3.1. Creating a New Project
You can create a new project from the ‘Project’ menu.
If you name it "Test", the project will be saved as Test.qda. Test.qda is actually a folder with subfolders containing the database, empirical documents, and other files. If you want to email the project to someone else, zip the entire folder.
The Action Log tab in the main window displays various changes that are made when using QualCoder. The main window has a menu bar at the top full of options. There are five tabs for: action log, manage, reports, coding and AI chat. Switching directly between tabs is generally OK. But if you are adding/renaming/deleting files in Mange Files or changing codes/code categories in the coding area, it is better to refresh each tab by selecting an option in the Menu. For example, changing files in Manage files, then doing coding or reports - select an option in the Menu for coding or report, rather than clicking directly on the tab for coding or reports.
It is not recommended to store your project in the cloud (OneDrive, Dropbox, etc.) and use it from there. The reason is that sometimes files cannot be imported into the project. Accessing a cloud-stored project from different computers is especially dangerous, as it can cause synchronization problems and even corrupt the database. See this page for safe strategies for working in a team and on multiple computers.
This is especially important if you want to use the AI-based features in QualCoder. The project memo is used to provide some contextual information about the current project and the type of empirical documents we are dealing with. This information, which is included in every query, helps the AI to produce much more targeted and useful responses. You can access the Project Memo from the Project > Project Memo menu.
QualCoder provides a template for the most important information. You don't have to follow this template exactly, but try to keep the project description short (between 300 and 700 characters). You can also add notes about your theoretical framework, but be careful not to "preformat" the AI's perspective too much.
If you also want to use the project memo for other notes that should not be shared with the AI, you can enter the tag "#####" to the text. Anything below this mark will not be sent to the AI (this works with any memo in QualCoder).
If you don't want the project memo to be sent to the AI at all, disable it in the Settings dialog.
>> Next step: Import files (empirical documents) into your project.
