A Database View is a subset of the database sorted and displayed in a particular way. For example, in an equipment database, perhaps you only wish to display the Weapons stored in the database. To do that you would create a Weapons view. The equipment database templates has a view for each equipment type, sorted by the name of the equipment.
For each view, you can control which columns are displayed, what order they are displayed in, how wide each column is, how the data is sorted, and what types of records to display.
A view called "All" is always defined and cannot be deleted. While you can change the sort order of this view, you cannot change which records are displayed. As the name of the view suggests, All records in the database are always displayed by the All view. However, feel free to change the column order or column widths as you'd like.
A database view displays one or more database records on the same page. A view can display some or all of the database fields. Views have filters to determine which records they show. Views can be sorted to control the record order and grouped to display records in related sets. Views have other options such as totals and subtotals.
Most users interact with the database using the database views. A key to creating a useful database is a well-chosen set of views. Luckily, while views are powerful, they are also easy to create.
You can customize all aspects of a view, including:
The name of the view
The fields that appear in the view
The column title for each field in the view
The order of the fields in the view
The width of columns in the view, as well as the
overall width of the view
The set of records that appear in the view (Filtering)
The order in which records are displayed in the
view (Sorting & Grouping)
Column totals for numeric and currency fields
(Totaling & Subtotaling)
