The Talis Alto interface is divided into three areas.
The toolbar, providing access to standard windows commands and Internet Explorer buttons.
The menu bar, providing access to Talis Alto modules and web applications.
The remaining area below, used to handle search screens, record tabs and forms.
The Talis Alto toolbar contains standard Windows-style menu items and buttons to carry out editing and browsing tasks. For more information, click on a button or menu item in the diagram below:
Talis Alto is divided into four modules Acquisitions, Cataloguing, Circulation and Interloans, which are accessed by clicking the appropriate menu. Miscellaneous library functions are available from the Others menu.
You can access the Talis Alto menus at any time menus using shortcut keys; press ALT and the underlined letter in a menu name to activate the menu (for example, ALT + C to activate the Cataloguing menu).
The commands available from within each menu are as follows.
Acquisitions - Provides access to the Check in, Claims, Funds, Invoices, Open Orders, Orders and Suppliers functions.
Cataloguing - Provides access to the Authority, Bibliographic, Item, Subject Index, Import and Authority Report functions.
Circulation - Provides access to the Booking, Borrower, Discharge, Issue, Item, Item Request, Renew, and Reservation functions.
Interloans - Provides access to the Interloan and ILL Supplier functions.
Others - Provides access to miscellaneous library functions (specifically Bulk Options, Collection Maintenance, Login and Search).
Web
- Provides access to optional Talis Web Applications (such as Inquire,
Talis Signpost and UnityWeb) and web sites. Note that web applications
and web sites are launched in your default browser.
Notes
If you do not have access to a particular area within Talis, the menu command will be greyed-out.
The area immediately beneath
the toolbar displays your current orientation within Talis Alto. For example:
Talis Alto search screens allow you to search for records of a given type. The search screen is often the first screen displayed on selecting a function from the Talis Alto menus (described above). In most cases, a combination of search criteria can be defined before the search is initiated.
For information about searching for records of a specific type, click here.
The following buttons are displayed on all search screens:
Continue F9: Initiates the search based on the current selection criteria.
Clear F11: Removes the current selection criteria.
Close All F12: Retains current selection criteria but closes all open records.
If your search criteria identifies a single record, it is displayed in a separate tab.
If your search identifies a range of records, the results are displayed in a grid. Double click on a row to display a record in a separate tab.
You can amend the way Talis Alto displays search results.
Double click on rows from within a search results grid to open records in separate tabs. You can display as many records (of the same type) as is required within a single Talis Alto screen. This allows you to (for example) copy and paste information between records, or to compare records. Tabs within records are used to group relevant fields together. You can open a maximum of eight tabs at once.
To move between records, click the appropriate record tab or press CTRL + PAGE UP to move to the next record. Click CTRL + PAGE DOWN to move to the previous record.
To move between tabs within a record, click the appropriate tab, or press CTRL + TAB to move to the next tab. Click CTRL + SHIFT + TAB to move to the previous tab.
If you have made changes to a record, Talis Alto will ask if you want to save your changes before allowing you move to another record.
To close a record tab, click the 'X' button in the top right corner. Note that you can close all open records at once by clicking the Close All button from the search screen.
If you intend to use Talis Alto without using the mouse, please refer to list of shortcut keys.