Table Definition

Table Definition refers to the building (or defining) of a table. All this really means is adding fields to the table, along with their field types.

For example, the illustration shows an example of how a landlord might structure a table to hold data about all the properties he owns. Notice that each field has a name and a type. All My Data™ provides you with five different types to choose from when adding a field:

• Short Text: This type is the one you will probably use most often. It is simply a text field that will allow you to enter a line of text, such as a person's name or a short phrase or sentence.
• Long Text: The Long Text type is used when you want a field that will hold more than just a short line of text. When you want to capture a couple of paragraphs of data, the Long Text field is perfect. You might consider this field type for a Long Description or Comments field. Combine it with a Date field and you have an instant journal or diary!
• Date: Pretty self-explanatory. Used wherever you need to record a date. A person's birthday in a Contacts table is a typical example.
• Checkbox: The Checkbox type is used for boolean values, or True/False, Yes/No situations, where there are only two possible values. For example, if you create a Task List, you might want to include a field called Completed. If you've completed the task, the checkbox gets checked. If not, the check box remains unchecked. I have a collection of old baseball cards, for which I've created a table. There are grading services that you can hire to grade the cards and seal them in plastic. (Grading is supposed to make them more valuable, since the authenticity is verified by a third party who is knowledgeable in the field.) One of the fields in my Baseball Card table is a checkbox field called Graded. When I send out a card to get graded (or buy one that's already been graded), I check the Graded checkbox for that record.
• Attachment: The Attachment field type is one of the most powerful features of All My Data™. If you create a field of this type, you can attach any external file to any record you subsequently add to that table. Examples of attachments could be digital photos, scanned documents, mpg files, videos, etc. You can even attach web pages or entire web sites! This means that All My Data™ can effectively serve as your photo album, a launcher for all your multi-media files, storage and launcher for your internet favorites, and a fantastically flexible personal information manager and personal database program.

Now that you've seen how to define and create your tables, go to the Records topic to learn how to put them to good use.