The Data Editor

The Data Editor form is the normal starting point for all actions within the application. The form can be divided into the three highlighted blocks shown below: Navigation Bar, Category Window, Datasheet / Data Form, plus the Image Preview box in the top-right corner.

The Navigation Bar

Every form in CleverCat has a Navigation Bar on the left side, and it's simply a tool for opening a different form. On the Data Editor, it also contains several functions for working with data on the Datasheet.

Click any of following links to open a tutorial specific to that function.

Select Records

Copy/Move Records

Sort/Group Records

Two functions that are on every Navigation Bar are the link to the Printing Menu, and the Print Preview button.

The Printing Menu has more printing options, but if you just want a quick preview of the data, click the Print Preview button to open a PDF in your browser. Most browsers are configured to automatically open the PDF in a new Tab. Some browsers may be set to create a file, instead. You should be able to change that on your browsers configuration page.

The PDF created by Print Preview will be different depending on what page you open it from. If you click the button on the Data Editor, the PDF will contain all products selected for printing in the current category.
If you open a Preview on a Design Page, such as the Template Editor, you'll see only one full page plus one product on a second page. This is to make Previews faster during the design process.

The Category Window

There are five buttons in the Header of the Category Window.

New creates a new, blank category with the default category customization. Enter a name for the new category when prompted.

Copy creates a blank category with the same customizations and configuration as an existing category. Click any category in the list first, then click Copy. Enter a name for the new category when prompted.

Delete removes the category and any data stored in the category.
CAUTION: There is no recovery from an accidental deletion.

Empty deletes all product data from the category but leaves the category and all its customizations intact.
CAUTION: There is no recovery from an accidental deletion.

Create New Template prompts you for a name for the new Template and automatically opens the Template Designer. There is also a Template Editor button on the Navigation Bar, but this opens the currently selected Template in the Designer.

Within the Category Window, there are several more functions that can be performed by Clicking or Double-clicking a Row or Header.

Click the Header for the Category or Index column to sort the categories Alphabetically or by Index (Starting Page Number).

Click any row in the Category Window to open the Datasheet for that category.

Double-click any cell in the Template column to open the Template Selector. You can reassign Templates to categories at any time.

The Datasheet

The Datasheet is the online equivalent of a Spreadsheet. It contains a grid of cells which may store a variety of information: Text, Dates, Numbers, HTML Text, or Photos.

There are several functions in the Datasheet Header.

Block Mode has three options:

Rows: When the Datasheet is in this mode, you can click any row(s) to highlight them in orange as shown above, then drag-and-drop those rows to a new location.

Cells: When the Datasheet is in Cell mode, you can drag your mouse across a block of cells to highlight them in yellow. When highlighted, the keyboard shortcuts Ctrl+C and Ctrl+V operate on all the cells as a block. This allows you to copy data from one block of cells to another, or even between the online Datasheet and a Spreadsheet on your local computer.

Select All: Click this option to highlight all Rows at once. Another way of highlighting multiple rows is to highlight one, then hold down the Shift key on your keyboard and highlight another. All rows in between the two selected ones will be highlighted. Also, you can hold down the Ctrl key on your keyboard and click individual rows to select/deselect them.

The Insert button works together with the adjacent Number Field and the rows at: selector.
Enter a number of rows to create in the Datasheet (max: 999) and select whether these rows will be inserted at the Top, Bottom, or at the currently highlighted position in the Datasheet.

The Delete Selected button will remove all highlighted rows from the database.
CAUTION: There is no recovery from an accidental deletion. You will be asked to confirm this action.

Detail Rows has two options for use with data that been organized into Product Groups.

Show will display all rows in a Product Group.

Hide will display only the first row in a Product Group. In this mode, you can drag-and-drop a row, and all the sub-items in the Product Group will be dropped at the new location, even though you cannot see them until you select Show.

The Datasheet is highly customizable. Using the Category Editor form, you can select which columns to display and also configure the column type. In addtion to a standard Text field, you can set a column to contain HTML or Photos.

You can change the width of the columns by placing your mouse at the line between column headers (it will change into a double-sided arrow) and dragging the column to a new width. You can change the position of a column by clicking and holding down your mouse in the column header, and then dragging the column.

The checkboxes on the left side of the Datasheet determine which products will be printed. The Blue and White checkbox in the Column Header is a Toggle which selects/deslects all rows at once.

If your data must be organized in Product Groups (where a number of products are represented in a table by a single photo), you can enable the Print Order and Sub Order columns. These numbers control whether products will be printed individually or as a Product Group.

The numbers can be changed manually, or created automatically during the Import from a CSV File, or created using the Sorting/Grouping function. In this example, the first 5 rows share a common Print number, which indicates they form a Product Group. The Sub numbers indicate the printing order within the group.

The Data Form

The Data Form is a customizable, single-product editor. Double-click any cell to open the appropriate text editor or photo selector, depennding on the field type.

View the Data Form Configuration Tutorial for instructions on customizing the Data Form.

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