Four Ways to See the Same Data

Part 6 of 11: Four Ways to See the Same Data

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I think in different modes depending on the question. Sometimes I want to skim, sometimes I want to scan a table, sometimes I want to see how things connect. Most tools pick one of those for you and make the other two a pain. The Lists index doesn't. It's the same set of lists shown four ways, and you flip between them with a tab.

To be clear about what these views are of: this is the overview of all your lists, not the rows inside one. It's the map of your workspace.

Cards, for skimming

The default is Cards, one tile per list with its name, description, visibility, and its relationships called out right on the tile.

The Cards view showing three lists as tiles, with parent and child relationships labeled on each card

This is the view I leave open. It reads like a shelf. You can see at a glance that Cables & Adapters lives under Field Recording Kit, that everything here is public, and you can jump into any of them. When you have a handful of lists and you just want to grab one, cards win.

Data Grid, for scanning

Flip to Data Grid and the same lists become a sortable table: name, description, visibility, dates, in columns you can order.

The Data Grid view showing the lists as rows in a sortable, filterable table

When you have a lot of lists and you want to find one by a property rather than by recognizing its tile, this is the view. It's the spreadsheet-brain view, and I mean that as a compliment.

Tree View, for hierarchy

Tree View puts a collapsible outline of your lists on the left and the selected list's contents on the right. It's built for nesting: parents expand to show children, and you navigate the shape of your workspace instead of hunting through a flat pile. The next post is entirely about why you'd nest lists in the first place, and this is the view that makes nesting feel worth it.

Entity Diagram, for how it all connects

The one that makes people lean in is the Entity Diagram. It draws each list as a table of its fields and types, then wires them together.

The Entity Diagram view showing lists as field tables, with a dashed parentId edge connecting a parent list to its child

There's a small visual grammar worth learning:

• A key marks the row's identity, and a link marker flags the field that points at a parent. If you've ever drawn a database diagram, this will feel like home.
• Dashed edges are nesting: this list is a child of that one.
• Solid colored edges are connections you've drawn between lists that aren't parent-and-child, just related.
• GitHub-backed lists wear a darker header so you can tell the synced ones from the hand-built ones at a glance.

I didn't expect to use this view much. Then my workspace grew past the point where I could hold it in my head, and the diagram became the thing I open when I've lost the plot. It's your data as a map.

Next: nesting, which is what half of these views are quietly built to show off.

Adron