Field configuration

The field configuration allows you to change how a field works in your application. Notably:

• you can change the name of the field,

• you can change what type of field value the field contains,

• you can edit the default value and configure particular settings depending on the field value

• in certain circumstances, you can change which category of entries the field belongs to.

1. Edit an entry that contains the field you want to configure.
2. In the entry editor, click the name of the field you wish to configure to reveal the field menu.
3. Click Configure… to load the field configuration window.

You can also configure a field from a column menu where possible.

The field configuration window has two modes — one to change the type of field, and the other to change settings for the chosen type.

When you make changes to the field, none of the changes take effect until you click the Save button at the bottom. Click Cancel if you wish to close the configuration without making any changes.

The top blue bar shows the name of the field, which category it belongs to, and has a space to add an optional note.

To change the name, simply edit the text in the Name box.

If the current entry belongs to more than one category or there is a Link to entry or List of entries field, you can change the field’s category. Select another category from the drop-down menu.

• When you choose another category that the current entry belongs to, the field will switch categories but will otherwise continue to be shown. Entries that belong to the old category, but not to the new category, will no longer have the field or its data available. (If you subsequently add those entries to the second category, the original data will re-appear.) For example:
  • There are a set of entries in the Contact category. Some, but not all of those entries also belong to an Employee category. If you switch a field called Phone Number from Contact to Employee, any Contact entries that are not also in the Employee category will no longer have that field. The data in the field for those entries will disappear (unless you later add them to Employee).

• If you choose a category from a link to entry or list of entries field, Dabble will try to “migrate” the data from the current entry to the linked entry through that field. For example:
  • A category called Employee has a field called “Phone Number” and a link to entry field that links to the Company category. Switching Phone Number to the Company category means that the field and data will become part of whatever Company entry was linked to the Employee. If an entry for “Joe Smith” is linked to a company “Acme Inc.”, the phone number will become part of the “Acme Inc.” entry.

You can add a note to any field. This note will appear above the field value on the entry editor.

When you open the field configuration for the first time, you will see a list of field types to choose from, with the current one selected. Click the type of field you want to configure it further.

If you return to the configuration later, you will see the field type options. Click Change field type to return to the list of types.

When you change the type of value a field contains, any existing data will be affected.

• If you change from Text values to another type, Dabble will convert any existing text appropriately. If you convert to Date and time values for instance, any text that looks like a date will be interpreted and re-formatted. If you convert to Choice values, each unique value found in the existing text will be added to the list of choices. In general, if Dabble cannot figure out what to do with an existing value, it will leave it alone and mark the entry as invalid.

• When you change to a Link to entry or List of entries, each unique value found in the existing text will become the name of a new entry.

• If you change from a value that cannot easily be re-interpreted (e.g. from Money values to Dabble user values), Dabble will do the conversion but most of the existing values will simply be maintained and marked as invalid.

Once you have selected a type, you can change its options. In general, these options allow you to:

• Specify a default value for new entries.

• Enable special formatting to control how the value is computed and/or displayed.

• For Choice values and Checkbox values, edit the list of options that can be chosen.

• For Link to entry and List of entries fields, select which category of entry to link/list.

For more information about the options, read the topic on a particular type of field value.