Getting Started: How the Screen Works
Bookmax is one window, not a series of pages. Once you are signed in you stay on the same screen and the parts of it change. Learning those parts takes a few minutes and covers all seven areas at once, because bookmarks, lists, contacts, notes, documents and feeds are all operated in exactly the same way.
Three columns
On the left is a narrow panel with a tree: bookmark folders in the bookmark area, lists in the list area, groups in the others. Whatever you select there decides what the middle column shows. The middle column is the actual content, a list of rows with a small toolbar above it. On the right sits a box with the search field and the tools that belong to the current area.
Above all three runs the main bar with the seven areas: Bookmarks, Lists, Contacts, Notes, Docs, News and Teams. On a phone there is not enough width for three columns, so the columns are stacked and a button in the header switches between them.
Setting the widths
The border between the left panel and the middle column can be moved. Put the mouse pointer into the gap between the two, wait for the pointer to change, then hold the button down and move left or right. The width is stored in your account, so the next visit starts where you left off.
Columns inside a list work the same way. Aim a few pixels to the left of the heading of the next column, and the pointer changes again. This is how you give a long description more room and a date less.
Selecting rows
Almost everything you do applies to a selection: delete, edit, move to another folder, export. To select a row, click into a free part of it, not onto the text. Clicking directly on text selects the text itself, so that you can copy it, and clicking a link opens the page. That difference is deliberate, and it is the one thing that surprises people on the first day.
Several rows at once: press the button down on the first row and drag up or down, or use SHIFT for a range and CTRL, on a Mac COMMAND, for single rows added to the selection.
Changing the order
Entries keep the order you give them, they are not sorted alphabetically behind your back. Each row carries a small handle on its left edge. Hold it and move the row up or down. The same works in the left panel, with one addition: moving a folder or a group sideways changes its level, so dragging it to the right makes it a child of the entry above.
Keys
In a list, on a computer with a keyboard:
- + starts a new entry.
- DEL deletes the selected entries, after a confirmation.
- CTRL-A selects everything in the list.
- ESC clears the selection.
- CTRL-E opens the selected entry for editing.
- Arrow up and down move the selection one row.
In an edit form, CTRL-S saves and ESC goes back to the list without saving.
Where things are saved
There is no save button for the arrangement. Widths, the folder you had open, the view you chose and the order of your entries are written to your account as you set them. What does need saving is the content of a form, and every form has its button for that.
Looking around without an account
On the login page you can sign in as demo with the password demo, which is a free account with data already in it, or as premium with premium for the version without limits. Both are shared with everyone else who tries them and are reset regularly, so they are for looking, not for storing. Registering your own account needs an email address and nothing else.
Next: bookmarks, folders and tags, the area most accounts spend their time in. Back to the help overview.