The MRP Collection Manager User’s Guide

 

Modifying a Collection’s Fields & Specifying the Image Directory

 

The Modify Fields dialog box lets you make changes to the definition of the fields in your collection, as well as make changes to the definition of the Image Directory, to the currency and/or measurement units, or to the name of the collection.

This dialog box will appear when:

 

·        You are defining a new collection and you click the Modify Fields button from the initial collection-setup dialog.
    or

·        You click the Modify Fields or Image Directory button on the Collection Manager control window.
    or

·        You pick Modify Fields or Image Directory from the Edit menu of the collection window.

 

Modifying the fields or image directory for a collection requires that the collection window be closed. If the collection window is open when you pick Modify Fields or Image Directory, the program, after prompting you for confirmation, will close the collection window before displaying the Modify Fields dialog.  If the request was made from the collection window’s Edit menu, then the collection window will be automatically redisplayed after the Modify Fields dialog has been closed.

 

 

The main list in this window shows the names of the currently defined fields in the collection database, with the corresponding field type shown in square brackets.  In addition to the fields shown, every database definition includes an identification number field. This field, whose default name is ID #, cannot be deleted, or its type changed, but it can be renamed, by clicking on the button in the upper right-hand section of the dialog.  For example, if you are cataloging a coin collection, you might want the identification number field to be named Coin #.

 

For a newly created collection, the fields shown in this dialog will be the ones specified by the template chosen when creating the collection.  The example shown in the illustration above is based on the “generic” template; other templates provide additional fields.

 

All data fields have one of the following eight data types:

 

·        Short text – Text that is quite short (typically just a few words at most).

·        One-line text – Text that is longer than short text, but that will still normally fit on a single line.

·        Multi-line text – Longer text, which may span any number of lines.

·        Currency – Numeric values, in the currency specified by the collection’s currency choice.

·        Dimension – Numeric values, in the units specified by the collection’s measurement-unit choice.

·        Number – Numeric values (for anything other than currency or dimension values).

 

Notes on data types:

 

 

Adding a Field

 

You can add as many fields as you want to your database definition; there is no limit.  To create a field, click the “Add a New Field” button.  This will bring up the following dialog box:

 

 

Enter a name for the new field and choose a field type (see the description of the various data types earlier on this page); then click OK.  The new field will be added at the end of the list.  The order of the fields, as shown in the Modify Fields dialog, does not necessarily reflect the order in which the fields are displayed when viewing your collection.  The display order of fields is controlled from the collection viewer window, and is described in Using the Collection.  The order shown here, in the Modify Fields dialog, is of no real importance, and just reflects the order in which the fields were initially defined when creating or modifying your collection database.

 

Note: The field name that you specify will be shown both in the List view (at the top of the column that contains that field’s data) and in the Item Details view (each field’s data value is shown preceded by the field name).  If you wish to eliminate the display of a particular field name in the Item Details view, you can accomplish this by enclosing the field name in parentheses, here in the Modify Fields dialog.  For example, if you name an image field “(Photo)”, then the image thumbnail will be displayed in the Item Details view without the name “Photo” preceding it.  Omitting the field name in the Item Details view is particularly useful for image fields, since often a collection record’s image is self-explanatory – it’s the picture of the item – and there is no need to waste space in the Item Details view by also including a field name with the picture.

 

If you later want to change either the name or the data type of an existing field, select it from the list on the Modify Fields dialog and click Modify.  The program will display the same dialog box as that shown above, but it will be filled in for the current name and type of the field. Make any desired modifications and click OK.

 

To delete an existing field, select it from the list and click Delete.  If you delete a field from your database after you have added at least one data record, any data that had already been entered for the field you are deleting will be lost when the database is next saved.  You will be warned of this when you are asked to confirm the field deletion.

 

The Image Directory (for collections with digital images)

 

If you have digital images of items in your collection, and they are mostly located in a single directory on your computer, specify that directory as the “Image Directory.” Click on the Specify Image Directory button and the following dialog box will appear:

 

 

Notes on Images:

 

Ø      You can specify a pathname that is full, except without any drive letter (e.g. \Collections\CoinCollection\Images).  In this case, the program will look for the image directory on the same drive as the collection file itself.  This approach is useful if you write your collection file and associated images to a CD-ROM or DVD that you want to be able to use on a different computer.  On the destination computer, the CD-ROM or DVD drive may have a different letter than the drive where your collection was on your original computer.  By leaving the drive letter off of the Image Directory path specification, you can let the program figure out the appropriate drive letter itself.  Note that if you use this approach, the specified pathname must begin with a slash character, indicating a full directory path on the drive used.

Ø      You can specify a relative pathname, relative to the directory that contains the collection file. This is useful if you create the folder for the Image Directory in the same place as the collection file itself.  For example, if your collection file is C:\Collections\CoinCollection\MyCoins.xml and you have put your images in a sub-directory (let’s say it is named Images) in the same folder with the collection file (i.e. the full pathname to the Image Directory is C:\Collections\CoinCollection\Images), then you can specify just Images as the Image Directory, and the program will find this, relative to the directory (C:\Collections\CoinCollection) that contains the collection file.  In this case, you can move the collection file and its associated Image Directory together, to another location or to another machine, and the program will still successfully locate your images, without your having to edit the Image Directory location.

 

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