# Getting started

This page gives you a quick tour of the StatPrism window and the overall way of working.

## The window at a glance

```{figure} _static/img/full-window-annotated.png
:alt: The StatPrism window with its main areas labelled
:width: 100%

The StatPrism window: the **results area** on the left (one card per result), the
**settings panel** on the right (modules and their options), and the **menu bar** along
the top.
```

StatPrism has two main areas:

- **The panel on the right** is where you *do* things. This narrower settings panel lists the
  available modules — data-processing steps and analyses — and shows the settings for
  whichever one you are configuring.
- **The large area on the left** shows *results* — the tables and figures produced by your
  analyses, each in its own card.

Along the top is the **menu bar** with **File**, **Settings**, and **Help**. Language and
the visual themes live under **Settings**.

## The core idea: a chain of steps

StatPrism treats your work as a **chain**:

```
Raw data  →  (optional cleaning steps)  →  analyses
```

- When you import a file it becomes the **raw data** at the start of the chain.
- Each **data-processing** step (filter, recode, compute a scale, …) takes the data from the
  step before it and produces a new version. These steps stack up in order.
- Each **analysis** reads from a **data source** you choose. The default source, **Auto**,
  means "the most recent data" — so analyses automatically see your latest cleaning step.

This means you can clean once and run many analyses on the cleaned data, and if you change
a cleaning step everything downstream updates.

## A first run in four steps

1. **Import your data.** Use **File ▸ Open…** and pick your survey export. See
   {doc}`importing-data`.
2. **(Optional) Clean it.** Add data-processing steps such as *Filter* or *Impute Missing*.
   See {doc}`data-processing/index`.
3. **Run an analysis.** Pick an analysis module (for example *Descriptive Statistics*),
   choose the columns to analyse, and read the results on the left. See
   {doc}`analyses/index`.
4. **Get the output out.** Use **File ▸ Copy All Results** and paste into Word, or
   **File ▸ Export Report (HTML)…** to save a self-contained report. See
   {doc}`results-and-export`.

## Choosing columns

Most modules ask you to pick one or more columns using a **column selector**. Selectors
only offer columns of a type that makes sense for that field — for example, a grouping
field accepts categorical columns, while a numeric summary accepts numeric columns. If a
column you expect is missing from a selector, check its **type** in the data viewer (see
{doc}`importing-data`).

## Languages and themes

StatPrism is available in **English** and **Ukrainian** (**Settings ▸ Language**), offers
several **plot themes** (**Settings ▸ Plot theme**), and has a light/dark **UI theme**
(**Settings ▸ UI theme**). Changing the language or plot theme rebuilds your results to
match. See {doc}`projects-and-settings`.

## Saving your work

Use **File ▸ Save** / **Save As…** to store everything — the data, every processing step,
and every analysis — in a single `.sp` project file you can reopen later. See
{doc}`projects-and-settings`.