Welcome to vCalc’s Help section. In vCalc we have five main classes of objects:

• Equations: Equations are single functions that accept user inputs and return results.
• Data Items: Data Items are single data functions that return a result without inputs these can be constants like π or items that are periodically updated like the current price of gold ($3283.69/oz).
• Datasets: Datasets contain tables of information.
• Calculators: Calculators are highly customizable combinations of Equations and Data Items in a single page.
• Collections: Collections are combinations of all the above in a single page.
• Wikiclips: Wikiclips are document segments that can be inserted and seen in any wiki page, but developed and maintained in one place.

What do you want to accomplish?

• Are you interested in building a calculator that does one primary function? If so, you want to build a vCalc Equation.
• Do you have a specification of a product and provide those specifications as information or as inputs to other functions? If so, you want to build a vCalc Data Item.
• Do you want to upload or enter a table of data for information or for inputs to other functions? If so, you want to build a vCalc Dataset.
• Do you want to bundle functions and data for use in a topic? Here you have two choices. If you want to have customized buttons in multiple tabs, you will want to build a vCalc Calculator. If you want to create a starting page and add vCalc tokens (Equations, Data Items, Calculators and Datasets) when ever you find them, you want to build a vCalc Collection.
• Do you want to publish a paper or provide an instructional tool with several calculating steps? You want to build a vCalc Collection.
• Do you want to create a series of instructional webpages with embedded math functions and data? You want to build a series of vCalc Collections.
• Do you want to provide consistent information across a set of tokens (equations, calculators, etc)?  You want to build a WikiClip.
• If you don’t really know what you should use, click on the green bar Not finding what you’re looking for? Let us help. Tell vCalc what you’re trying to do, and our engineers will get back to you within 24 hours.

The sections below provide a step-by-step tutorial on how to build and use vCalc Equations, Data Items,
Datasets, Calculators and Collections.