The main window in JEAN is split into two panes. The left pane shows the active catalog. Tabs are used to choose which catalog is active. The pane on the right, known as the JEAN Attribute Panel shows details about any item that is highlighted in the catalog pane. Where there is a large amount of detail in the right hand pane, this is organised into different pages and accessed using tabs.
Placing the cursor over an item in the left pane and clicking the left mouse button will select that item. This will enable you to see information for that item in the right-hand pane, and also to choose options from the menus to carry out on that item. Clicking the right mouse button will both select that item and bring up a pop-up menu for the item. Clicking the right mouse button on the JEAN Attribute Panel will bring up a menu which allows you to show the right-hand pane in a separate window, or to edit one or more values. In some catalogs the dependencies between some of the items is so complex that this facility is disabled and values can be altered only by choosing the appropriate actions from the menu.
There are two ways in which you can access the menus and thus carry out actions on the information in your catalogs or on the presentation of information on your screen, or carry out various administrative tasks. The first way is to use the drop-down menus at the top of the main window. The second is to right click with the mouse on the relevant entity.
Some menus are common to all applications and thus form part of the framework. These are Entity, Catalog, Options and Help. Each catalog also has its own specific menu, such as Images or AddressBook.
At any time, only the relevant menu items will be available and the rest will be greyed out and unusable.