Databases

A database is a table where each column has a type: a text is not the same as a date, a status or a person.

That is what makes filtering, sorting, grouping and calculating unambiguous.

The properties

Text, number, select, multi-select, status, date, checkbox, URL, email, phone, person, relation, rollup, formula, files and media, ID, button, and the automatic created/last-edited ones.

Three worth knowing:

• Relation connects rows across two tables, and the connection shows from

both sides.

• ID gives each row a number of its own that never repeats. If you delete

row 42, that number is never reused — which is why it works to name a row in an email and have it still mean the same thing a year later.

• Button runs actions on click: change a property, create a row in another

table, open a link.

The views

The same table can be seen as a table, board, calendar, gallery, timeline, list, chart, dashboard or feed.

Each view keeps its own filters, sorting, grouping and visible columns. They are not different tables: they are ways of looking at the same one.

Sub-items

A row can hang under another, and the table shows them as a collapsible tree. You turn it on from the view settings.

Each row has a single parent. And you cannot build a circle — A inside B, B inside A — that gets rejected as you create it.