Tree

The tree view is your main tool for organizing your collection and selecting the items you wish to edit. Following the screen capture below is a description of the tree functionality. Please see my examples web page (http://www.nmcollectorsoftware.com/examples/) for ideas on how to use this tree.

As you can see from this excerpt, we can view all or parts of our collections in this tree view. Collection types are shown as a special "NM" folder while items in the collection type are listed under the collection type. Some items themselves look like folders while others look like a simple sheet of paper. More on this later under "Sub Folders" (below).

The buttons at the top are enabled and disabled as appropriate to where we are in the tree. In this case we have a collection type (Firearms) selected so only buttons that apply to an entire collection type are enabled. At this point it makes sense to Find an item in the collection or to Insert (Ins) a new item in the collection. More on the buttons later.

In the picture above we have selected an item to edit. The values for the selected item are populated in the tabs for easy viewing and editing. Also note that all of the buttons above the tree are now enabled. All of them make sense when an individual item is selected.

At this point it makes sense to discuss dragging and dropping items in the tree view. You can move an item to any location you wish by simple clicking on it and holding the mouse button while you move it in the tree then letting go of the mouse button where it is where you want it.

As noted above, some items look like folders while others don't. You can create sub folders to associate items with other items or to collect items for whatever reason makes sense to you. To convert an item to a sub folder simply select it and click the "Ins" button to insert a new item to be associated with it or "Demote" (Dem) the item located directly below it. Now you can add other items to the folder by inserting new items in the sub folder or dragging and dropping other items to it. Notice that the sub folder still retains it's identity as an item so you can manage information about it or, if it makes sense, you don't need to manage any information about it. An example of a folder that would not require any data would be a location folder (such as bedroom safe) created simply to manage the location of items.

Dup (Duplicate) - create a new item based on the currently selected item. All relevant ID, Description, Receipt, and Disposition data will be copied. This is particularly useful if you acquire many similar items at the same time. Be sure to change something immediately after the duplication so as to distinguish the items one from another.

Ins (Insert) - create a new item from scratch. If a collection is selected when the Ins button is pressed, the new item will be inserted as a member of that selected collection. If an item is selected when the Ins button is clicked the currently selected item will be converted to a folder and the newly inserted item will be automatically associated with that item. If this is not your intent you can use the Dem (Demote) button below to make the newly inserted item an equivalent to the selected item.