Getting Started

Learn how to log in and navigate the app

Logging In

When first loading Helium, you'll be presented with a login screen. This screen will ask you for your database username and password, as well as where the database is located. These data will be provided to you by the database maintainer.

The purple element at the top of the screen is called the Action Bar. This is little more than decoration right now but will become more useful after logging in.

After logging in, you'll be shown the welcome screen. Notice the Action Bar now contains two additional elements. In the top left is the Hamburger Button, or the Navigation Button. Clicking this button will allow you access to other parts of the app via the Navigation Menu. On larger screens, the Navigation Menu is always visible and the Hamburger Button is hidden. In the top right is the logout button. Clicking this button will send you back to the login screen.

Basic Navigation

There are three distinct sections to the Navigation Menu (in order, from top to bottom): the Schema Selector (1), the Table List (2), and the Report a Bug Button (3).

The Schema Selector

At the very top, the Schema Selector displays all the schemas your account has access to. Choosing a different schema will control the contents of the Table List right below it. In the figure above, the selected schema is called helium_sample and it contains tables named BigTable, BlobTest, Customer, and so on.

The Table List

The table list shows all tables in the selected schema. Clicking on the name of a table will navigate you to a page where you can browse that table's data. Clicking the "+" icon next to a table's name will send you to page containing a form used to insert data into that table.

Tables in this list are grouped by their tier; manual tables are next to other manual tables, and so on.

The Report a Bug Button

At the very bottom, the Report a Bug Button will open a new tab on GitHub so that you can easily report an issue if you find one.

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