Picking the Right Column

Part 3 of 11: Picking the Right Column

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Back to my Field Recording Kit, because this is where the real design decisions live. I own too much audio gear and I've bought the same cable twice more than once. A list fixes that only if the columns are right. A column type is a promise about what a value is, and the app holds you to it. Put a number type on "price" and you can't fat-finger a word into it. Put a dropdown on "category" and you'll never have "Mic," "mic," and "microphone" as three different things you have to reconcile at midnight.

The types, and when to reach for each

When you add a field, you pick a type from a grouped menu. There are eleven, and they sort into a few families:

• Text. Short text for names and labels (Gear, in my case). Long text for the paragraph stuff: notes, a description, why past-me thought this purchase was justified.
• Number. Prices, quantities, lengths. It keeps the value numeric, which matters the moment you want to sort or add them up.
• Date and Date & time. A date picker for "acquired," a date-and-time picker for anything that has an hour attached.
• True / False. A yes/no dropdown. "Battery powered" is a true/false for me, and it turns out to be the field I filter on most before a shoot.
• Single choice and Multiple choice. Dropdowns backed by a list of options you define. Single choice for category, multiple choice for anything that can wear more than one tag at once.
• Email, URL, and Phone. Text fields that know their shape. The URL field expects a link and treats it like one.
• Priority. A purpose-built ranking field for when "how much do I care" is itself a column.

The list builder showing four fields with their types: Gear as Short text, Category as Single choice, Price as Number, Battery Powered as True / False

The menu tells you what each one is as you hover it, so you're not guessing. My rule of thumb: if a value has a fixed set of possibilities, make it a choice field, not text. Choices are searchable, filterable, and immune to my own inconsistency.

The Advanced panel is where the polish lives

Every field has an Advanced disclosure, folded away so the common case stays simple. Open it and you get the controls that turn a rough list into one that's pleasant to use.

A field's Advanced panel expanded, showing Key, Required, Placeholder, Default Value, and Help Text controls

• Key is the internal name the data is stored under. It's derived from the label automatically, so you almost never touch it, but it's there when you care.
• Required stops a row from being saved without this field. Use it sparingly. A required field you don't always have is just a reason not to add the row.
• Placeholder and Help Text are the quiet difference between a form you understand and one you resent. A one-line hint on a fussy field saves you re-learning your own list in six months.
• Default Value is the one I care about enough to give it the whole next post.

Design the columns like you'll live in them, because you will. The reward is a list that catches your mistakes instead of storing them.

Next: defaults, and how to make a new row show up already half filled in.

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