Application Guide

Viewing Collection Information

Viewing a Record

There are two options for viewing your collection on-line:

Find/List shows you an overview of your entire collection in a large scrollable display table.

Details displays a shortened version of the same display table found on the Find/List page and shows you detailed information about the "currently selected" item followed by a display table of any associated inventory records (from which you may select one for viewing in detail), and, if present, the "currently selected" inventory record.

To view a list of your collection, click on the Find/List button under View in the left menu bar.

You will see a table that displays seven important fields for each item record in your database to help you identify each item. These seven fields are: Category, Type, Sub Type, Railroad Abbreviation, Road Number, Manufacturer and Manufacturer Model Number. To see the item entries that aren't currently visible on the screen, use the scroll bar on the right side of the screen. The bright blue line signifies the currently selected item record. If you want to select a different item to work with, click on the arrow to the left of the item you want to select.

At the top of each column is a button that names the field displayed under it. You can sort your list by any of these fields listed at the top of the table by clicking on the field button that you would like to sort by. For example, if you click on Catgy, the list will be sorted in alphabetical order by Category. If you click on RR, the table will be sorted with the RR abbreviations in alphabetical order.

Note: To sort by multiple fields, successively click on the field names from the least significant sort sequence through the most significant sort sequence you desire. For example, if you want to sort your collection by Category and have each Category sorted by RR Abbreviation, first click on RR, and then click on Category.

Selecting Records

Above the Item Database Display Tables on either the Find/List page or the Details page are two buttons that allow you to restrict the records displayed on these pages or return to the full database view:

To include all of your records, click on this button.
To narrow the records displayed, click on this button to define a search filtering criteria. This will also show the restrictions currently in effect.
Clicking on this "Select Records" button will pop up a small window where you must choose the fields in the record on which you will base your selection, the condition for inclusion in your selection, and the data value corresponding to the field and the condition statement.

Choose the field and condition by clicking on the pull-down menu arrows. For the data value, you must type in a value or leave the field blank to specify a blank field or one with nothing entered in it.

You can select by any data field(s) in the item or inventory record using the pull down menu of field name abbreviations. Note: "Item-" prefaces the field names in the item record; "Invty-" prefaces those in the inventory record.

Use multiple lines to narrow your search even further based on the contents of multiple fields.

Below is a list of the choices for "condition" and what they mean.
Condition
 Use when . . . Value Example
Equals You know exactly what you are looking for and how it is spelled.

"Micro-Trains"

- This will include only those records that exactly match Micro-Trains in the specified field.
Greater Than You want records that contain a value greater than the value specified.

"B"

- This will include only records that have a value of "B" or greater (but not just the letter "B" by itself) in the specified field.
Less Than You want records that have a value less than the value specified.

"S"

- This will include only records that have a value less than "S" in the specified field.
Begins With You want records that start with the string of characters you specify. Use this when you are not sure of the exact spelling, but are sure of the first few characters.
 "Mic"

- This will include only records that have "Mic" as the first three characters of the specified field.
Contains You want records that contain the value you specify anywhere in the field. "Trains"

- This will include only records that contain the character string "Trains" in the specified field. Any other characters in addition to this string will not impact the inclusion of the record.
Not Equal You want all results except for the field contents that you enter. "Kato"

- This will bring up all records that do not contain precisely the word "Kato" in the field value that you specify. For example, a record that contained "Kato Car" or "Katox" in the specified field would be included.
At the bottom of the Select Records window that pops up, you will notice four buttons.
Click OK to conduct a selection after entering the search criteria.
Click Reset to blank out the selection criteria and start over.
Click Show All to show all your records.
Click Cancel to cancel your search and return to the application.
Hints:
To search for record(s) that have no value (null values) in the selection field, conduct a search for the record(s) by selecting the field, a condition of "Equals" and leave the value field blank

The more fields you select on, the narrower your displayed selection will be. You can filter out more records this way. See Tips & Techniques for more help on Selecting Records.

Example: If you want to narrow the collection display to only show your Southern Pacific tank cars purchased at the Great American Train Show, you could create your search criteria like this:
Field Condition Value
Item Catgy Type Equals Tank Car
Item RR Abrev Equals SP
Ivnty Purch From Contains Great American
Click on this to return your display to include all records when you are finished.
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