9.4  Changing the class of records

Changing the class of a record

To change the class of a record, select the record in tree view and select a class from the drop-down list at the top right of the Class/Record panel. A warning window will displayed indicating that when you change the class of a record you lose the values of any fields for which there are no equivalent in the new class.

If you change the class of a record, you may lose some data. This is because the new class may not contain the same fields as the old one. For example, if you change from a "Photo" class which has fields (url, exposure, size) to an "Image" class which has fields (url, size, date), the values for the exposure entries in the original record will be lost. Click OK to confirm the change.

Changing the class of multiple records at a time

In the Browse window, you can change the class of multiple records at a time using the Class selector at the top right of the window. This can be useful for migrating records to a new class.

Migrating all records of a class to another class

In the Class window, select a class, right-click (or ctrl-click) on its name and pick Migrate Class. This moves all instances of a class to a new class.

Extending the class of a record to let it take subrecords

When you start with a blank catalog, the only type of record to which you can add subrecords is the Folder. But you can also make any of your own classes behave like folders - all you need to do is add a field which is a "List of Records". The steps to do this are as follows:

Change to Class view (Class icon on the toolbar, or View > Class on the main menu). Click the Add Field button in the Class/Record panel (the center panel of the screen). The field will be called something like "Field 2". Rename it to something sensible (perhaps "sublist"), in the Field Name: box in the rightmost panel of the window. In the Field type: entry, choose List. In the Elements: entry, choose Record. This makes the field into a list of records - you could also make lists of other types of thing (like Dates, references etc). You should see the icon to this record in the tree pane on the leftmost panel is now a folder icon. (optional) For the Class: entry, you can choose to restrict the contents of the list to a single class. For example, if you had a "Sample" class, you could make a list which could only contain Samples. Switch back to Catalog view. To add a record to the list, right-click in the new list field (in the Class/Record panel) and select Add or Add using Class if you want to specify a class.