Your Domain

Once you log into nodegoat for the first time, you find yourself in an empty Domain. The three buttons on top of the screen allow you to navigate between three distinct and interrelated sections of your Domain: Data, Management, and Model. The relationship is as follows: in Model you construct a data Model, in Management you configure how you want to use this Model, and in Data you work with the data hosted by the Model. It is important to keep this relationship in mind while working with nodegoat: always start at the structural level in the Model, configure this structure in Management, and make use of this in Data.

Model

The Model is the beating heart of your nodegoat Domain. This is the engine on which everything else runs. In this sense, nodegoat acts like database software: initially it is an empty environment in which you need to define a data structure before you can enter any data.

Management

In Management you configure the settings of your nodegoat Domain. For the purpose of these Guides, we will focus on how to configure Projects in your Domain. Projects determine how your data Model will be used. This means that to be able to use a Model, we need at least one Project. This Project will configure a selection of Types and Classifications. You can specify the order in which the Types and Classifications are displayed, assign Project-specific colours to Types and Classifications and specify which Types can be used as Location References and Sources. Types and Classifications can be included in multiple projects.

You could, for example, run one Project in which you manage your bibliographical data, while you conduct your research in a different project (and only refer to your Types with bibliographical data).

Data

Once you have a data Model up and running and you have a Project configured, you can start entering data in the Data section. Once you have done this, you can filter the data, visualise the data, apply conditions to the data, export the data.