Overview

PhixFlow appears slightly different depending on whether you are using it as an Application User or Application Designer.

Application User

Perform all of their activity in PhixFlow application mode. They are not provided access to the design side of the application. A users access is set in their user profile as configured by their 

Application Mode.

Application Designer

You use PhixFlow to design applications. As well as creating the screens for the application, you manage the data for the application and set up actionflows. We recommend that you use  Design Mode on a desktop or laptop computer, as you require screen space to build analysis models and design application screens.

PhixFlow has a powerful tool for data processing, called analysis models. You can create analysis models to import, process and export data. This can be part of your application, or may be for batch processing of data not related to an application. To model data,  you run PhixFlow in  Design Mode.

 Application Mode

Todo-Anthony final image. Needs header bar label.  Will admin be visible?? There is now a flow for this: Flow 1.11. Admin will be available if you have privileges

Applications are shown as a set of cards. You can use the buttons on the right to switch between a grid and a list view of the application cards or search for an application by name. This is also where you can find links to the latest videos from the learning centre.

Click anywhere in a card to open the application. PhixFlow always asks if you want to confirm any action, including opening an application. Click Yes to continue.

You can return to the Welcome window by clicking on the  Application menu icon in the top left. The PhixFlow logo also returns to the Welcome window. However, this logo is not present if:

• you are running PhixFlow on a mobile device
• your administrator has configured the PhixFlow logo to display your company logo instead.

See also: Application Menu.

On Mobile Devices

Todo-Anthony - provide mobile screenshot for final implementation

PhixFlow applications are often deployed on mobile devices, such as tablets. This means team members can access and update data whilst in the field. As mobile devices have less screen space available, the header bar is simplified to show the icons:

•  User Options
•  Administration –  the options available depend on your permissions.

Application Help

Application designers are responsible for providing help about how to use an application.

 Design Mode

The Welcome window lists all the applications available to you, as for  Application Mode (above).

To return to the Welcome window, click  Application menu or, if it is present, the PhixFlow logo  in the top left. The PhixFlow logo is not present if your administrator has configured PhixFlow logo to display your company logo instead; see System Configuration.

If you do not want to work on something that is in an application, such as an analysis model, click the repository icon on the right. The repository list slides open and you can search for the item you want to work on.

When you select an application, PhixFlow opens the application Home window; see Building Applications for details.

PhixFlow Window Areas

PhixFlow is a visual tool for configuring applications or modelling data. The arrangement of PhixFlow's window is consistent for designing screens and for the different diagrams that you can work on, such as ERDs and analysis models. The following labelled screenshot shows the main areas of the PhixFlow window when you are working on a diagram, in this case an ERD.

The Header Bar 

The header bar runs across the full width of the PhixFlow Window. It shows, from left to right:

• The Application list icon and, optionally the PhixFlow logo. Both these act as a home button, returning you to the Welcome window and list of applications
  
  
• Quick access to the main application aspects, Application Home, Data, Screens and Analysis models. 
• The name of the PhixFlow server 
•  User Details. This provides access to your user account and the  Logout button
•  Repository
•  System Console
•  Administration –  the options available to you depend on your permissions.
• either  Design Mode or  Application Mode.

Tabs for Open Diagrams

For every diagram or screen that you open, PhixFlow creates a new tab. You can easily switch between open items using the tabs.

Right Panel

On the right there are several things that PhixFlow can display. You can click  show/hide right panel to hide all the tabs open on the right. This is useful if you need more canvas to work on a diagram or screen.

Property Tabs 

Click on the name of an item to open its properties tab on the right. Usually PhixFlow opens each property tab in the same space and automatically closes any saved property tab. 

• To switch between tabs, click on the tab, which shows the name of the item.
• To keep a property tab open, click the  Pin icon in its tab. 
• To unpin a property tab, click the  Pinned icon.
• To view tabs side-by-side, drag the property tab onto the workspace. This creates a second properties area. You can create several property areas and you can drag properties tabs between them.
• To close a property tab, click on the white cross on the tab.

Every properties tab has a toolbar at the top, next to the item name. If the item name is long, toolbar icons are condensed into a  More Options icon.

For information about the properties tabs and their toolbar options, see Menu Options and Toolbar Buttons.

Repository

For any task, PhixFlow provides list of the relevant items that you can use.  If you want to see all the items in your application click the  Repository button; see Using the Repository. 

Click on the  Help button to open the help panel. 

Left Panel

When you are working on screen design, PhixFlow displays a Layers panel on the left of the screen. This panel shows how the different items on the screen are related to each other. Click the  Show/Hide Layer Panel to show or hide the Layers panel.

Accessing Help

There are several ways to get help in PhixFlow.

• On the Welcome page you can easily access the Learning Centre videos about new features in PhixFlow.
• Working in  Design Mode, as you use PhixFlow, the Help panel on the right provides simple instructions and short videos to help you with your current task. There are also links to more detailed tutorials and reference in the Learning Centre or PhixFlow's Confluence Help.
  To configure whether or not the Help panel is displayed, use your User Details → Show Contextual Help Panes option.
• Item properties and windows in PhixFlow include a  Help icon on the toolbar. This goes directly to the relevant reference help, which has details about each option.

Notifications

PhixFlow displays notification pop-ups on the screen. The different coloured notifications are:

• green - information
• blue - warnings
• red - errors.

You can click Dismiss notifications to close all green and blue notifications. You must close red error messages individually.

You may also see a small notification about the number of running actions in the bottom right of the PhixFlow window: 

Selecting and Deleting Items

Either in the repository or in diagrams, you can click an item to select it. A selected item is highlighted. Also the highlighting on any previously selected items is cleared.

There are several places in PhixFlow where you can make a change to several items at the same time, for example deleting items. To select a continuous subset of items in a list,

1. Select the first item on the list.
2. Hold down the Shift key.
3. Then select the last item.

To select several items separately, press the Control (Ctrl) key as you click the different items. This will add each item to the list of selected items. If you click on an item that is already selected, it is removed from the selection list. 

Remove from or Delete Everywhere

When you are working in diagrams and you no longer want an item to appear, you can:

• either remove it from the diagram.
    Use this to remove an item that you want to keep in the repository.
• or delete it from this diagram and from the repository.
    You may want to do this if you created the item for this diagram only, and now no longer need it.

When you use Delete Everywhere, the item is deleted from the repository and from any model or dashboard that contains it. Deleting cannot be undone. For this reason, PhixFlow:

• always asks for confirmation that you really do want to delete an item before actually deleting it. 
• will not delete an item when another object within PhixFlow still refers to it.
  PhixFlow notifies you about how many and what type of items still refer to the item you are trying to delete.

Drag-and-Drop

The user can drag-and-drop many of the items in PhixFlow. What happens when you drag items depends on the context. In general:

• Items can only be dragged onto a compatible location. PhixFlow does not let you drop an item if it makes no sense for the item to be in that location.
• You can often drag multiple selected items to/from lists.
• Items can be reordered when dragged into ordered lists. For example, the order of the items is important in the attributes.
• In analysis model diagrams, you can drag single or multiple modelling objects around the canvas; see Analysis Model Window and Toolbars.
• One or more views can be dragged onto a screen to display data.

Context Menus

Right-click any item to display its context menu. You can display a context menu when you right-click:

• in the repository: an item's name
• in a diagram: an item's icon on the canvas
• in a screen: a component.

Analysis model objects always have the context menu entry  Show Models. This displays a list of all the models in which the current object exists.

Error Messages

If you are using a PhixFlow application, the messages you see related to actions within the application are written by application designers using the Action → Confirmation Message or using an actionflow; see Understanding Actionflows.

If there is an error that prevents PhixFlow completing something, it will display the system error message.

Administrators monitor the details of what PhixFlow is doing using the System Console and can configure how much detail is logged; see System Monitoring and System Logging Configuration.