The Main Celebrity Database Editor in AutoSort
The database editor is the main entry point to view and edit celebrity information contained in the database. It is invoked by using the [Database] » [Edit...] menu option in the main program menu .
GENERAL
The modifications and additions you make to the database do not alter the celebrity database distributed with AutoSort. The changes you make are stored in a different file. For more information, see The Database Concept.
The main celebrity database editor
Index:
The Limit Display buttons - Provide filtering options to limit the number of displayed celebrities.
In order for a database entry to be displayed, it must meet all criterias selected in this option group.
The FAQ button - Opends the database editing Frequenly Asked Questions document
This document is a supplement to the documentation. It provides hints, tricks, and information about handling special cases and exceptions that often occur when editing the database. This document serves as a guideline on how to do things in a standard way and should be carefully read by anyone who plans on making his/her own additions and modifications to the celebrity database. The same document is also available here.
The Celebrity List View - Displays most of the information maintained by the database.
While the database editor shows a lot of information, the best way to view information about a single celebrity is to select it from the list and click the [Edit...] button. There is no way to display all the information maintained by the database in a simple list view, for this reason the estaethic of the information presented suffers a great deal.
Scrolling through the thousands of celebrities to find a celebrity is a tedious process, use the [Find...] button instead. This will find a celebrity regardless of the list's sort order. Alternately, you may click any name in the folder column and quickly type the first few letters of the name you're looking for. The resulting scroll behaviour is implemented by the Windows operating system and is available in most list views.
THE COLUMNS - The columns shows a basic representation of the data maintained for a celebrity, detailed information about the various data elements can be found in The Celebrity Editor .
Folder - Text contained in the Associated Storage Folder.
First - First Name of the celebrity.
Middle - Middle Name of the celebrity.
Last - Last Name of the celebrity.
Modified - User modification status, can be any of four values:
Properties - Identification Properties, can be any combination of the following:
Race / Gender - Race and Gender information.
First Letter - Racial Appearance Code:
Second Letter - Gender Code:
Career - Primary career information, can be any combination of the following:
The New Button - Brings up a blank Celebrity Editor window and creates a new celebrity when you successfully return from the celeb editor.
Before adding a new celebrity to the database, it is highly recommended that you use the [Find...] button to search for any potentially mispelled entries that represent the same person. Failure to do so will eventually result in a highly cluttered, inacurate database.
A user added celebrity will show as NEW in the Modified column of the list view display.
To remove a user added celebrity, use the [Remove Modification] button.
The Edit Button - Brings up the Celebrity Editor window filled with the information of the selected celebrity to allow editing.
When editing a celebrity, you should consider making the same modifications to all of it's aliases, as applicable. See [Alias] button below.
A user edited celebrity will show as MOD in the Modified column of the list view display.
To restore a user modified celebrity to the original version as distributed with AutoSort, use the [Remove Modification] button.
The Alias Button - Makes a copy of the selected celebrity and brings up the Celebrity Editor window.
Alias means 'also known as'. In AutoSort, an alias is created by adding a new celebrity to the database which uses the same storage folder as another celebrity. Typically, an alias will contain the same information as a normal celebrity entry except for the First, Middle and Last names.
For the above mentionned reason, while creating an alias, the celebrity editor will disable all data input fields except for the individual name parts. Note that once an alias has been created, AutoSort makes no distinction between an alias and a regular celebrity entry. Therefore, you may edit the an entry in the same fashion as any other entry. This means that in the future, when you make a modification to a celebrity, you should consider making the same modifications to all of it's aliases.
A user added alias will show as NEW in the Modified column of the list view display.
To remove a user added alias, use the [Remove Modification] button, this is the same as a user new(ADD) celebrity.
The Delete Button - Marks the celebrity as deleted. Any subsequent identification session will completely disregard this celebrity.
A user deleted celebrity will show as DEL in the Modified column of the list view display.
To re-enable a user deleted celebrity, use the [Remove Modification] button.
The Remove Modification Button - Discards the user modification or addition.
This button is only usefull on user modified celebrities and has no effect on distributed celebrities.
For user deleted(DEL) celebrities, this button re-enables the celebrity so it can be used during identification sessions.
For user modified(MOD) celebrities, this button restores the original celebrity information as distributed with AutoSort.
For user new(ADD) celebrities, this button discards the added celebrity and completely removes the entry from the user database.
In all cases, the information shown in the Modified column of the list view display will be removed.
The Find... Button - Used to quickly locate a specific celebrity in the list view. Can also be used to create new celebrities. For more information, see The Finder Window.
It is good practice to try to find a celebrity before adding a new one to the database. The finder makes it easy to find mispelted celebrity names.
The OK Button - Hides the celebrity database editor window. The database contents isn't saved until you select the [Database] » [Save] menu option in the main program menu.
This merely hides the editor window and does remove it from memory, this is so the editor re-opens very quickly when used again. If you are running low on memory and want to free up all resources used by the database editor window, close it with the little [X] button at the top right hand corner of the window. Re-opening the editor might take significantly longer when closed in this fashion.