Title
NEED SERIOUS HELP CATEGORIZING
Post
Hello,
I'm trying to create something for moths and it's turning out to be very frustrating:
I'm building a database that will store a big collection. Instead of stuff being catalogued by it's nature (CD's, books, videos, etc.), it has to be according to some rules:
1. Have to atribute categories according to: Fonds, Subfonds, Sections, Subsections, Series, Subseries, Instalation Units, Composed Documents, Simple Documents and Digital Representations.
Examples:
12 digital representations will form a Simple Document (12 songs will form a CD).
A book is a Simple Document.
A commercial box that has 4 CD's (like a box-set with some band's sigles) will form a Composed Document, as it contains 4 Simple Documents.
An Encyclopedia can be categorized as a Composed Document because it contains a collections of same-sort books.
If the guy a shelf with these CD's and some books, then it would be considered an Instalation Unit (combined Simple and Composed Documents)
Finally, this stuff is a part of the Fond with the guy's name, a Subfond like "Stuff from his company", a Section like (Audio); Subsection (CD's); Series "Rock"; Subseries "Ramones"; Composed Document "Singles Collection"; Simple Document "Each single"
And last, but not least, although it follows a hierarchical path, it CAN go straight from Fond to Series (not having Sections).
I'm MELTING DOWN!
As far as I can see, if I atribute some kind of serial number that will aggregate each category created and having it sort by that serial, it might give me the possibility to view all this stuff like a TREE or like a Folder/Subfolder system.
Please help me. This is haunting me for months.
Although it's in Portuguese, please have a look at the image.
Thank you all!
I don't know the English equivalent of "Fond", but am I correct that each basic record is a document? That can be part of a set of other documents which in turn can be parts of larger sets? The type of set, would seem primarily to be a name for that particular set of documents whether we call that set a "fond", an "installation" or a "compound document".
One way to manage that in FileMaker is with two tables setting up a many to many self join relationship:
Documents----<Document_Group>-------ChildDocuments
Documents::__pkDocumentID = Document_Group::_fkParentDocumentID
Document_Group::_fkChildDocumentID = ChildDocuments::__pkDocumentID
A field in Document_Group can name the type of group. Documents and ChildDocuments would be two Tutorial: What are Table Occurrences? with the same data source table.