# Product Tour

> Two guided tours take a new user from a new computer to a working API, then through every part of the product - section by section, in the real panel, with videos and docs at each step.

Source: https://docs.apimaker.dev/v4/docs/getting-started/product-tour.html

API Maker has two guided tours. Both run on the real screens : you click the real page, and nothing is locked.

- The **Launchpad tour** runs in the desktop app. It goes from a new computer to a running project.
- The **panel tour** runs in the admin panel. It goes from a first API to the most advanced features.

Each tour starts with a small circle of five steps. Finish it and you have something that works. The rest is optional, section by section.

## How a tour works

The **route icon** in the top bar opens the tour. A small ring around it says how far you are. It shows on every page, for every kind of user.

At the first sign in of a new account, the panel asks once :

- **Start the tour** opens the first step.
- **Not now** closes the question. The tour stays on.
- **I know this product** switches the tour off. The icon stays.

Accounts made before the tour are never asked. Their icon is there.

The dashboard keeps a **Take the tour** button until the tour is done or switched off, so **Not now** never loses your way back.

### Steps

A step is one small task. Each has a few lines of text, a **Do it** button, a **Watch** button with the length of its video, and the docs.

**Do it** opens the right page and shows the **coach**, a small card at the bottom right. It says what to do, one short line per action, and marks the control with a ring. Press **Show me** and a hand points at it.

The ring moves on when you press the control. The layer around it lets every click through, so you can always use the page. The coach moves aside when it would cover its control, and it comes back when you reload the page.

A step ticks itself when the server sees that it happened. When it can not see that, press **Mark done**.

### What the tour does with your data

A tour reads what is there, and uses it.

| On your account | What the tour does |
| --- | --- |
| The step already holds | It ticks itself, and says why : "You have 12 tables. We use `orders`." |
| You have your own tables | Steps use your first own table. A dropdown on the coach changes it. |
| Only the sample exists | Steps use the sample table `products`. |
| Nothing exists | The step leads you through making it. |
| The step would write to your own table | It turns look-only. A tour never touches your data. |

### Goals

The tour has more than a hundred steps, so it also has short **goals** : Secure my API, Write my own code, Go real time, Build a website, Make it fast, Bring my team and Go live. A goal is a few steps across the sections. Make one your goal and the tour suggests its steps first.

The dialog also reads your account. With custom APIs and no test case, it suggests the step about test cases. It names the steps about the page you came from, and it has a search : type `cron` to find the step about schedulers.

Each step has a link. Copy it and send it to a teammate : it opens the panel on that step.

## Explain this page

Every page can explain itself. Press **Explain this page** in the tour, or the **?** key on any page.

A number appears on every control on screen, or on the open dialog when there is one. The arrow keys walk them. The words come from a guide written for that page when it has one, else from the tooltip or label of the control. The card also links the video and the docs of the page.

## Clean start

The first step of the panel tour is **Clean start**. It lists the sample items of the account, and removes them in one click.

**It removes** what the **Insert Default Data** checkbox of the Add User dialog leaves out when it is off : the sample instance `mongodb`, the schemas of `shop`, the auth providers, the WebSocket event, the custom APIs, the hooks, the event, the migration script and the utility class.

**It keeps** the default secret, group and API user, everything you made, and every row of your databases. Only API Maker's own records go.

> **Warning : Edited samples go too**
>
> A sample item you changed is removed like the others. The card names it first, so you can keep the sample instead. A renamed item counts as your own, and stays.

The instance `mongodb` stays when it no longer points at the sample connection, or when something you made uses it. The card says why.

Nothing is committed : removals show on the Git page like any change.

## Switch it off

The footer of the tour dialog has the switch. It is saved in your profile, so it stays off in another browser. The icon stays in the top bar, so you can switch the tour back on.

Finished steps never show as a change on the Git page : what you did of the tour is no part of your account's code.

## Related

- [Your first API](https://docs.apimaker.dev/v4/docs/getting-started/first-api.html)
- [Run on your computer](https://docs.apimaker.dev/v4/docs/getting-started/local-run.html)
- [How API Maker works](https://docs.apimaker.dev/v4/docs/getting-started/how-it-works.html)