I would like to create a custom collection type. Is there any documentation to walk me through how to do that? I would like to better understand what field types to use when. What are the Field Categories; I see General and Personal and in some collection fields there is a Feature Category. When should I use which?
It looks like if I want multiple occurances of something (such as an image) I would use a Table field type, but how to decide how to configure that so I get an <images> element with <image> members?
How do I configure the detail view (HTML view) for a record?
I'm not sure I even know enough to know what to ask. Maybe someone who has created a custom collection has created a How-To document they would be willing to share.

Thanks

I'm not able to offer any specific advice, but for starters I'd suggest that you roughly plan on paper what data you actually want to store.

"Read the fine manual." I know it's rather a cliché, but there is a good overview of the field types in the Tellico Manual. http://docs.kde.org/stable/en/extragear ... index.html That will give you an idea of the field types that you then need to use.

Field categories can be created/named as you wish. The only problem I see initially is if you require multiple images, Tellico's image support, although adequate for the standard database set-ups, is somewhat limited.

Once you have a working Custom Database, then I'd start thinking about creating the reports you need.

Depending upon what you actually want to achieve, it may possibly be easier to modify an existing collection type rather than create one from scratch.

jirving wrote:What are the Field Categories; I see General and Personal and in some collection fields there is a Feature Category. When should I use which?

The field category is only used to group the fields in the editor, it doesn't really have any bearing anywhere else.

jirving wrote:It looks like if I want multiple occurances of something (such as an image) I would use a Table field type, but how to decide how to configure that so I get an <images> element with <image> members?

You should just be able to create multiple image fields, as many as you want. The Coin Collection has two image fields, for example.

jirving wrote:How do I configure the detail view (HTML view) for a record?

A couple of the View Templates are specific to a type of collection (like the Album view). But the Normal and Fancy ones should work fine with anything you put in a custom collection. No need to edit them.

If the items you want to catalog are similar at all to any of the default collections, I'd just start with one of them and then remove/modify/add whatever fields you want from
there. Otherwise, just jump right in and try stuff and post any other specific questions you have!

Thanks to both - good suggestions.

looking at available collection definintions to see how they configure fields does help.