Tutorial

Real-World Field-Based Datafiles

Below are screenshots of a variety of field-based datafiles that are in daily use by Mike Wright or Robin Casady.

(Some details have been changed to protect the innocent.)

Mike's:

Bookmarks

Coffee Roasting Log

Customer List

Guitar Music

Mailing List

User Manual

Robin's:

Food Information

Orders

Tires

Bookmarks (back to top)

This is based on bookmarks imported from Safari. The quote and the image in the Freeform Text Area were copied and pasted from the Web site. This will help Mike remember why he saved it in the first place.

(Showing List View)


Coffee Roasting Log (back to top)

This datafile represents an attempt to determine the effects of different variables on home-roasted coffee. Mike doesn't use it much anymore, but it came in very handy when he was still learning.

(Showing Basic View)



Customer List (back to top)

This datafile contains a listing of customers of Casady & Greene who owned predecessors of iData 2 (QuickDEX, InfoGenie, and iData Pro 1). It was used to create a list of serial numbers that were eligible for discounts when purchasing iData 2. It still comes in handy sometimes. (Fictional details in the screenshot.)

(Showing Basic View)


Guitar Music (back to top)

This datafile contains guitar music in what is know as "ASCII Tab" format. The horizontal lines represent strings and the numbers represent frets. Each vertical bar above the lines represents a down beat. The whole thing is typed in standard keyboard characters, using a mono-spaced typeface to keep everything aligned.

(Showing Basic View)


Mailing List (back to top)

This datafile was created by importing an Apple Mail folder containing email messages from Apple's mailing list for Cocoa developers. We've omitted any actual content in the screenshot, but this is one of Mike's most-used datafiles. He re-imports the folder on a regular basis (because between 3 and six messages come in each day). Although Apple Mail does a much better job of searching than it used to, iData Pro can perform much more complex searches and selections, making it much easier to locate the exact topic that he's looking for. It currently covers over 6 years of messages.

(Showing List View)


User Manual (back to top)

This shows the first version of an iData 2 User Manual. It was searchable and included screenshots. It has been replaced by the online User Guide.

(Showing List View)



Food Information (back to top)

A growing file of nutritional information about particular foods.



Orders (back to top)

Although, as can be seen from the title, this datafile began as a record of DVD orders, it has become a place to store info on all kinds of orders, as you can see from the second example, below.





Tires (back to top)

Detailed information on a variety of tires suitable for Robin's automobile.





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