Real-World Datafile Examples

Real-World Datafile Examples

Below are screenshots of a variety of datafiles that are in daily use by Mike Wright or Robin Casady. They are grouped into field-based and freeform datafiles. (Some details have been changed to protect the innocent.)

Mike's:

Robin's:

Freeform Datafiles

Freeform datafiles are simply datafiles that were created with no fields, placing all text and images in the Freeform Text Area. As you'll see from the examples, sometimes a datafile contains records that don't have enough information in common to justify having specific fields.

However, if you create a freeform datafile and later decide that it needs one or more fields, you can add them at any time.

Driving Directions

Online Sales Receipts

Operating Instructions

Photoshop Techniques

Field Based Datafiles

Each field-based example is marked as showing either Basic View (a single record with the fields arranged in a single column) or List View (a table layout, with rows being records and columns being fields). You can switch between these two views with the click of a toolbar button, depending on which view is more appropriate at the moment.

Below the fields is what we call the Freeform Text Area. It can be used to add information that isn't appropriate to any particular field. It shows the freeform text for the currently selected record.

Coffee Roasting Log

Food Information

Sales Receipts from Email

Songs

This datafile contains the words to songs that Mike sings, but that are not in any of his songbooks. Most are typed in--in English, with guitar chord indications, but some are copied from Web sites. The one shown here includes text typed in both English and Japanese, as well as the song melody, which is an image copied from a Web page. It contains several Chinese-language songs, as well. (Mike was a translator in a former life.)

Recipes

iData 3 makes it easy to locate recipes, and they can be printed out as needed. If you spill vinegar on your printed copy, just print out another one.

This datafile started with Mike's own recipes, typed in, but it's now getting additions copied from the Web.

Online Sales Receipts

Mike does a lot of his shopping on the Web. Although most online vendors send email order confirmations, there've been a few that never arrived, so he likes to copy them from the Web, as well--just to be on the safe side. Note that the order shown below includes a working link for tracking the shipment. When links are copied and pasted from Web pages, they just work with no extra processing required.

Random Info

Sometimes Robin wants to save information that doesn't seem to fit within a particular topic and that may not need to be kept for a long time.

Although he has more than one of these datafiles and can't always recall which one was used for something, he can still find it by using iData 3's Multi-File Find function. It can search in both open and unopened datafiles.

Driving Directions

Here is another datafile containing random data. It seems to have begun life as a freeform URL collection. The record shown here contains typed text, text copied from an online map site, and a map image, copied from the same site. Since this is a place that will he be going to more than once, it is easier to have it in iData than to have to look it up online, and it is available when internet access isn't. It is also easier to print all the data from this consolidated record, rather than printing a couple different web pages.

Operating Instructions

Here's a record from the same datafile, containing info copied from the Web, along with a link to the original article.

Photoshop Techniques

This is a good example of a small, specialized datafile. When reading a photography forum sometimes there are descriptions of techniques one might want to use someday. By putting them in iData, they are easy to find later, even if they are no longer on the forum. You can't always depend on a web page or forum entry being there in the future.

Great Quotes

If you spend any time on an online forum you will probably run across signature quotes that you would like to remember. iData is a great place to store them. This example shows how easy it is to find your data with the smallest clue.

Bookmarks

This is based on bookmarks imported from Safari. The quote in the Freeform Text Area was copied and pasted from the Web site, and a note about the site has been added, both of which will help Mike remember why he saved it in the first place. (List View)

Coffee Roasting Log

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

Customer List

This datafile contains a listing of customers of Casady & Greene who owned predecessors of iData 2. 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. (Basic View)

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Guitar Music

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. (Basic View)

Mailing List

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 about three and sixteen messages come in each day). Although Apple Mail does a much better job of searching than it used to, iData 3 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 2.5 years of messages. (List View)

Sales Receipts from Email

This datafile contains an imported email folder that contains communications and order confirmations related to Mike's purchases of Irish Whistles from various online suppliers and manufacturers. Even though it's been years since he's bought a new whistle, he can still find information on all of his purchases. (List View)

User Manual

This shows the first version of an iData 2 User Manual. It was searchable and included screenshots--and it made a good sample datafile. (List View)

Food Information

A new, but growing, file of nutritional information about particular foods. (Basic View)

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DVD Orders

This datafile began as a record of DVD orders, but it has become a place to store info on all kinds of orders, as you can see from the next example, below. (Basic View)

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Other Orders

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 online orders. The datafile could easily be renamed in the Finder to make it more general, but sometimes traditions linger. (Basic View)

Tires

Detailed information on a variety of tires suitable for Robin's MINI Cooper S. This datafile was very helpful in comparing tires when deciding what to buy. (List View)

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