Nested categories

[Da Ha]

I am making a home inventory, and instead of the layout

Form –> Record selection in list –> Record form

I’m looking for some categorisation, like

Form –> Room –> Category –> Subcategory –> Record selection in list –> Record form

Is this possible? Thanks.

[Brendan]

Hi Da,

No, I’m sorry but there’s no hierarchical relationship in the list of records like you’re asking for. However, if you group your records by one of your fields, then you can get 2 levels. That is, your records could be grouped by Room on your form if you set the “Group Records By” setting to your Room field.

Thanks,

Brendan

[Da Ha]

Thanks for your reply. Such a hierarchical relationship would be a great feature! Any plans to implement something like that? OSX finder can do something similar on a basic level with column views.

[Federico Martinez]

Did you need a different layout or record form for each category? if not and you just wanted that for hierarchical reason to find things faster, As Brendan said the sort and & group settings are strong enough to sort 2 or 3 levels. And You can do an alternative relatively easy.

On your inventory form add a field for each category. so 1 field each for Room, category, subcategory. and click on column view then as if you were in an excel spreadsheet you can filter which categories show room 1, category 5 and subcategory 3 if you wanted. And imo for an inventory this a lot better than a nested os x finder type because it allows you choose your own filter so if you want to find all cd’s regardless on what room you can do that.

if you really wanted to you could do your own filtering form as well on your inventory form add a simple formula field where you put concat(room, category, subcategory).

Then you make a new form add the 3 same 3 fields room, category, subcategory. you can even put it as a pick list. then you do the same formula field. then add a link to form field select link type join. values from this form use the formula field, match values from linked file formula field as well. and it will populate table like a record selection list. It would have to match all 3 categories. And you can have multiple link to form fields if you wanted to show everything in room, etc..

So you would have kind of a capture form. and the second be a filter form. or with scripting you can do even more complex stuff depending on your end goal but to be honest the column view with its filters and sorting plus the grouping option Brendan mentioned gives you the capability you need.

[Brendan]

Ah yes that’s right. You can create multiple Saved Searches, each filtering your records down to a different level. You can also organize your Saved Searches into a hierarchical folder system if you like. That may work for you rather than the records themselves being displayed in as hierarchical fashion.

[Da Ha]

Thanks for these replies. Overall it seems that what I am looking for is not possible exactly, but with some potential workarounds available. I’ll keep looking around, thanks!

[Author]

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