On the first page, you make some basic choices such as what type of data you're going to store, your spelling checker language, currency symbol, and so on:
Main Table
Start by choosing the type of data you'll be storing in your database. If you don't see anything like your project, just choose the closest one; these are just suggestions and you can change the table and field names to whatever you wish. If you're not sure about how to decide on what tables you need, you might find our Table Structure Tutorial helpful. CatBase will suggest a Main table name; you can change this to anything you like.
Options
Default Publishing Destination: This is the method that you plan to use for publishing your data most of the time. This will be used as the default setting, but you'll be able to change it for any publishing project. Note that there are two options for InDesign: InDesign and InDesign with Xtags. Xtags is a plugin that works with InDesign and extends its data importing capabilities to enable image and text boxes to be automatically created and filled when you publish your data. You'll find more information about Xtags here. Basically, you'll probably need Xtags if you are planning to publish images using either InDesign or QuarkXPress.
Monetary Unit: The currency symbol to use for publishing prices.
Spelling Checker Language: Choose from English, French, German, and Spanish. You'll be able to choose which fields will invoke the spelling checker.
Depending on which option you selected under Main Table, different options will appear in the area on the right. Click on the question mark buttons to see more information about any option.
Once you've made your choices, click on the Next button. On the next page you can modify the fields for each table. CatBase creates a set of fields based on your choices in the first page; you can add, delete, and modify them here:
The Key Field
The most important thing to note here is the Key Field, which is shown with a green background. The Key Field is the most important piece of data in the table; every record MUST have an entry in the Key Field. Typically, this will be the company name, person's last name, product name, part number, etc. But it could be any identifying data you choose - a membership number, customer reference, etc. Important things to remember about the Key Field:
- It MUST be populated in every record (ie, it can never be blank)
- It is an alphanumeric field: it can contain any characters (numbers, letters, etc.) This means that it may not be suitable for numeric data, depending on how you may want to use that data. As an example, suppose you're publishing a directory of members of a professional organisation. Each member has a unique Membership Number and, when you publish the directory, you want to sort them by Membership Number. It wouldn't be a good idea to set the Membership Number as the Key Field because alphanumeric fields are not sorted in quite the same way as numeric fields - they would not be sorted in a purely numeric order.
- It does not have to contain unique data (although you can choose to make this a requirement)
- It is NOT the record's unique identifier: that's what the RecordNumber is for.
- It will always appear as an option in the "Search on:" popup menu on the Search Dialogue
Fields highlighted in yellow are fields that CatBase maintains and uses. These cannot be deleted and their names cannot be changed.
Fields with a white background are the user-defined fields: you can do what you like with these! Delete them, rename them, add new ones. These are the fields that will hold your data.
Scroll down in the list of fields a little and you'll see one called RecordNumber. This is each record's unique identifier. Whenever a new record is created, CatBase automatically populates this field with a unique number and, once created, it can never be changed. If you import some data into your database, you can populate this field from the import file - just make sure that each one is unique across both the imported data and the existing data, otherwise you'll get an error and any records with conflicting record numbers will not be imported. An exception to this rule is if you are importing data which may contain updated information for existing records: in this case, the RecordNumber can be used to match the imported records with the existing ones.
Double-click on a field if you want to change its properties or see further information about it. The Field Properties window opens:
The options are described in detail in the Field Properties tutorial.
To delete a field, select it in the list and click the Delete Field button.
To add a new field, click the New Field button.
Remember that you will be able to add, delete, and modify your fields at any time, so don't worry too much about getting it exactly right at this stage! Also, if you are planning to import data from a text file (for example, one that was saved from a spreadsheet), you'll be able to let CatBase help you to create new fields using the column names from the imported data (see our Importing Data tutorial for an overview of importing, and the Importing Data from a Spreadsheet tutorial for a detailed explanation of importing data from a spreadsheet).
When you're satisfied with your choices, click the Finish button. CatBase then sets up your tables and fields, and creates a basic data entry form. It then asks you if you want to view the layout of your data entry forms now. Click Yes please! to proceed to the Form Design Wizard, or No Thanks to skip that step for now. See the Form Design Wizard tutorial for more info about that.
You can modify your tables and fields at any time: just click on the Setup button on the main CatBase window and choose Table and Field Setup.