Manage your Database Documents

In this video, we will look at how we can manage our database documents in Tap Forms 5 on the Mac. Let’s go to my Mac.

When you first open up Tap Forms 5, I am not in Tap Forms five here, so let’s click on the icon here in the Dock to open it up. What it’s going to do is open up the last database documents you had open. The last database document that I had open was my Sample Forms, but also, what it is going to do is open up your database document manager. I’m going to close this database document. You’re going to see I have another window open here.

This is what I call the database document manager. This is where it can manage all of our different database documents. This is going to open up every time you open up Tap Forms 5. If you no longer want it to open up, what you can do is de-select this setting here, and then when you open up Tap Forms 5, it will not show this window anymore. It’s just going to open up the database documents that you had open the last time.

Now, if you do close out of this window, let’s go ahead and close this; you’re going to see under File here, it does not have an option to open up that database document manager. If I select Open here, it’s going to want to open up a database document. It’s not going to open up that manager, which is what I like to do.

So now, how do we get that database manager back? How do we get that window back where we can manage our database documents? Well, I could quit out of Tap Forms 5; let’s go ahead and quit out of here, and then I go back over to the icon and open it back up. That’s one way, but that’s a little cumbersome. I don’t want to quit out of it and then open it back up. Another way is to just go up under Window when you’re in your Tap Forms 5. If you go up under Window, you’re going to see Database Documents. I can also use the keyboard shortcut command-0. This is not command-o; command-o will open up a database document. Command-0 opens up that window. So now I select this, and we have my database document window here. So that’s how you can quickly get back to this database document manager.

So what am I looking at here? Well, I’m looking at all of my database documents. To create a new database document, I click on the + here. I can also go up under File in the menu bar and then select New Document.

You’re going to see that we can store them in different folders. We have a folder here called Samples International. To create a new folder, I just click on the folder icon, I name it, let’s just go with My Documents. And I have my folder here. Now, how do I move my database documents into there? I just drag them in there. So let’s go with My Forms here, drag it on top of it, and it moves it in there. Let’s put Personal in there; I drag on top of it, it moves it in there. To open up the folder, you double click on it, and now we can see the Forms. How do we move these database documents out of that folder? Well, all we have to do is just select it and then move it up towards the top, and you’re going to see a little area where we drop it. When we drop it on this area here, it will move it out of the folder. So let’s go ahead and move it out. It’s no longer in that folder. We’re going to do that one more time. I drop it here, and now that folder does not have any documents in it.

So I want to delete this delete it. We just go down to the trash here—the same thing with a database document. If I want to delete a database document, I just select it and click on the trash.

I can also easily duplicate a database document. To do that, we just select it, and then we go over to the duplicate. Click on it. We name it, I’m just going to call this copy, and now I have a copy.

Now let’s say I didn’t call it the correct name. I don’t want to call it personal copy. I want to rename it. How do we rename this? To rename a database document, we go down to i here, we have a little window that slides out, and then we click on Edit. When I click on Edit, I’m able to edit this. So we’ll just call this Personal 2. You do have to have the database document closed before you can edit it. This database document is closed so that I can edit it. So now I just click on save, and it renamed it. Let’s go ahead and delete it. I click on the trash, and it deletes it. And now I’m going to close my window here.

If I want to show that database document in the Finder, I click on this, and it opens up a new window, and I can see that database document.

And then I can also share this. When I click on the share icon, what it’s going to do is allow me to share it to another device. This could be a Mac; it could be an iPad; it could be an iPhone. You use AirDrop to share it. Now, when you share a database document, it does not keep them in sync. What you’re doing is creating a duplicate. If you want to keep them in sync, you will not use this option here. You would go up to Tap Forms 5 preferences and set up that database document for syncing. I’ll have another lesson on that in this tutorial, but when you share it, it just duplicates it. Then you can use that database document exclusively on that other device. So if you wanted to create a database document for someone else or for something that you only want to use on the iPhone, this is how you would do that. You create it on the Mac, share it with your other devices. I’m going to cancel here.

And then, when you want to view some help, Tap Forms 5 does have some pretty good help documents and videos on their site. All you have to do is just click on View Online Help. It’s going to open up your browser and take you to their help page.

So that’s a look at how you manage your database documents with Tap Forms 5. We do this through a window. This window is going to open up by default. Whenever you open up Tap Forms 5, although you can tell it not to open up. If you do close that window, you just go up under Window in the menu bar, select Database Documents. That window will then show up. You can also use the keyboard shortcut command-0. When you’re managing your database documents, what you’re able to do is create new database documents. You can duplicate them; you can delete them. You can move them into different folders, as well as share them. And then, you also have easy access to Tap Forms 5 help from their website.

So that’s a look at how you manage your database documents in Tap Forms 5 on the Mac.