Smart Items

SmartItems is a software suite for virtual cataloging of different items: videos, books, stamps, photos, CDs, DVDs, culinary recipes and so on. The main program features are universality, simplicity and portability. The program utilizes Windows explorer as user interface and supports unlimited tree-structured physical item folders, unlimited tree-structured categories, unlimited fully customizable item fields, printing or exporting to HTML, search/sorting/filtering/debtors tracking and browsing capabilities. SmartItems is easy to use, since UI is similar to Windows explorer. The program is based on our own fast and portable database implementation, which enables database viewing and searching on PDA (Palm and Pocket PC) platforms.

The key program concept is a notion of fully customizable classes (types) of items. One can use predefined object types, like CD, DVD, book, stamp, photo. But at the same time he is free to change these types or add new one. When creating new item types, the user can select from the set of predefined field types, including: edit, memo, selection box, list box, tree, check box, image and HTML. Combining these fields the user can create his own object type, which will fully satisfy his personal requirements. It is important, that the program will provide for the customized items absolutely the same functionalities, as for the build-in ones. That is, it will be possible to search, filter, catalogue, print or export new items. Also, there will be no problems with giving the customized database to a friend, who will be able to view and search it using free viewers. Viewers for Windows, Palm and WinCE platforms are available. In other words, it is possible to say that the user can create his own database system without any programming.

Full-featured multiplatform viewers are some of the program benefits. Other similar software products usually just allow exporting data into some file that can be viewed on PDA. However, usually this file looks like a spreadsheet table with the database structure and some data omitted, and searching and filtering capabilities are usually absent. But all SmartItems viewers work exactly with the same database (which should be uploaded to PDA) and provide exactly the same searching/browsing and filtering capabilities. This allows using your PDA to: verify item availability when you plan to purchase a new one; demonstrate your unique and expensive items through PDA instead of taking risks of showing them alive. Availability of free viewers and capability of exporting the database to HTML (you can locate this HTML at your home page) makes the program a great tool for customizing your collection and making its virtual copy public accessible.

The program is not oriented to some specific items. We know that sometimes the program is used to manage a collection of flower seeds, ceramic toys, home hens (by village users) and so on. However, SmartItems contains some import functions, which can capture item information from CDDB (for audio discs), MP3 tags or just folder content (for data CDs). This makes filling of data for those objects easy. But again, import procedures are not oriented to specific class types, they just require one or more specific fields.

SmartItems Main Features:

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SmartItems enables creation and management of collections of any items;

supports unlimited tree-structured physical folders (each folder can contain only one item type, that's why we call them physical);

supports unlimited tree-structured categories (each item can belong to any number of categories, items with different types can belong to the same categories);

allows creation of unlimited customizable object types using the following predefined field types: check box (yes/no), edit, combo box, memo, list (table), tree, image, HTML;

contains full-featured build-in HTML editor, which allows you to create descriptions for your items;

supports debtors tracking functionality, which allows you to find out which items you have lent;

contains full-featured and free viewers for Palm, WinCE, Windows;

supports powerful search and filtering capabilities;

supports printing and exporting to HTML.

Please note, that the program is intended for personal use, it is not optimized for shared access to a database or extremely large amount of data. And now a few words about the future. Any feedback from users will be appreciated, and we will try to improve the program and make it more functional. Anyway, we promise, that any data created in the current version will be supported by future versions. Having the commercial license, you will get prioritized support and rights for unlimited upgrades for future versions.