CaseStudy:Designing Memento databases:Photographic equipment
Case Study: An initial photographic equipment database
- Introduction
- In this study, we set out to create a barebones design & implementation of a database for a photographic equipment inventory for an amateur photographer or for a solo or very small professional photographic enterprise.
Our idea is to design a barebones but extensible database that will initially consist of a single library and will be able to grow to support several interrelated, linked libraries. - Nomenclature
- Before we begin, let's ensure we have an agreed understanding of the terminology we'll use in this study. In Memento, our terminology values from other Glossary#DBMS disciplines, notably relational DBMSes (or RDBMSes). The following table shows the equivalencies:
Memento | Relational | Definition |
---|---|---|
Database | Database | A generic term meaning the base of all interrelated data regarding a person or application or subject matter. |
Library | Table | Entries & fields or rows & columns of data |
Field | Column | A typed data item occupying a position within a library or table |
FieldEntry | Record (or row) | An instance or occurrence of data across fields or columns |
Entry name | Primary key | The field or ordered set of fields (Column or ordered set of columns) that identify an entry or record |
Link to entry | SQL | The means by which libraries or tables are related to each other |
- Requirements (the need)
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- Intro
- Design considerations
- Initial camera/lens/filter&hood, flash, tripod, bag/strap
- Solution
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- Intro
- Design
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- Screenshots
- See the 5 email attachments
- Implementation
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- Intro
The email
I have a LOT of camera equipment (Camera, Lens, Filters, tripods, bags, etc.). I want to be able to create records of all of this equipment for personal inventory as well as insurance purposes.
So far, none of the prebuilt programs I have looked at covered all of the data that I wanted to track on a per item basis, so I decided to use this program, some research into existing templates and a lot of soul-searching to create my own me-friendly database. So far so good. I spent all day yesterday architecting starting database. As will all programming, there will be further minor changes (new fields, verbiage tweaks, section grouping changes, etc.). That said, I am very happy with my initial go at this.
So, in this bare bones example, I have a camera entry, a lens entry, and a filter entry. In real life, ALL three of these items are physically part of the same "group/unit", The Lens is attached to the camera body and the filter is attached to that particular lens. While I still want to keep each item as their own separate record, I also want to link these 3 records together to visually show this relationship. And at some point, i want this grouping be part of a larger grouping (in a camera bag with other items for example).