Views, filters and the table

#What is a view?

A view is a saved state of your collection. It holds which records show up (the filter), in what order they are listed (the sorting), which columns are visible, and how they are drawn (table, kanban, gallery or calendar).

The same collection can have several views, such as "All leads", "Qualified this week" and "Sales pipeline (kanban)". You switch between them from the tabs.

#The tab strip

The leftmost All records tab is your unsaved workspace. You can play with the filter freely here and nobody else's screen changes. The tabs to its right are the saved views.

• + View saves whatever is on screen right now as a new view. The layout, the filter, the sorting, the hidden columns and the column order all go into it. Before you save, the dialog lists item by item what will be kept.
• If you change something while you are in a view, an orange dot appears next to the tab and the strip shows a Discard button and an Update the "…" view button. So nothing is saved without you asking for it, and an unsaved change does not slip past you either.
• The pencil icon renames a view, the bin deletes it. Deleting only removes the query, and the records stay where they are.

Creating, updating and deleting views is an Admin job, because a view looks the same on everyone's screen.

#Filter

You add conditions from the Filter button. Each field offers the comparisons that suit its type, such as "contains" for text, "is greater than" for a number, "is checked" for a checkbox and "is within this many days" for a date.

Conditions are joined with and or or. The empty and not-empty conditions ask for no value.

Filtering is worked out on the server. Even in a collection of 20,000 records only the matches come back, and page numbers and summaries come out right for the filter.

#Sorting

From the Sort button you give up to three keys, for example "by score descending first, then by name ascending". Clicking a column header also sets up a single-key sort.

Number fields are sorted as numbers, so 10 comes after 9.

#Columns

From the Columns button you hide the fields you do not want. Hiding does not delete the field, it just does not show in that view.

The same panel changes the column order too. There are two ways. Grab the handle on the left of the row and drag it where you want, or move it one place at a time with the arrow buttons on the right. The order is part of the view, so once you save it, it stays, and everyone on the team sees the same layout. Reset the order goes back to the natural order of the fields in the schema. A field added later does not break a view, it goes to the end.

#Record details

From the Record details section at the bottom of the panel you can add the record's own stamps to the table as columns, namely Created and Updated. Both show a date and a time, and both can be sorted and filtered. This is how "what did we change last" gets answered.

These columns are not part of the schema. You do not enter their values, and they cannot be edited or deleted. The visibility choice is for your screen only, so it is not saved with the view and does not change your teammate's table.

#Images and files

An image field shows up in the cell, so there is no preview to open. Making the rows taller (view settings → row height) makes the images bigger too. Clicking an image in a cell opens it full size, and you click again or press Esc to close it.

There are two ways to fill a file field, upload from your device or pick from Orbi's files. The second saves you from uploading a document a second time when it is already in the workspace, so it stays one file, one copy and one quota.

#Layouts

The same query has four readings.

Layout	What it is for	What it needs
Table	Working on the data, correcting it	No extra field
Kanban	Tracking status, looking by dragging	An option/date/checkbox field
Gallery	Records that lean on images	An image field (the cover)
Calendar	Records spread over time	A date field

If the required field is not picked, the screen does not stay blank, it tells you which one is missing. You pick it from the view settings (⚙).

#Working in the table

The table is not a viewer, it is a workspace.

• Every cell is edited in place. Double-click a cell and the editor that suits its type opens (a calendar for a date, a list for an option, stars for a rating, a search box for a person).
• There are keyboard shortcuts. The arrow keys move between cells, Enter opens editing, Space opens the record in the panel on the right and Esc cancels.
• A column header is a menu. Sort, filter by this, hide the column, edit or delete the field and take a column summary all live there.
• A field's type cannot be changed later. Its name, description, options and whether it is required can be edited. Changing the type would mean converting the value of every record in that column, and values that could not be converted would quietly empty out. If the type has to change, create a new field and move the values across.
• Column width is dragged from the edge.
• The column summary (Sum, Average, Max, Filled, Distinct) is picked from the column menu and shows below the table. It is worked out over the whole collection and according to your filter, so it is not the total of the page you are looking at.

#Pagination

The bar below the table shows how many records there are and where, and moves you between them.

• The Per page box sets how many records show on one page (25, 50, 100, 200).
• You click page numbers directly; ‹ Previous and Next › step one page back or forward. In a collection with many pages the ends and the pages around the one you are on are shown, with "…" for the gap.
• The page and per-page count you pick are remembered in this browser, per collection: when you refresh the page you carry on from the same place. This is not a view setting and does not change your teammate's screen.
• Page numbers and summaries are worked out according to your filter (see Filter).

#Record detail

When you hover over a row in the table, an open button appears in the number field on the far left, and clicking it shows the record in a panel that opens from the right. If you are using the keyboard, the space bar does the same thing while any cell in the row is selected. In the kanban, gallery and calendar layouts, clicking the card itself is enough.

The whole row is not clickable, and that is on purpose. Cells carry their own selection and inline editing, and if clicking a cell opened the record, working in the table would be impossible.

In the panel you read, edit and close without losing the list, and its header has a link back to the collection.

#The menu icon

You can change the screen's icon in the menu with an emoji. There is no separate field for the title, because the collection's name is the screen's title, so change the name and the title changes with it.