5.2.1  Synopsis View

Synopsis allows you to see on one screen the almost-complete information along one line of descent of the manuscript's genealogy.  You can envision the nesting of levels inside of other levels, each one dependent upon the one above it, by looking at the colors:  the pale yellow of the Manuscript level envelopes the entire description; Part's light blue encircles all its descending Texts; Text's light purple hugs its children Images.

 

 

If you wish to see other Parts or other Texts of a given Manuscript, click to the left or to the right on the arrows at the bottom of the appropriate level.  The example above shows that you are looking at the one Text, the only child of this Part (according to the Sequence number), and at the third of four Parts (again, according to the Sequence number which you yourself will have established).  The Manuscript number however was established, not by you, but by DS-Access:  in the above example, the Synopsis View is displaying the 1401^st Manuscript record that was entered, of the total in this copy of the database, i.e. 1459.  If, instead, you wish to see a different manuscript, instead of remembering precisely the order in which all manuscripts were entered (gasp), you will be pleased to use a more direct method:  CTRL + F, discussed in the next section.  Voilà.

 

 

The Synopsis View is the fundamental location for adding new data and for editing data that is already input.  Or rather, it is from Synopsis that you press on the New MS command button,  or on the Add [whatever] or Edit [whatever] command buttons, that take you to the relevant form where you'll perform data entry or data correction.  No data entry or changes can take place on the surface of the Synopsis View itself.

 

What you are allowed to do on this multi-colored surface is search for information at the Manuscript level across all entered records; in practice, you're most likely to search here for a shelfmark.  The search is done in the usual Microsoft manner:

• put your cursor in the desired field—i.e. Shelfmark—; press CTRL + F (for Find)
• in the resulting dialogue box, type in your search term—e. g. Western MS 84
• optionally, but usefully, in the second of the three drop-down lists, the one for Match, choose "Any part of the field."
• press Find Next.

 

 

 

Strict adherence to truth demands another nugget of information, although it's a fairly useless nugget.  If you perform a search on the surface of the Synopsis View at another level (e.g. Part or Text), the computer duly searches that field but only across the Parts of the one manuscript, or only across the Texts of the one part.  No need to file this away in the little book of your memory; just remember the CTRL + F for looking up a shelfmark at the Manuscripts level.