Sorting records with BiblioMaker
With the BiblioMaker software, you can easily sort your records. There are several ways to do this : please read on.
Sorting is defining in which order your records must be displayed on screen. With BiblioMaker, you can sort your data by several criteria and in both directions. How do you sort your records ? When you view a file (for instance Titles, Addresses or Loans), data are displayed as a table with several columns. You sort this table simply by clicking in the header of a column and the data are sorted by this column.
When a column has been selected for sorting, an icon (an arrow) is displayed in its header. This icon means first that the column is used for sorting, but also indicates the sorting order : ascending (from A to Z or from 0 to 9) or descending (from Z to A or from 9 to 0). If you want to revert the sorting order, click one more time in the column's header and the icon is reverted. With this method, you can sort data with one single criterion. If you want to sort by several criteria, please call the Action>Sort command.
When you call the Sort command in the Action menu, a dialog box is displayed, containing several fields from the current file.
You select a field by clicking on its name, then on the Select button (or double-click on the field). A number and the icon of an arrow are displayed on the left hand side. The arrow shows the sorting order. You revert this order by clicking on the Direction button.
You remove a sort field by selecting it, then by clicking on the Unselect button. The number and the icon on the left vanish.
You can select several fields in this dialog box. The number displayed on the left of each selected field indicates in which order records will be sorted. For instance, if several records contain the same value in the same field (for instance the Shelf Mark in the Titles file), records will be sorted by the next selected sort field (for instance the Publication year).
Some field numbers are displayed in bold characters : these fields are indexed, that means that sorting with these fields will be very quick. On the contrary, fields names in plain characters are not indexed and sorting with these fields could take more time, especially with many records. If you don't find the field you'd like in the dialog box, click on the Add... button : a second dialog box is displayed, in which you can select the field you need.
On the right side of the fields list, several radio buttons let you choose between sort formulas :
Normal : simple sort of a text, number of date type field.
Value : only for text fields. Converts the text in a number in order to carry out a numerical sort.
Length : only for text fields. Sorts on the number of characters in this field.
Position X to Y : only for text fields. Sorts on a part of a text beginning with characters number X and ending with character number Y.
Day : only for date fields. Sorts on the day number of the date.
Month : only for date fields. Sorts on the month number of the date.
Year : only for date fields. Sorts on the year of the date.
After records have been sorted, the sorting order is saved and the records in the current files will be sorted by these criteria until you sort them by another criterion.
When you print a list, data are usually printed in the same order as on screen, unless a specific sorting order is linked to the print template. For the majority of print templates, you can specify a sorting order in the template options.