between a person or an org, and a book. There’s no button to get to Contracts; you can access Contracts by visiting the relevant Title primary record, and clicking the link (see Links, below).
- Related Record: a record that is linked in some way to the current record;
- Portal: a FileMaker Pro element that represents a list of related records; e.g., in the Contacts module, an author Contact will include portals containing records for all that Contact’s Titles.
- Found Set: you generally create a Found Set by performing a find; the Found Set is the represented by the records yielded b the find.
- Form View: view of a single record in this module
- List View: view of all the records in the Found Set for this module
Navigation
Buttons
Navigation by button is as you would expect – click the “Titles” button to go to the Titles module. When you click a module button, where you end up in the module depends on the number of records in the found set.
Menu
In each Primary Module form view, there’s a green menu button at the upper-left with multiple functions:
- Show List: toggles to the list view of the Found Set
- Show All Records: shows List View of all module’s records
- NEW Record: creates a new record
- DELETE Record: deletes the current record
- List of Modules: navigate directly to that module (bypass the Home screen)
Links
Wherever possible, records in PubGizmo are tied together with navigable links.
You can identify these links by the fact that they are green. Green means “go”; any time you see text in green, that’s a link, which when clicked, will bring you to the related record.
In this example of the Contracts portal in the Title module form view, the date is a link to the Contract, and the Contact/Organization is a link to that Contact or Organization.
Record Control
Creating Records
Record-creation is accomplished in different ways, depending on context:
- Home Screen: click the plus button, where available, beside the module name
- Form or List View: on the menu (round button with three vertical dots), select “NEW Record”
- Portal: there are three ways to create a new portal record, which varies depending on the nature of the portal:
- click the green plus (+) icon at the upper-right of the portal; this will either
- create a new portal at the top of the portal and navigate you to that record, where you can enter data, or,
- yield a menu of options; e.g., when creating a new Contract on the Title form view, you will need to select if the contract is for a Contact (person) or Organization, or,
- summon a dialogue to request specific information to populate the record; for example, when creating a new Contact to link to a Contract, you will be prompted to ensure the spelling and placement of names (first, middle, last) is correct.
- scroll to the bottom of the portal and click into the first field of the last empty row, and select or start typing your data; when you exit the new row, that record is committed (see below).
- click the green plus (+) icon at the upper-right of the portal; this will either
Committing Records
A record is not created or changed until it has been committed. Committing a record is the same as saving it. A record is committed when you exit it, either by clicking outside a field, or by navigating elsewhere – you don’t have to do anything else.
As long as your cursor remains in a field, and you haven’t left, the record has not been committed. Note that while still in a field, you can use undo to make change, but once the record is committed, the change is permanently saved.
Note that other users cannot edit a record while you have it open for editing. That is, as long as your cursor remains in a record field, that record is open for you, and uneditable by other users. Make sure you don’t leave your cursor in a field and go for lunch – that renders the record uneditable by others until you return and commit the record.
Deleting Records
There are two ways to delete a record:
- select “DELETE record” from the Menu (see above)
- click the trash can beside the record
You will get a clear prompt before the deletion happens.
It’s important to note that record deletions in FileMaker Pro are permanent; there is no undo.
A record that was created before the nightly backup (i.e., yesterday) can usually be restored from that backup, though you will be billed for the labour of restoring that record. A record that was created today cannot be restored by any means, since it hasn’t been backed up yet.
Note also that FileMaker will “cascade delete” sub-records, also known as “child” records. This ensures that orphan data does not clog up the system.
So if for example you delete a Contact record, most of its sub-records are also deleted, e.g.,
- phone numbers
- email addresses
- locations
- notes
- Contracts
This can make restoration of a record from a backup time-consuming, as all sub/child records must also be restored.