4 Replies Latest reply on May 2, 2014 7:50 PM by GoncaloAntunesdeOliveira

    NEED SERIOUS HELP CATEGORIZING

    GoncaloAntunesdeOliveira
    GoncaloAntunesdeOliveira Apr 27, 2014 4:52 PM

      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!

            

      HELP.png

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        • 1. Re: NEED SERIOUS HELP CATEGORIZING
          philmodjunk
          philmodjunk Apr 27, 2014 9:56 PM (in response to GoncaloAntunesdeOliveira)

               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.

          • 2. Re: NEED SERIOUS HELP CATEGORIZING
            GoncaloAntunesdeOliveira
            GoncaloAntunesdeOliveira Apr 28, 2014 5:45 PM (in response to GoncaloAntunesdeOliveira)

                 Thank you very much for your fast answer!

                 It's helping a lot! So far (with the link "table occurrences" and "many to many relationships") I've understood the need of creating Primary and Foreign Keys so that SelfJoin Relationships can work.

                 When I'm in the "ChildDocuments" layout, the largest category "Fund" shows me in a portal from the "Documents" table all the records I've added so far.

                 But still, I'm not understanding things correctly - I apologize and thank you for your patience:

                 There are two different dimensions here:

            1. Funds, Subfunds, Sections, Subsections, Series and Subseries: these are categories though which the documents have to be hierarchically organized.

                 A document will always belong to a Fund, but it might not have a Section, only a Serie, for example, but it always follows an hierarchy:

                 Fund -----> Subfund -----> Section -----> Document

                 Fund -----> Section -----> Document

                 Fund -----> Section -----> Serie -----> Subserie -----> Document

                  

            2. Installation Unit, Compound Document, Simple Document and Digital Representation: are ways through which the documents can present themselves.

            Digital Representation: a MP3; a JPEG; a MOV file.

            Simple Document: The CD where the MP3's where digitized from; the photo album where the JPEG's where scanned from; the cassete where the MOV's where rendered from. Map from Paris. Louvre Museum Ticket.

            Compound Document: a collection of Simple Documents - "The Beatles Discography": collection of 5 CD's; "France 2014": photo album of holidays in Paris and other cities; "France 2014": video8 cassete from the holidays.

            Instalation Unit: the guy went to France, took the pictures, recorded movies and listened to the Beatles Discography and decided to put it all in one box with the map and the ticket.

                  

            3. These are ways is how these documents can be organized:

                  

            EXAMPLE 1

                 Fund "John Doe"

                      -----> Section "Audio"

                           -----> Subsection "CD's"

                                -----> Serie "Rock"

                                     -----> Subserie "The Beatles"

                                          -----> Simple Document "Beatles CD 1"

                                               -----> Digital Representation "Help.mp3"

                                               -----> Digital Representation "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds.mp3"

                                           -----> Simple Document "Beatles CD 2" 

                                               -----> Digital Representation "Yellow Submarine.mp3"

                                               -----> Digital Representation "When I'm 64.mp3"

                  

            EXAMPLE 2

                  

                 Fund "John Doe" 

                 ----->Subfund "John Doc INC. - Culture Enterprises"

                      -----> Section "Shows produced by John Doe"

                 -----> Subfund "John Doe's Personal Life"

                      -----> Section "Holidays"

                           NO SUBSECTION HERE

                                -----> Serie "Europe" 

                                     -----> Subserie "Paris 2014" 

                                          -----> Installation Unit "A box with stuff from John Doe's Holidays to Paris 2014" 

                  

                 OR FINALLY - IF THE GUY WHO'S WORKING IN THIS FUND HAD THE TIME TO DIGITIZE THE STUFF FROM THIS LAST EXAMPLE 2

                                   

            EXAMPLE 3

                 Fund "John Doe" 

                 ----->Subfund "John Doc INC. - Culture Enterprises"

                      -----> Section "Shows produced by John Doe"

                 -----> Subfund "John Doe's Personal Life"

                      -----> Section "Holidays"

                           NO SUBSECTION HERE

                                -----> Serie "Europe" 

                                     -----> Subserie "Paris 2014" 

                                          -----> Installation Unit "A box with stuff from John Doe's Holidays to Paris 2014" 

                                               -----> Compound Document "The Beatles Discography"

                                                    -----> Simple Document "Beatles CD 1" 

                                                         -----> Digital Representation "Help.mp3"

                                                         -----> Digital Representation "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds.mp3"

                                                    -----> Simple Document "Beatles CD 2" 

                                                         -----> Digital Representation "Yellow Submarine.mp3"

                                                         -----> Digital Representation "When I'm 64.mp3"

                                               -----> Simple Document "Map from Paris" (leveled as a Compound Document because it's inside a box - Installation Unit)

                                               -----> Simple Document "Louvre Museum Ticket" (leveled as a Compound Document because it's inside a box - Installation Unit)

                  

                  

                 So, my questions are:

                  

                 1. How can I atribute this hierarchies?

                 2. How can I see them in this "tree-like" format? Sorting them?

                 3. Is the "Document_Group" table the holder of these atributes/categories? If so, how can I tell the database to organize this through this hierarchies?

                 4. The "Documents" table will have the "Digital Representations" and the "Simple Documents", right? The rest will be aggregated in the categories given by this "Document_Group" table?

                 5. If want to search a particular "Serie", it has to show me which Fund it is from and what does it contain. Is this possible?

                  

                 It's clear that the SelfJoin Many-to-many relationship with Parent and Child Documents is the logic step to do this.

                  

                 But, it's becoming very hard to understand the proper way to do it.

                  

                 Again, thank you very much for your time, and I hope you can help me sorting this out.

                  

                  

                  

                  

                  

            • 3. Re: NEED SERIOUS HELP CATEGORIZING
              philmodjunk
              philmodjunk Apr 29, 2014 9:42 AM (in response to GoncaloAntunesdeOliveira)

                   1) As stated in my first comment, you can treat all of these categories as different types of groups. When you add a record in Document_Group, a field in that table can identify the type of group Fund, Subfund, Installation, etc.

                   2) I think that you should be able to set up a summary report with sub summary layout parts that do this. See this thread: Creating Filemaker Pro summary reports--Tutorial

                   3) see 1 and 2.

                   4) correct

                   5) yes. The system described will produce "trail of bread crumbs" where you can go from a child document (encyclopedia article) to the parent document (Encyclopedia) and  then continue until the desired "level" is reached.

              • 4. Re: NEED SERIOUS HELP CATEGORIZING
                GoncaloAntunesdeOliveira
                GoncaloAntunesdeOliveira May 2, 2014 7:50 PM (in response to GoncaloAntunesdeOliveira)

                     Hello again,

                     I'd like to say that everything's solved, but unfortunately I wasn't able to do it...

                     So many questions...

                     1. In these relationships, which table will allow creation of records on the other? Which ID automatically creates the other in the next table?

                     2. For example: "Fund John Doe" - what will I have in the Document_Groups table? "Fund" or "Fund John Doe"? 

                     3. In which table will I write and where will I put the portals? Where from? Where to?

                     4. How can I sort them so that they follow the hierarchy? I wasn't able to understand the reports correctly...

                      

                     Can you show me how to do it? I'm sorry to bother you, but it's really important that I succeed in this database... and will learn new and very important processes for future ones... I created a file but can only upload pictures in this forum. If not, I would send it to you. But here is an image:

                      

                     THANK YOU! And again: sorry to bother you...