Tutorial: Creating a New Data File

You need to create your own data files for storing your information. Create an empty data file called GENERAL.KNO:

•	Click on the New button on the Toolbar.

The New File dialog box is displayed. The existing Personal Knowbase files are listed.

•	If you would like to place your data file in a folder other than the Personal Knowbase data folder, use the Save In menu to select the folder you want.

•	In the File Name edit box, type GENERAL (or any other name that you prefer). Click on the Save button.

The Index Window is now the main window on the screen. All three columns are empty, since the data file does not yet have any articles or keywords.

Now put an article in the data file:

•	Click on the New Article button on the Toolbar.

A blank Article Window is now displayed. The cursor is in the title box.

•	Type "To-Do List" in the title box as a title for the article.

Note that the date edit box displays today's date. You may change this date if you wish.

•	Click on the large content (or text) area of the Article Window.

•	In the content area, type a few to-do items such as:

Call John Smith

Evaluate Personal Knowbase software

Get seminar info

•	Double-click inside the Keywords list box on the right side of the window.

The Keywords for Article dialog box is displayed. This window is for assigning keywords to the article. Since no keywords are in the data file yet, the keyword lists are blank.

•	In the New Keyword edit box, type "to-do" and press the Enter key.

The keyword to-do is added to the list of keywords assigned to this article.

•	Click on the OK button to exit the dialog box.

We return to the Article Window. The keyword to-do has been added to the keyword list on the right side of the window.

•	Click on the window's close box to close and save the article.

This returns you to the Index Window. The keyword to-do is now displayed in the Index column of the window. The article title "To-Do List" is shown in the All Titles column. Today's date, shown alongside the title, is the date when the article was created.

Sometimes you need to modify an existing article. For example, let's add some formatting to the text in the to-do list we just created:

•	To open the article, double-click on the title "To-Do List" in the All Titles column of the Index Window.

The Article Window containing our To-Do List is displayed.

•	Select all 3 lines of text by dragging the mouse cursor across the text.

•	Click on the Numbered List button on the Formatting Toolbar to number the 3 lines.

•	Now select only the first to-do item by dragging the mouse cursor across the text.

•	Click on the Text Color button on the Formatting Toolbar and click on the red color swatch from the drop-down colors menu.

The selected text turns red:

1. Call John Smith

2. Evaluate Personal Knowbase software

3. Get seminar info

•	Click on the window's close box to close the article.

This time, because you modified an existing article, Personal Knowbase asks you to verify that you want to save the article changes.

•	Select the Yes button to save the article changes.

Create a second article in the same way that you created the "To-Do List" article. Give it the title "Web Addresses" and start a list of Web addresses that you want to check out. Give it the keyword Web. Close the article to save it and return to the Index Window.

Back in the Index Window, both of your articles are now listed in the All Titles column. Let's look at how we can control which article titles are displayed in the Titles column. First, let's display only the titles of articles which are assigned to a specific keyword:

•	Double-click on the keyword to-do in the Index column.

The keyword to-do moves to the Selected column. The Titles column header is now Selected Titles, and only the titles of articles assigned to the keyword to-do are displayed.

•	Double-click on the keyword to-do to return it to the Index column and restore All Titles to the Titles list.

Articles can be marked for easy access by bookmarking them:

•	Click once on the article title "Web Addresses" to highlight it.

•	Click on the Bookmark Article Toolbar button to bookmark this article.

•	Click on the Show Bookmarked Titles Toolbar button.

Now the Titles column header changes to Bookmarked Titles, and only titles of bookmarked articles are listed. Only "Web Addresses" should be displayed.

•	To display the titles of all articles in the data file, click on the Show All Titles Toolbar button.

Proceed to the next step in the tutorial to explore bringing information into Personal Knowbase from other programs.