Card Names

Home Overview Cards Card Names

Each card has a name. The name of a card is a separate information about the card independent of any fields on the card and their values; even a card that is completely empty (because its background does not contain any fields) still has a name.

The main use of the card name is identification: In scripts cards are refered to by name. Links in wiki text fields use card names. If a combo box contains a card list, the names of the cards are listed. The card list view can show card names in a column to indicate the cards that are listed.

Because of this use for identification, it is a good idea to make card names unique somehow, either unique over the whole stack, or at least within a background. But MoStacks does not enforce uniqueness; it's up to you how you handle card names.

If there are several cards with the same name, usually the first one (according to card order) is chosen, e.g. when using a link with that name in a wiki field. The card list view and card lists shown in list boxes (instead of combo boxes) are immune to this problem, however: Selecting a line always takes you exactly to the right card, the one listed on the selected line, regardless of card names. (They work with hidden, internal unique card id numbers for doing so.)

If you use MoStacks like a conventional database, often cards contain data records, with the value of the first field some kind of unique "main key", e.g. some id number. For such cards it is only logical to make the card name identical to the key value.

MoStacks can save you a lot of manual work here with the field flag Use value as card name that tells it to automatically synchronize card name and value of the first field for each card of the background.