The easiest way to learn to use SnapPy is to watch the screencasts available on YouTube:
The key thing to remember when using the SnapPy command shell window is that you can explore objects using introspection and tab-completion:
In [1]: Manifold? <hit return-key>
...instructions for creating a manifold...
So now we create a manifold:
In [2]: M = Manifold("m004")
But what can we do with it?
In [3]: M.<hit tab-key>
...list of methods...
What does the “cover” method do?
In [4]: M.cover? <hit return-key>
...description of cover method..