3  How to use Catalyzer

This chapter explains how to enter your data in Catalyzer by creating catalogs, classes and records. The catalog, class and record system in Catalyzer lets you organize information into a hierarchical tree structure. (see the Introduction to Records and Classes in the previous section for an explanation of these terms). This chapter covers the following topics:

• Starting to use Catalyzer. This section describes how to make a new catalog, and explains the toolbar and keyboard shortcuts.
• Catalog editing modes : Catalog Window and Class Window. This section describes how to switch between the two editing modes of Catalyzer - Catalog editing, and Class editing.
• Loading and Saving Catalogs. This section describes how to load and save catalog files, and how to open up the built in examples.
• Adding Records. Catalogs store a hierarchy of records of information; this sections shows how to add, delete, rename and duplicate records and folders. Each record must have an associated class which defines its fields - so you may want to read this section along with the one on Creating Classes.
• Editing Records is very simple in Catalyzer, as you just need to fill in a form defined by the record's class.
• Creating Classes shows how to create your own classes, with your own set of fields.

Shortcuts

If you want to create a catalog of data you already have on CD or hard disk, you may wish to skip to Cataloging files on hard disk / CD If you want to convert data you have in a spreadsheet, skip to Importing Spreadsheets using copy/paste.

Key features

The quick start tutorial on Creating a Catalog from Scratch should be useful in covering the main Catalyzer features in a short time.

It is particularly important to get familiar with the two modes of Catalyzer - Catalog Editing Mode, and Class Editing mode. These are described in the Catalogs Editing Modes section below.