Fields

A field is one column of a table: the same piece of information kept for every record, such as a customer's name, an order's date or an invoice's amount. Each field has a type, which decides what it holds, how it shows, and what you can do with it: add up amounts, pick a date from a calendar, choose from a list, link to another table. Every type is described in Field types.

How a record is named

Sterodata has no single primary field. A new table starts with a Name field, which is where most tables keep what a record is called. When another table links to this one, the link chooses which of this table's fields to show for each record, under Display columns: a customer can show as its name, or as its name and city. See Links between tables.

Behind the scenes each field also has a stored name that never changes. Renaming a field changes only the name people see, and its values stay as they are.

Add a field

1. Open the table and choose + at the right end of the column headers. The Add Field panel opens.
2. Type the field's Name.
3. Pick its Type. Type a word in the list to find one, such as date.
4. Fill in the type's settings, if it has any: decimal places, a currency, choices, the table to link to.
5. If you want, open Rules and default to give it a Default value, or, for text, a Validation pattern. See Default values.
6. Choose Save.

The new column appears at the right of the grid. Move it with Hide Fields (see Hide fields and save the layout).

Edit a field

1. Point at the column's header and click its ⋮.
2. Choose Edit field.
3. Change its Name, its settings or, where Sterodata can convert the values, its Type (see Change a field's type).
4. Choose Save.

Under the settings, Used by lists the views, pages, forms, formulas and other fields that use this one, each with Open, or says Nothing uses it. Sterodata refuses a change that would break one of them, such as taking away a field a formula reads through a link.

Delete a field

In the column's ⋮, or at the foot of Edit field, choose Delete field, then Delete. The field and its values move to the trash for 30 days, with Undo on the message for 12 seconds (see The trash). If anything uses the field, nothing is deleted, and Sterodata lists what uses it.

Fields in a connected database

A table of a connected PostgreSQL or MySQL database keeps its own columns, and Sterodata does not change them. You can give a column a clearer name and a type that reads its values better, such as a date without time or an amount in euros, and add calculations, lookups and rollups of your own. Those you added are the only fields you can delete there.

To sort, filter or group by a column of a connected table, open Edit field and tick Enable Sort, Filter and Grouping. Sterodata cannot add an index to your database, so on a large table this can be slow. The worked example is How to build a dashboard on your database.

On a connected table, Add Field lists every type except User, but only a Calculation, a Lookup or a Rollup can be saved there.

In this section

• Field typesEvery type you can give a field in Add Field: what it holds, the settings it takes, and how it shows in the grid.
• Links between tablesLink a record to a record of another table, choose what the link shows, limit which records can be picked, and read across the link.
• LookupsA lookup finds the records of another table that match a condition you write, such as the price list row for a product code, and shows them without anyone picking them.
• RollupsA rollup works out a figure over the records that link to this one: how many orders a customer has, what a tenancy has paid, the date of the latest visit.
• Choice fieldsSingle select and Multiple select fields: set up the choices and their colours, the order they are listed in, and what happens when you rename or remove one.
• Person fieldsA User field names a person of your workspace on a record. Who can be picked, what it shows, and how to show each person their own records.
• Default valuesGive a field a value to show while nobody has filled it in, which types take one, and why a default is worked out when it is read rather than stored.
• Change a field's typeWhich types a field can change to, what happens to its values on the way, and which changes Sterodata refuses.