First of all, thank you very much for the great custom fields feature. This is an important innovation that allows us to add information when no other fields are available. But apart from this great feature, I miss one aspect that would be essential for me in this context: Is it true that there is actually no way to filter the collection by these fields?
They are displayed in the edit and detail view as well as in the CSV/TXT and PDF exports, but I have not found a way to add these fields to the filter.
Is there something planned to add these fields to the filter as well?
Thanks for your kind message! Good to hear you’re happy with the new Custom Fields feature.
Filtering
I’m not sure what you mean exactly by filtering on these fields. What would you want as end result?
I see you created 1 text field called “Sammlungs-ID”
The Text Types fields can also be searched on in your own collection, using the search box top right in your main screen. Text Type fields can not be “Foldered” / “Grouped” on though.
You could add “Sammlungs-ID” as a Column to your list, then click the column to sort by it, and then you will have everything with Sammlungs-ID at the top, or bottom.
TIP:
You could create another field (Toggle) and call it “has Sammlungs-ID” perhaps, and then click the Folder button top left, and group by the field “Has Sammlungs-ID” - and you get Yes/No folders.
Sorry … my bad … I was using a wrong field type. I used text instead of picklist and tried to filter on a text field … don^t ask me why (maybe because I’m sometimes doing weird things ) …
Everything works fine using the correct field type …
I know with which fields I will start … I will use …
a picklist for my collection-id as I use a different logic for that one than just an index field … (based on the value a text field would normally be enough but as I figured out today I can’t filter / group by a textfield)
multi-value picklists for format and label. I know that there are built in fields for these two values but as they are single picklists only and both of them can have multiple values (a vinyl record carrying a cd as well or a record issued by two or more labels) I will write these values in custom fields (unless you maybe will change sometime the picklist settings for these two built in fields - maybe I should make a request for that?)
I will use a date field to store the date when the current value was last dtermined
That’s what I am starting with but I’m sure that there will come more …
a picklist for my collection-id as I use a different logic for that one than just an index field … (based on the value a text field would normally be enough but as I figured out today I can’t filter / group by a textfield)
What is the exact data you would put in there?
And the purpose is solely to find out IF a collection-id has been filled in?
Since I can be a bit nerdy sometimes, my collection ID is always “Year.NumberOfPurchase.NumberWithinPurchase” - for example 2026.0004.0143 - and yeah, always 4 digits per block, even if I don’t use them all, but it looks more elegant … did I mention that I can be a bit nerdy sometimes
And yup, I use picklist (instead of text) to make it easier to find the missing ones …
The reason I asked was because a pick list is to have a list of “options” to choose from. So the idea would be to have a “pick list item” that you use for multiple albums.
For a very specific, once used “ID” entry, you are now creating 1 pick list entry, to be used once (different for each album).
Perhaps it is better to just have a text field for this (because the main search in your collection also searches text fields. And maybe create an extra Toggle field called “has ID” which you switch on when you type in your ID.
Having a TOGGLE as a “second” field, you’d be able to foldergroup on that too so you can easily select ALL albums that HAVE or don’t have an ID and print those.
So that’s what I would do:
ID as text field
“Has ID” as toggle field.
Sometimes you simply just don’t see the beatiful forest because of all the trees there … (a saying we have in switzerland when you don’t see the easy workaround) … Thanx for pushing me back on track
) …
