Document models

A model (or document type) is the list of fields that appear when you fill in a record. It is the most important choice you make at the start: it defines the shape of your archive.

Ready-made models

ArchiView includes three predefined models: Notarial imbreviature, Judicial acts, Tax documents.

You can use them as they are, or add fields of your own. The original fields and the name stay locked, because they are realigned at every start and a change would undo itself; everything you add, on the other hand, is kept.

Creating your own model

From the model management button in the bar above the list: there you create a new model by choosing the fields you need.

Fields appear in the record in the order you arrange them: drag them, or move them with the Move left and Move right arrows next to each field.

The record form adapts automatically to the chosen model.

The type of a field

Every field you invent can have a type, and the type changes the control shown in the form:

Type	In the form	When to use it
Text	One line	Shelfmarks, names, places
Long text	A text area	Summaries, notes, descriptions
Number	Numeric	Folios, files, amounts
Yes / No	Switch	Presence of a seal, existence of a copy
List	Drop-down	Writing support, state of preservation
Web address	Link	The permalink to the digital reproduction
Date	Text with feedback	Datings, see Historical dates
Dynamic list	Several repeatable entries	Parties, witnesses

A field of type list can draw on a controlled vocabulary shared by several models, instead of having a list of its own.

Two extra options on each field:

• required: blocks saving if left empty;
• unique: does not block, but warns when the value already exists in another record.

TIP

An empty numeric field means "not filled in", not zero. An archive in which every field never filled in counts as zero gives false totals.

How to design a good model

• Fewer fields, better filled. A field that always stays empty slows down the cataloguing of every record. Exceptional cases are what record-specific fields are for.
• One field per piece of information. "Place and date" together can never be sorted or filtered.
• Think about searching. The field:value syntax only works well if that information has a field of its own.
• Give fields a type. A number declared as such sorts as a number; left as text, it does not.

Changing the model of a document already catalogued

This can be done afterwards too, and on many records at once with Ctrl+Shift+T (see Working on several records).

WARNING

Changing the type of a record already filled in can leave homeless the values of fields the new model does not provide for. Try it on a single record first, or make a backup: copying the working folder is enough.

In a shared archive

Agree on the models before you start cataloguing: changing them halfway is possible, but whoever has already worked will have to review their records.