Once you have logged in, you will be directed to your LEXUS workspace. The workspace opens by default with the left frame in the Lexica tab (Figure 1.3), in which all the lexica available to you are listed in alphabetical order. The lexica can include lexica from other workspaces for which you have read and/or edit rights. These so called 'shared' lexica are indicated with an icon of a hand holding a blue book. Lexica for which you are the owner are indicated with a blue book icon.

When one of the lexica is selected, the Lexicon tab in the right frame displays information like Name, Description and Notes. In the other tabs, i.e. Readers and Writers, you can define the access rights for other LEXUS users for any of your lexica (See Chapter 6).

The second tab of the left frame is Sort orders. It shows the sort orders that have been created within the workspace. In LEXUS, sort orders are used to sort entries of lexica. Their structure consists of various sort rules, each one containing two fields: Start Letters and Characters that by default have been predefined with the Latin alphabet. The position of these sort rules in the sort order list determines the sorting position of the lexical entries. The position of these elements in the sort order list determines the sorting position of the lexical entries. To add a new sort order click on the icon under the Available Sort Orders frame. Once a sort order is selected, you may further edit and modify it in the right pane. The sort orders can be used throughout all the available lexica in the workspace (See Section 5.2).

The third tab in the left frame is Search. In the window under the tab you may specify queries over one or multiple lexica (Section 4.1). Queries are predefined searches which can be stored and re-used later. Alternatively you can use the Ad hoc search to do a simple search using key words (See Section 4.1).

In the top frame of the workspace, you will find the LEXUS main menu: File, Switch to, and Help. Main options of File in the Workspace module are: Save, Convert Toolbox files to LEXUS, Import LEXUS XML and Log out. In the Schema and View Editor module, Convert Toolbox files to LEXUS and Import LEXUS XML are disabled. In the Lexicon Editor module, additionally two more options are available: Export to PDF and Export to XML. The second option of the LEXUS main menu, Switch to, allows you to switch between the different areas of LEXUS and, in the Workspace module, to access ViCoS (Chapter 7). One of the functions under Help is redirecting to the online manual. Moreover, in the Help menu, you can also use the Activate Unicode Input option. If you run into problems when inputting Unicode characters, you can try to upgrade the version of the Flash Player. If this is not possible, use the Activate Unicode Input option. The LEXUS icon on the upper left holds information on the LEXUS version. Please, check the version number with the version number of the manual you are using.

In the following chapters, it will be shown how you can (1) Create new lexica (Section 2.1) (2) Add and modify lexical entries (Section 2.3.2) (3) Import lexica from Toolbox and import XML formatted lexica (Chapter 3), (4) Search through one or multiple lexica (Chapter 4) by creating Filters/Queries (Section 4.2), (5) Create and apply sort orders (Chapter 5) and (6) grant Access rights to other registered LEXUS users (Chapter 6).