The AMPR Map Collection Manager User’s Guide
Defining a New
Collection
To set up a new collection, pick Create New Collection … from the Collection menu in the main AMPR window. This will bring up the following dialog box:
- Choose a name for your collection (or use the pre-selected name, “My Collection”).
- Select one of the three currencies ($, €, or ₤). Prices in the database will be assumed to be in the chosen currency.
- Select one of the two measurement units (cm. or in.). Dimensions in the database will be assumed to be in the chosen units.
Note: The above three choices should be carefully made, since once the collection has been set up, they cannot be changed.
Information on the maps in your collection is organized into a set of fields. Unless you specify otherwise, the set of fields will be the fifteen shown in the window, above. However, you can customize the fields to suit the needs of your collection. Click the “Modify Fields / Define Image Directory” button, to bring up another dialog box, if you want to:
- Change the name of any of the 15 built-in fields.
- Delete (or “hide”) any of the built-in fields (because the field doesn’t correspond to data that you want to maintain for your maps).
- Add additional (“user-defined”) fields.
The “Image link” field is used to hold the names of image files (typically JPEG [.jpg] files). If you have digital map images and all (or most) of them are stored in the same place (folder/directory) on your computer, then you can simplify the specification of the image file names by defining an image directory for the entire collection. Then the “Image link” field need only contain the simple filename (e.g. “123.jpg”) for the image file, and not the full pathname (e.g. “c:\mycollection\images\123.jpg”). If you want to specify the image directory, click the “Modify Fields / Define Image Directory” button.
Click this link for information on the Modify Fields / Define Image Directory dialog.
At this point the initial setup for your collection is complete, except for telling the MCM where you want your collection to be stored. Click OK, and you will be prompted to specify a file location and filename.
Notes:
- The filename you specify should have an extension of “.xml”. (The MCM stores map collections in what is called “XML” format. This is a file format widely used to store structured data. It is a text file format and the contents of an XML file can be viewed in any text editor. An XML file can also be displayed in a web browser. Note: Do not modify this file, as any changes you make to it may cause it to be unreadable by the MCM.)
- You will not have to remember the name or location of your collection file, as the MCM will remember this information for you.
- You can modify the fields for a collection (or modify the image directory) after the collection has been created. Pick Modify Fields or Image Directory from the Collection menu of the main AMPR window, or from the Edit menu of the collection window.
- The size of the collection file depends upon the number of records. However, even a collection of 1,000 records is unlikely to require more than about 2 megabytes of storage (not counting the size for image files, which are kept separately from the database file). Therefore disk space is not likely to be a problem, unless you choose to store your collection on a diskette or other very low-capacity disk.
Once the MCM has been set up for your collection, it is ready to be used. Select Show Collection from the Collection menu, or, equivalently, click on the “Show Collection” button at the bottom of the main AMPR window. The collection window will be shown, though it will be empty (except for column headers), since you don’t yet have any data in the collection. If you already have collection data in a computer readable form, read about Importing Data into your Collection. If you don’t have data to import, you can begin adding records to your collection through the data-entry screens of the MCM. To find out how to do this, read about Adding Data to your Collection.
Back to: Setting up a Collection - Overview