Arrangements

The Library tab lists your sources; the Catalogue tab puts manuscripts in archival order. An arrangement is a third kind of tab, and it is yours: you decide what the levels are, what each level records, and what goes where. The same source can sit in as many arrangements as you like.

An arrangement answers a question the shelf does not. A repository’s order says where a manuscript lives; an arrangement of prophecies says which utterance each witness records, and an arrangement of arms says which shield each painted region shows.

Levels and fields

An arrangement is a tree with fixed depths. The top level might be Prophecy, the level below it Witness. A node’s level follows from where it sits: a node at the top is a prophecy, a node under it is a witness. There is no level to choose when you add a node.

Each level has its own fields. Open Levels… above the tree to add a level, rename one, or edit its fields. A field has a key, a label and a type:

• Text, Number, Date and Yes/no
• Choice from a list — the terms typed in, or drawn from a saved vocabulary
• Authority — a place, person, institution or repository from the catalogue’s authority file, so “Edinburgh” in forty nodes is one place

A field can be required (a node without it is reported as incomplete, never refused) and inheritable: a value stated on a prophecy is answered on every witness beneath it until one of them says otherwise. Removing a field keeps whatever was recorded under it, marked as recorded under a field the level no longer defines.

Only the deepest level can be removed, and only when nothing sits on it.

Vocabularies

Vocabularies… keeps named lists of terms: tinctures, textual forms, genres. A field of type choice can use one instead of its own list. Edit the vocabulary and every field that draws on it offers the new terms; a value outside the list is reported on the node. A vocabulary in use cannot be deleted.

Putting sources in

A node can stand for nothing but its label (a prophecy, a theme, a repository), or for a source:

• A library item. Add source inside… on a node, then pick from the library.
• A catalogued manuscript. The same dialog lists shelfmarks from the catalogue, so a manuscript with no bibliographic record can still be a witness.
• A leaf. Choose an item, its facsimile, and a page.
• A region of a leaf. Turn on Select region in the viewer and drag over the part you mean: one coat of arms on a page of forty. The node keeps the rectangle in the leaf’s own pixels, shows a thumbnail of it, and opens the viewer zoomed to it.

A given source, leaf or region goes into an arrangement once. It can go into any number of arrangements.

From an item, Study → Arrangements lists every place the item sits, leaves and regions included, and offers Add to arrangement…. When several items are selected, the bulk bar’s Add to… → An arrangement does the same.

Describing a node

Select a node to see its fields. Values stated further up the tree arrive already answered and say where from; type here to override, clear to fall back. Required fields that are still empty are marked.

Nodes can be renamed, moved to another parent one level up, reordered among their siblings, and deleted with everything beneath them.

From an assistant

A connected assistant sees arrangements too. list_perspectives names them; get_perspective returns the levels and the whole tree, each node with its values merged with everything above it. create_perspective builds one with its levels, add_perspective_node places an item, a manuscript, a leaf or a region, and set_perspective_node_values records fields. Nothing on that surface deletes.