Fields are the basis of anyInventory. They define the type of data that you want to track. Let's take a look at the different types of fields.

There are seven types of fields from which to choose when setting up anyInventory. Each one is described below, with an example shown below it. Additionally, you can create field dividers to separate the fields into logical groups.

• Text field, which holds a word or phrase that is usually different for each item. An example of this would be the name of each item.
• Select field, which holds a value that can only be one out of a list. An example of this would be selecting your country of residence from a drop-down list.
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• Radio buttons, which hold a value that can only be one out of a few values. An example of this would be selecting "Yes" or "No" as an answer to a question: it has to be one of the two, and it cannot be both.
  Yes
  No
• Checkboxes, which hold values that can be zero or more out of a list of values. An example of this would be selecting all of the colors that appear in a painting.
  Red
  Orange
  Yellow
  Green
  Blue
  Indigo
  Violet
  
• Multiple, which is a combination of the select field and the text field. This gives you the option of selecting one of several commonly used values from a drop-down or entering in a unique value for this item. (If you have a Web browser with Javascript enabled, the text field should take the value of the last selected option from the dropdown.)
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• File, which allows you to upload a file from your computer or specify a file already located on the Internet.
  or

• Item(s), which allows you to associate items within the inventory with each other. For example, you could create an item field called "Installed on" to link software items to the computer item on which they are installed. This field will always show up as a list of all of the item in the inventory, sorted by category.

• Field divider, which allows you to separate fields into groups.

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As of version 1.7.1, you also have the option of displaying an auto-incrementing field for each item. This option can be turned on or off in the administration for each category. The name of this field can be customized in the administration section, as well as the name of the built-in "Name" field (as of version 1.8).

If this all seems confusing, don't worry. It should become clearer with an example.

An Example

Let's say that you are documenting all of your receipts for tax purposes. You might want to keep track of the following: date of purchase, place of purchase, total price, tax paid, item purchased, whether or not it was a business expense, an image of the receipt, and an image of the item purchased. Your fields for this type of item would look like the following:

• Date of purchase: text field
• Place of purchase: multiple field
• Total price: text field
• Item purchased: text field
• Business expense: radio buttons, with values "Yes" and "No"
• Receipt and item image: files

Now that we have a group of items we want to track, let's see how we would go about adding the fields.