The Categories Edition Page

Purpose

This screen is used to create, view, update, copy, move and delete Category records. In the context of Project Hirtius, "categories" is the name given to the nodes in your INXtree structure (when linked to a Project, these nodes may also be referred to as chapters, sections, sub-sections, etc). This INXtree, or hierarchical tree of Categories, really represents the backbone and overall organising structure of all the research data you will store in Project Hirtius. All fully-fledged objects that are the products of this research (Slides, Sources, Individuals, Families, Events and Tiddlers) should be attached to one or more Categories in your INXtree.

A extensive presentation of the INXtree itself and its purpose is provided in Concepts. More practical examples on how you might want to structure it are offered in the Pictures Management Workflow and Projects Management Workflow.

Getting There...

To reach the Edition Page of an existing Category:

From the Main Application Menu (or indeed almost any other Project Hirtius page), click on the "Manage Index" icon in the header (). This gets you to the INXtree Browser.
Navigate the INXtree Browser until you locate the category you're looking for.
Then click on the category name (second or third column, the only one to actually contain text data), or on any of the action links (last column) to view, edit, copy, move or delete the category record in question.

Of course, you can also reach the Category view or edition screen through a lot of other ways, such as using search results (see Navigation Tips).

To add a new Category record:

From the Main Application Menu, click on the "Manage Index" icon in the header (). This gets you to the INXtree Browser.
Navigate the INXtree Browser until you locate the parent node to the new category you want to create. Click on the "play" icon () to open it.
Then click the Add in current category action link in the bottom-right corner of the list.

Supported actions

The Category Edition Page supports the following actions:

Add: the form to fill in and submit in order to create a new Category record.
Insert: creating the new Category record in the database (post Add action).
Edit: modifying an existing Category record through a form populated based on the current database contents.
Update: storing the modified data in the database, updating the appropriate Category record (post Edit action).
View: display the current database contents for the selected Category record. No form in this case.
CPcon: first step when requesting the copy of a record (or an entire sub-tree) -- once you've selected the target, it asks to select the mode (source + sub-nodes or sub-nodes only) and issues a prompt for confirmation. Please note that the whole copy operation occurs in a new browser window or tab.
Copy: the actual copy of the selected record(s) from the database (post CPcon action). Please note that only the Categories (i.e. the INXtree nodes) are copied. If there were objects attached to the source tree, these links won't be duplicated in the resulting target tree.
MVcon: first step when requesting the move of a record (or an entire sub-tree) -- once you've selected the target, it issues a prompt for confirmation. Please note that the whole move operation occurs in a new browser window or tab.
Move: the actual move of the selected record(s) from the database (post MVcon action). Please note that any Project Hirtius object attached to the source tree will be moved along (i.e. they will remain attached to the same node / category as before, only the path leading to that node will have changed). If the linked objects received a custom sort order within the category, that order will be preserved through the move.
DelCon: first step when requesting the deletion of a record -- issues a prompt for confirmation.
Del: the actual removal of the selected record from the database (post DelCon action). Any Project Hirtius object that might still be attached to the Category when it is removed are of course not deleted. Please note, though, that Category deletion is recursive: all nodes below the selected one will be removed as well.
That action will be recorded: a new entry will be added to the Event Log.

Of these, only Add, Edit, View, CPcon, MVcon and DelCon are entry points. They are typically reached from the INXtree Browser or the Main Application Menu (but in the case of View, there are many more possibilities).

Fields

Here below are the fields that you can expect to find on the Category Edition Page. The goal here is not to simply duplicate the database layout information. If this is what interests you, please refer to the Database Layout, the database creation script or the database itself. The purpose is rather to explain what each field is meant for [D], what format it is expected to follow [F] and what are the conditions for its validity (if applicable) [V].

A star (*) after the name of the field denotes a mandatory field (the star is shown in red with the same meaning in the application user interface).

Tag*	D	Unique ID, automatically assigned by the application during record creation. Displayed read-only once available. It represents the path leading to the node in the tree.
Category*	D	Name of the category.
Category*	F	Free text.
Comment	D	Any comment you might have on the category itself, such as what kind of data it is meant to contain, or any relevant detail about its definition. This comment will appear as a tooltip (or HTML "title" parameter) as you hover your mouse over the category in the Main Application Menu, INXtree Browser and Category Selector.
Comment	F	Free text. HTML markup should not be used here.

Controls

In View mode

Linked Objects section: Lists all Project Hirtius objects that are member of the current category (beware: in this case, the match has to be a strict one -- any object linked with sub-nodes of the current one is ignored). The object name is a link that will open the object edition page in 'view' mode. The ordering of this list reflects any custom sort order given the linked objects through the Object - Category Reorder Page. The list is rendered as "ordered" (HTML-wise) when objects are sorted, and as "unordered" otherwise (default). A single non-default 'sortkey' value in the list is enough to consider the objects as sorted.
S link (= sort linked objects): This link is located immediately to the right of the Linked Objects section header (see previous point). Clicking to this link brings you to the Object - Category Reorder Page which enables you to reorder between themselves all objects (no matter what their type) linked to the current category. This action only makes sense if the category in question is part of a Project Report structure (i.e. located below the designated Structure Container Node of one of the Project records.
Switch to edit mode link: Located at the bottom of the page, just above the footer. Click on this link to edit the current object (switches the view from a R/O rendering of the contents to an HTML form that allows you to modify that contents and submit it afterward).
Return to current category link: Located at the bottom of the page, just above the footer. Click on this link to return to the INXtree Browser open on the current node / category.

In Edit mode

Submit button: (Also in "Add", "Copy" and "Move" modes). Commits the locally modified HTML form fields contents to the database that stores Project Hirtius data. Use it to save your latest modifications.
Reset button: (Also in "Add", "Copy" and "Move" modes). Cancels any un-committed change, and returns all HTML form fields to their initial value (i.e. the one they had when the page was last loaded in the browser). Use this button to revert any erroneous edit you might have done (Beware: this only works on local changes that have not been saved to the database yet, i.e. for which you've not clicked on Submit yet).
Linked Objects section: Lists all Project Hirtius objects that are member of the current category (beware: in this case, the match has to be a strict one -- any object linked with sub-nodes of the current one is ignored). The object name is a link that will open the object edition page in 'view' mode. The ordering of this list reflects any custom sort order given the linked objects through the Object - Category Reorder Page. The list is rendered as "ordered" (HTML-wise) when objects are sorted, and as "unordered" otherwise (default). A single non-default 'sortkey' value in the list is enough to consider the objects as sorted.
S link (= sort linked objects): This link is located immediately to the right of the Linked Objects section header (see previous point). Clicking to this link brings you to the Object - Category Reorder Page which enables you to reorder between themselves all objects (no matter what their type) linked to the current category. This action only makes sense if the category in question is part of a Project Report structure (i.e. located below the designated Structure Container Node of one of the Project records.
Switch to view mode link: Located at the bottom of the page, just above the footer. Click on this link to view the current object (switches from the current HTML form that allows you to modify the object contents and submit it afterward to a R/O rendering of that contents).

In Insert or Update result mode

This result page appears once you have clicked the Submit button on the Add or Edit page. It will offer the following links:

Return to current category link: Click on this link to return to the INXtree Browser open on the current node / category.
Add another entry in current category link: (Only in Add mode). Opens the form that allows you to create a new Category record within the same parent node. Usefull when creating multiple records in sequence.