About Data Types

Data type

Description

Use

Sample

Terms List

A set of predefined 'enumerated' values in a dropdown menu.

Use this for any form of classification or categorisation of preconfigured data, such as raw material, condition, period, religious affiliation, language, country etc.

You can select from a set of preconfigured term lists (called 'vocabularies') and preview your choice. If a term is missing from the list you can quickly add it.

Note. You can manage your term lists via the Manage Terms screen. Here you can create new term lists, add terms from a hierarchy of existing preconfigured or user-defined term lists, or create new terms. Your definition of a term can include a label, a code (for standard codes such as three letter country indicators) and a URL (e.g. pointing to a semantic definition).

You can select an item from a dropdown showing the selection of predefined values based on a tree of terms.

Numeric

Numeric values only: integer or floating point.

Enter a number.

Date / Temporal

A date or date range, which can be:

• Simple Date. A specific date and optionally a specific time.
• Date Range. A start-end date range, with Terminus post quem ('limit after which') and Terminus ante quem ('limit before which') details.
• Approximate Date. A date with a defined assumed range and degree of probability (fuzzy dates).
• C14 Date. A radiocarbon-based date period.

Enter a date, or click the Date icon to define more complex dates.

File

The address or URL of a file to be downloaded, pointing to a location on a PC or network or web.

Different kinds of media can be selected: image (including thumbnails), audio, video, text, HTML, document, flash, XML etc.

Select a file to include in the record.

Geospatial

A geographic location,  in latitude and longitude values, based on Google Maps. This might be of an event, organisation, historic site etc.

A geographic object may contain one or multiple points, lines and polygons.

Enter the geographic location of the geographic object (one or multiple points, lines and polygons).

Text (Single Line)

A single line of text. For names, short descriptions etc.

Note. Use Term Lists rather than Text if you are dealing with a limited number of options or to control input.

Enter a single line of text. This cannot contain formatting such as bold and underline or contain new paragraphs.  

Memo

A multi-paragraph block of (rich) text.

For short to medium length descriptions (e.g. Abstract). This cannot contain formatting such as bold and underline.

Note. For longer text entries or formatted texts, use the rich text editor, available in all records (See Rich Text Editor).

Enter multiple lines of text. This cannot contain formatting such as bold and underline.  

Record Pointer

A 'concrete' pointer/lookup to a record in the database.

These are used to include or link to data about objects which have their own set of complex attributes such as a person, a site or a book.

Pointer fields can be constrained to point to a particular type of record (for instance, authors and editors will always point to the author/editor record type) to help maintain the quality of data entry. However they can also be unconstrained in cases where you don't know in advance what type of record might be referenced.

Click on the dropdown and from the dialog select the record to point to.

Relationship Marker

A place-holder for a link to a specific kind of record.

These act as special markers or prompts that insert a relationship in context when the user is populating a record via the Shared Information data entry page.

These can be used, for example, to record people with specific roles and other important types of relationships between records which need to be seen in the context of other fields rather than simply relating to the record as whole.

A relationship is a separate record that links two records together, regardless of type. Heurist relationship records have some very powerful features:

1. They are implemented as a standard Heurist record type, so they inherit all the characteristics of a Heurist record; they can be edited like any other record, they have a title, data fields, annotation, discussion, tags, ownership, even a geographic location.

1. They can link any two records, regardless of type.
2. No prior knowledge or specialise programming is needed.

1. They include, by default, fields for relationship type (required) and time period (optional) over which the relationship applies (many real-world relationships have a limited duration).

Contains no data. Instead it provides a prompt to give you the ability to insert a relationship in context in the Shared Information page.

Adding a relationship means selecting the relationship type and searching for another record (target) to which to link the current record (source).

There is no reason why two records cannot have several relationships, which may reflect alternative views on the relationships between the records, or relationships which have different time periods. For instance, scholars may disagree on the start and end dates of a relationship or a person may be employed by the same institution on more than one occasion.

Note. A relationship record is simply a normal Heurist record and it can be searched for and edited like any other record. This means that it can be annotated with text or a discussion such as questions of historical interpretation, its ownership and visibility can be set, it can be tagged and so forth, like any other record. This can be extremely useful with historical data in order to represent differing views or to tag  set of relationships in order to present a cluster of events in a timeline.

Calculated

Calculates values on the fly based on input from other fields in the record. (Under Development*.)

(Under Development.)*

Separator

Is simply used to provide a separator and heading within the Shared Information page.

Contains no data.

Heading

Provides a text heading within Shared Information data entry page.

Use this to clarify field layout.

Contains no data.