Collection Types

Tellico supports twelve specific collection types by default: books, bibliographic entries, comic books, videos, music, video games, trading cards, coins, stamps, wines, board games, and file catalogs. In addition, an empty generic collection template is available for any other collectibles. The default collections are only meant to include a general set of fields. You should add, modify, or delete them to fit your needs. The only requirement is that a collection should always have a Title field, so that the Group View works correctly. For some collection types, that is just a derived value field combining two or more of the others.

In general, there's no functional difference between the collection types. You could create a custom collection for your books just as easily as using the default book collection. But Tellico chooses icons based on collection type, and there may be some specialized functionality that is unique to a certain collection, so if you can, you should use the defaults. So, if you want to create a wine collection, but don't like any of the default fields, go ahead and create a default wine collection, then delete all the defaults. That way, Tellico still knows that it's a wine collection.

By default, all the collection types include an ID field, which shows the ID number of the entry. In addition, except for the file catalog, each collection includes fields showing the date that the entry was created in the collection and the last time that it was modified.

Book Collections

Book collections have 27 default fields: Title, Subtitle, Author, Binding, Purchase Date, Purchase Price, Publisher, Edition, Copyright Year, Publication Year, ISBN#, LCCN#, Pages, Language, Genre, Keywords, Series, Series Number, Condition, Signed, Read, Gift, Loaned, Rating, Front Cover, Plot Summary, and Comments.

The ISBN# field is special, since ISBN numbers are automatically formatted and the check-digit is calculated. Tellico recognizes the ISBN field if its internal field name is isbn. If you have deleted it, or need to add it to another type of collection, create the field with the title as ISBN and apply the change, then you can return and modify the title as you want. Tellico creates the internal name based on the initial title, but never changes it if the title is later updated.

Bibliographies

Bibliographies have 25 default fields: Title, Entry Type, Author, Bibtex Key, Book Title, Editor, Organization, Publisher, ISBN#, Address, Edition, Pages, Year, Journal, Month, Number, How Published, Chapter, Series, Series Number, Volume, Cross-Reference, Keywords, Abstract, and Notes.

Although bibliographic collections are not specifically linked to bibtex, the default set of fields is taken from a typical set of bibtex fields. When exporting to bibtex, a property called bibtex is used for each field to define the corresponding bibtex field. If you add an additional field to a bibliography and want to export it to bibtex, be sure to set the bibtex property.

Tellico does have some specialized functions for bibliographies. Bibtex string macros can be added, modified, or deleted from within Tellico and the bibtex export gives you the option of expanding the macros. Bibtex citations can be pushed to an external application such as LyX or Kile using the so-called lyxpipe.

Book collections can be converted to bibliographies. Default bibtex fields are added, and the bibtex properties are set. This functionality exists primarily to convert old collections, before the bibliography type was separated from the book collection type.

Comic Book Collections

Comic book collections have 23 default fields: Title, Subtitle, Writer, Artist, Series, Issues, Publisher, Edition, Publication Year, Pages, Country, Language, Genre, Keywords, Condition, Purchase Date, Purchase Price, Signed, Gift, Loaned, Front Cover, Plot Summary, and Comments.

Video Collections

Video collections have 30 default fields: Title, Medium, Production Year, Certification, Genre, Region, Nationality, Format, Cast, Director, Producer, Writer, Composer, Studio, Language Tracks, Subtitle Languages, Audio Tracks, Running Time, Aspect Ratio, Widescreen, Color Mode, Director's Cut, Plot Summary, Personal Rating, Purchase Date, Purchase Price, Gift, Loaned, Cover, and Comments.

The Cast field is a table with two columns, and the name of the actor is intended to be in the first column, with their role in the second. The Running Time is meant to be in minutes, though you can change that, of course.

Music Collections

Music collections have 15 default fields: Title, Medium, Artist, Label, Year, Genre, Tracks, Rating, Purchase Date, Purchase Price, Gift, Loaned, Keywords, Cover, and Comments.

Video Game Collections

Video game collections have 16 default fields: Title, Platform, Genre, Release Year, Publisher, Developer, ESRB Rating, Description, Personal Rating, Completed, Purchase Date, Purchase Price, Gift, Loaned, Cover, and Comments.

Card Collections

Trading card collections have 17 default fields: Title, Player, Team, Brand, Card Number, Year, Series, Card Type, Purchase Date, Purchase Price, Location, Gift, Keywords, Quantity, Front Image, Back Image, and Comments.

Coin Collections

Coin collections have 16 default fields: Title, Type, Denomination, Year, Mint Mark, Country, Coin Set, Grade, Grading Service, Purchase Date, Purchase Price, Location, Gift, Obverse, Reverse, and Comments.

Stamp Collections

Stamp collections have 18 default fields: Title, Description, Denomination, Country, Issue Year, Color, Scott#, Grade, Cancelled, Hinged, Centering, Gummed, Purchase Date, Purchase Price, Location, Gift, Image, and Comments.

Wine Collections

Wine collections have 15 default fields. Title, Producer, Appellation, Varietal, Type, Country, Purchase Date, Purchase Price, Location, Quantity, Drink By, Rating, Gift, Label Image, and Comments.

Board Game Collections

Board game collections have 17 default fields. Title, Genre, Mechanism, Release Year, Publisher, Designer, Number of Players, Playing Time, Minimum Age, Description, Rating, Purchase Date, Purchase Price, Gift, Loaned, Cover, and Comments,

File Catalogs

File catalogs have 14 default fields. Name, URL, Description, Volume, Folder, Mimetype, Size, Permissions, Owner, Group, Created, Modified, Meta Info, and Icon,

Custom Collections

Custom collections have one default field, the Title. They should be used when the collectible item is not one of the default types.