0. Synapse User Guide – Introduction
====================================

This User Guide is written by and for Synapse users. Additional technical documentation can be found elsewhere in readthedocs_.

The User Guide is a living document and will continue to be updated and expanded. The current sections are:

0. Introduction
1. Why Synapse?
2. Graphs and Hypergraphs
3. Synapse Data Model – Basics
4. Synapse Data Model – In Depth
5. Synapse Commands
6. The Storm Query Language
7. Storm Operators and Syntax - Reference
8. Storm Queries - Examples

Many of the concepts above are closely interrelated, and the outline above represents a reasonable effort at introducing concepts in a logical order. However, it is difficult to fully understand the potential of Synapse and hypergraphs without grasping the power of the Storm query language to understand, manipulate, and annotate data. Similarly, it’s hard to understand the effectiveness of Storm without knowledge of the underlying data model. **The outline above is our suggested order, but readers are encouraged to skip around, or revisit earlier sections after digesting later sections to better see how these topics are tied together.**

.. _readthedocs: https://vertexprojectsynapse.readthedocs.io/en/latest/

Synapse User Guide – Introduction
=================================

This User Guide is written by and for Synapse users.
Additional technical documentation can be found elsewhere in the doc index_.

The User Guide is a living document and will continue to be updated and expanded. The current sections are:

#. Introduction
#. `Why Synapse? <why_synapse_>`_
#. `Graphs and Hypergraphs <graphs_hypergraphs_>`_
#. `Data Model – Basics <datamodel_basics_>`_
#. Data Model – In Depth
#. Synapse Commands
#. The Storm Query Language
#. Storm Operators and Syntax - Reference
#. Storm Queries - Examples

Many of the concepts above are closely interrelated, and the outline above represents a reasonable effort at introducing concepts in a logical order. However, it is difficult to fully understand the potential of Synapse and hypergraphs without grasping the power of the Storm query language to understand, manipulate, and annotate data. Similarly, it’s hard to understand the effectiveness of Storm without knowledge of the underlying data model. **The outline above is our suggested order, but readers are encouraged to skip around, or revisit earlier sections after digesting later sections to better see how these topics are tied together.**

.. _index:              ../index.html
.. _why_synapse:        ./userguide_section1.html
.. _graphs_hypergraphs: ./userguide_section2.html
.. _datamodel_basics:   ./userguide_section3.html

Use relative links for docs, link from the userguide TOC to the written docs.
Use relative links for docs, link from the userguide TOC to the written docs.
