In CatDV, some fields can contain free format text while others take values from a limited list of choices. Fields that take values from a picklist are referred to as grouping fields (or grouping properties) and provide a convenient way of grouping and organising the clips in a catalog.
Grouping mode
Use grouping mode to view all the clips in a catalog by tape, bin, or other grouping property. Select the property to group by from the drop down list at the left of the window, then select the particular item to view.
- Press the Grouping toolbar button to toggle grouping on and off (you can have one or two grouping columns, shown at the left of the window, or turn off grouping altogether).
- Select the property to group by (eg. ‘Date’) from the drop down list. A list of all the distinct dates recording dates contained in the catalog is then shown.
- Click on a value in that list. Only those clips from that date are shown.
- Grouping is also available using automatic filters in the tree navigator.
More advanced operations are possible:
- With two grouping columns you can quickly correlate two sets of grouping properties, for example find all the tapes which contain recordings at 32kHz, or see the range of dates covered by stills in a particular folder.
- To rename an entire existing tape or bin name, click on that item in the grouping list and type in a new name.
- As a convenient way of editing many clips in one go you can drag and drop selected clips onto another tape or bin name to change that value for all of them.
Creating grouping fields
As well as predefined grouping fields (Bin and Tape, and read-only fields such as Video and Audio format), you can create your own user-defined logging fields (using the User Columns tab in Preferences) and define them to be of type ‘Grouping’. Similarly, you can select which metadata columns to group on in the Metadata Columns Preferences tab.
Once you have created a user-defined grouping field you can define picklist values for it under the Pick Lists Preferences tab. If a pick list is “extensible” that means the pick list provides suggestions for the user to choose a value from but the user can type in new value not in the list if necessary. If it’s not extensible, only values from the drop down pick list can be chosen when editing a clip. An “auto-populate” list remembers new values that you enter for future use.
You can also set a user-defined column to be a Multi-grouping field. These are similar to grouping fields in that they takes values from a pick list of keywords, but you can apply more than one keyword to the same clip. If you then use grouping mode all the distinct keywords are shown, and the same clip might appear under more than one keyword.
Editing grouping fields
When editing grouping fields in the clip details panel you can click on the down arrow button to display a popup list of values to choose from. In the case of multi-grouping fields the popup shows two lists, one of available choices and one of all the keyword applies that have been selected. Double click an item to move it from list to another.
You can also edit both single and multi-grouping fields as if they are normal text fields. Start typing and the first matching value from the picklist is shown. Press the Up and Down arrows to select another item, press the backspace key to delete characters you have typed, or press the Enter key to show the popup. In the case of multi-grouping fields, press semicolon (;) once you have chosen one keyword and want to add another one.