Forms and fields¶
Anton does not prescribe a fixed field schema. Which fields a unit of description has, in what order they appear and what they are called is determined by each archive itself. That explains why the forms look different from archive to archive — and why the examples in this documentation may deviate from a given installation.
Form sets¶
A form set bundles five forms for one and the same thing:
| Form | Purpose |
|---|---|
| Internal — Edit | The cataloguing form |
| Internal — Detail | The detail view for logged-in users |
| Internal — List | The result list for logged-in users |
| External — Detail | The detail view for the public |
| External — List | The result list for the public |
The internal/external separation is the reason why outsiders see less than the archive itself: a field only appears if it is part of the respective form. There is no edit form for the public.
Form sets exist not only for units of description, but also for actors, places, keywords and locations.
Which form set applies?¶
Anton decides in this order:
- If the form set field is filled in on the record, that one applies.
- Otherwise the form set with the same name as the level of description applies — for a file, therefore, «file».
- Otherwise the default set applies.
The form set field is at the very top of the cataloguing form and generally remains empty. It is the way out for special cases: if a fonds contains photographs that need different fields from the rest, a separate form set can be created for them and assigned specifically.
Fields¶
A field only appears if it is part of the form and has a value — empty fields are hidden in the detail view rather than shown as an empty line. In the edit form, by contrast, they are always visible.
The same field behaves differently depending on the view: what is an input field or a selection list when editing appears as plain text in the detail view.
Sections with a grey background structure the form. They are not fields themselves; a section without visible fields is omitted entirely.
Help texts for fields¶
A help text can be stored for a field — the archive's own cataloguing rule for that field. If one is stored, it appears in the edit form as a small note directly below the input field.
This inline display can be switched on and off by each person in their own profile; by default it is off. Independently of this, all help texts can be consulted collectively on the Anton Fields help page in the application.
Changing¶
Form sets and forms are maintained under Admin → Forms and Admin → Form types. There, fields can be added, removed, reordered and renamed per form — the label of a field can therefore read differently in the edit form than in the detail view. Which fields are available at all is shown by the Anton Fields help page in the application.