Revisit the workings/design of the Custom Fields

[joannekoch]

The inner workings and design of the Custom Fields needs attention.

Three issues which should be addressed:

1. If you have a Custom Field Global Field checked for a particular Part Type and you add a Part Template for that Part Type, you cannot set the Custom Field value for that Part Template on the add. You can only set the Custom Field value when editing the Part Template. Also, the default Custom Field value is not assigned on the add.

2. If you have a Part Template with a Custom Field, and you edit and uncheck the Global Field for the Custom Field for that Part Type, the Custom Field stays in the Part Template and is not removed. Conversely, after a Part Template without a Global Field is added and the Custom Global Field for that Part Template is checked, the Custom Field is added to the existing Part Template.

3. When Download CSV for a Part Template is executed, the Default Value for the Custom Fields are downloaded. But, the Custom Field can be edited and changed from the Default Value, so should the Actual Value be downloaded and not the Default value?

From Sidney: The Default value is reported because Part Templates may be initiated with a default value. These default values are used when creating a Inventory item based off the templates. At the Inventory level, the default values may then also be overwritten.

This does pose a question: in a Part Templates search result (incl. download), how does one differentiate between a blank "" default value and a non-existent UDF column for a given Part Template (given that different templates will have different UDFs, any of which's default values could be blank).

How about any Part Template that does not feature a particular UDF column gets a ― (or some other "None" vs. blank designation)

[sbatchelder]

Re: (3), So above when I say default value I mean a Part Template udf's set value for that template. When an inventory item is made, those Part UDF values are used as default for the inventory item. In this way, they are "default values"; it's these values that are shown/exportable. They have nothing to do with Part Types. In my mind its more clear to note these in the interface as defaults to better differentiate between Inventory and Parts. If this is not desirable it is a very easy interface edit.