3.6  Creating Classes

Classes determine what information you can enter by providing a list of fields. An Image class may have fields for name, size and creation date for example. These fields would require a piece of text for the name field, a number for the size field and a date for the creation date field.

The power of Catalyzer is that you can create and modify your own classes to fit your needs - so you could make classes for Protocols, Specimens, Experiments, Publications, Analyses and customise them for your situation.

Using the Class window

Select the Class Window to edit the types or 'classes' of record you can add to a catalog

To create, modify or delete classes, click the Class Window button (or View > Class from the main menu). This puts Catalyzer in class editing mode and you can now add and edit classes and fields. (the other mode is Catalog editing mode for data entry).

The Class Window editing a class. The '+' button in the middle toolbar lets you add a new field to any class. You can rename the field using the panel on the right.

The Class Window after adding and renaming three fields.

The left panel displays an expandable tree view of the catalog, showing the records within it. Underneath, at the bottom left panel of the window is a list of all the classes in the catalog.

Adding, removing and renaming classes

The Classes toolbar includes buttons to Add, Remove, and Duplicate classes.

Classes can be renamed by double-clicking on the name in the list of classes. Alternatively, this can be done using the context sensitive menu (usually right-click on the class name) (right-click>Rename).

Each record has an associated class. Selecting either a record or a class brings up the appropriate class in the middle panel. Each class comprises a number of fields. The attributes of the selected field are shown in the panel on the right.

Selecting a field to edit

To select a field, click on its name. This highlights the field and its details are shown on the right hand side. In the example above, the sample field is selected, and the field attribute panel shows that the name of the field is "sample", and its field type is "Text" (a link to a file or URL).

The details for the field are shown in the rightmost pane. Here you can change the field name and the field type (for example, Text, Date, Menu). You can also add help text for the field, to guide people entering information.

Right-click (ctrl-click on Mac) on the field name to popup a context menu - this includes options to add, remove and duplicate fields.

Adding a record of the new class

For adding and editing records after you've been editing classes, switch back to Catalog editing mode (View : Catalog from the main menu).

When you first create a class, you won't be able to type in any values in the fields. To do this, you need to add a record of the class to the catalog. You can do this by right-clicking on a folder of the catalog (ctrl-click on Mac), and selecting Add Using Class : MyNewClass. The section on Adding Records has more detail.