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" means "view that title record."

We also capitalize labels, and sometimes concepts. 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 how you arrive at a record or records; 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.

You can see how many records in your Found Set by looking at the bottom-right of the window:

In this case, the found set is one record, and there are three records in total.

Form View and List View

You'll see records presented in two different ways:

Form View

Form View presents a quantity of data about a single record. When you conduct a search or click a button that yields a single record (one record in your Found Set), you will arrive at Form view of that record, with all of its data presented on a single layout.

List View

List View shows you limited information about a collection of records. If you perform an operation that produces a found set with two or more records, they will be presented it List view.

To Open a Single Record

In List View, open a record in the list by clicking it. The view will change to Form View of that record.

Note however that your Found Set does not change when you enter Form View by clicking a record in List View. If you were viewing 12 records in List View, and you click on one, the record will open in List View, but the other records remain in the Found Set. You can use the left and right arrows at the upper-left of the screen to page through all the records in the Found Set.

You can also return to List View of the Found Set by using the Three-Dot Menu.

Which View Do You Get?

In general PubGizmo uses the size of your Found Set to determine which view to send you to.

• one record in Found Set: Form View
• two or more records in Found Set: List View

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.