How to Use PubGizmo

While there are specific functions performed by each of PubGizmo's modules, there's a general convention on how to use specific features throughout. This gizmos and gadgets are helpful to know.

Documentation Coventions

Terms and conventions in this document and throughout the PubGizmo documentation

Capitalization

We capitalize record types; consider a word that seems oddly capitalized as if it is followed by the word "record." For example, your press publishes a bunch of titles, but when we refer in documentation to those records in PubGizmo, we say "Titles," meaning "title records," e.g., "view that Title," delete that Organization."

We also capitalize labels. So when we refer to the "Keywords" field, it is capitalized because on the Title record you will see an actual label that reads "Keywords."

Found Set

In PubGizmo your "found set" represents a subset of all the records in that module. Your found set varies depending on activities; for example, if you conduct a find for a Title which yields a single record, you have one record in your "found set". But if you search the Titles module for all that are Genre = "poetry" of the poetry genre (by entering "poetry" in the search box – more on searches below), and 25 records are found, your found set = 25 records.

Form View and List View

You'll see data presented in two different ways.

Form

Form view presents a large amount of data about a single record. When you search for a specific record, for example by title, you will be brought directly to the form view of that record, with all of its data presented on a single layout.

List

List view shows you limited information about a collection of records. When you enter a module by clicking on a button on the Home screen, you will be delivered to a scrollable list view the records in that module.

Getting Around

Clicking

Buttons

Most of PubGizmo's navigation duplicates what you already do in software and on websites: click an item (only a single click is necessary) to go somewhere else. Click a Contacts button to go to the Contacts module. Easy.

Links

Also like the web, PubGizmo provides "links" that you can click to go to that target info. These links are created automatically as you add data; you don't need to do anything special.

On the web, you can identify a link a couple of ways: it might be in blue, or underlined, or both.

In PubGizmo, links are green: "green means go." So if you are viewing a Contact record for an author, the Titles tab/portal shows all the Title records associated with this author in green. Click one to visit that Title record. In this case, if you click on the first green title:

You will navigate to that Title record.

On the Title record, you'll see that the opposite end of this link will take you back to the author's record:

The Three-dot Menu

At the upper-left of every major module you'll see a green button with three vertical dots. Click it to reveal a number of options, which are slightly different depending on whether you are viewing a list of records or single record.

Single Record

Here's the single record menu:

Here are the options available from this menu:

• Show List: switches from single record view to show a list of records in the module, showing all the records in the found set
• Show All Records: shows only if you have homed in on a single record in the found set; will also take you to
• NEW Record: creates a new record
• DELETE Record: deletes the current record – see notes below
• list of other modules: allows "cross-navigation" to another module, allowing you to bypass the Home screen

Record List

Searching

You can also go to a specific record or set of records by searching, again much the way you do on the web, where what you type auto-completes as PubGizmo tries to anticipate what you're looking for. PubGizmo uses something called the QuickDex, which accelerates searches and navigation. Its use is more substantially covered on this page.

Portals

Portals are simply lists of data, each item in the list a record unto itself with multiple fields, frequently with green links to other records. You can edit data in portals is a number of ways, usually dependent on how many fields comprised that record:

click and edit directly: click into the field and type

open a popover: a popover provides access to more fields than can be comfortably contained in the portal row, for example the description text for an author bio or book summary – you'll know a popover when you click, and it opens; to exit a popover, just click elsewhere, although a few popovers require you to click a button to close it

Adding and Deleting Data

Adding New Data

Plus Button

In most cases, to create new records you'll find a plus button to click. You'll see plus buttons beside each module on the Home page, plus a green plus button at the upper-right of portals; click to create a new portal record/row.

Click into a Field and Start Typing

On a few portals, you'll see grey text inviting you to click and start typing, e.g., "click to create a new Prize record"; if you do that, a new record will be created with whatever you've typed.