Creating the app

Everything in Keplin lives inside an app: the data model, the screens, the APIs, the scripts, the theme, the users. The first step of the guide is therefore to create the Customer Management app — it takes less than a minute — and to understand the workspace that opens next, because that is where you are going to spend the rest of the guide.

#Creating the Customer Management app

1. In the platform sidebar, click New app.
2. The New app dialog opens, with two tabs: Create from scratch and Import package. Stay on Create from scratch — importing is for installing an app that somebody exported, and that is not our case.
3. In the Name field, type Gestão de Clientes.
4. Notice the note next to the name: the slug is derived automatically from the name. The slug is the app's identifier in the addresses — for this name it becomes gestao-clientes, and it is through it that the app will answer at /app/gestao-clientes further along the guide.
5. In Description, write something like CRM de contas, contactos e oportunidades. It is optional, but it appears in the list of apps and in the sidebar — six months from now you will be grateful.
6. In Icon, pick an icon to your taste — it is the app's symbol in the list and in the platform menus.
7. Click Create app.

The app is created and opens immediately in its workspace, with the Overview tab in front.

#The workspace of an app

The workspace is where an app is built: a tree on the left with everything the app has, and an area of tabs on the right where each thing opens and is edited. It is worth looking at the pieces before moving on:

Zone	What it does
App sidebar	The content tree of the app. It changes according to the panel chosen at the bottom.
UI, Code, Data, Radar panels	The four panels of the tree: screens and navigation (UI); APIs, scripts and schedules (Code); datasources and model (Data); activity and errors (Radar).
App settings	The gear icon next to the panels — it opens the settings (general, theme, app users, permissions…).
Tab area	Every table, screen, API or script opens here in a tab of its own. You can have several open side by side.
Search	The Search everything… field at the top of the tree finds any element of the app by name.

The Overview tab summarizes the state of the app: its public GraphQL Endpoint, and the counts of APIs, Datasources and API Keys. In a freshly created app everything is at zero — that is our starting point.

Two behaviors of the workspace that are worth knowing right away:

• Nothing is lost by closing tabs. If a tab has unsaved changes, the platform warns you (Unsaved changes) and asks before closing.
• Everything you save goes into the history. Every save is recorded and reversible — the Versioning chapter explains how to go back.

#Where to find the app afterwards

The app stays in the list of apps in the platform sidebar. Click it at any time to reopen the workspace, exactly as you left it — the open tabs are remembered per app.

The app exists, but it is empty. Next stage: giving it the data model.