Fields are the components that hold pieces of data. At its simplest, a field contains a piece of text, such as a name or an address. Fields can also contain a number or a date, or they can even contain a link to other data in your application.

Every field has a label to say what it contains, like “Last name” or “Date of birth” or “Email address”.

The thing that the field contains is called the field value, and there are many types that you can use in Dabble DB that can help you deal with your data more intelligently. You can switch the field value type using the Field configuration.

If you are used to working with a spreadsheet, a single field is similar to a column in a worksheet — it defines a particular piece of information that many entries (or rows) have. Each entry/row may have a different value in that column.

Every field is associated to a particular category. Likewise, when you create a new entry, it always belongs to at least one category. Any fields associated with a particular category will be part of every entry in that category.

This system allows ensures that similar entries contain similar types of information. For example, in a project management application, you might want every project to have a due date. In the Project category, you would create a field labelled “Due Date”. Every project entry that you create (and all of those previously created) will now have that field.

You can have entries with fields from more than one category. See multiple categories for more information.

The term “columns” in Dabble DB refers to columns on the Table view. Columns most often show the value of a field for a particular entry, but they can show other information as well. (Read more about columns.)