Customizing How You View Your Collection

Once your collection has some items in it, you’ll want to browse and organize them in a way that makes sense for what you’re tracking. MDCollections gives you multiple view modes, custom stacks, sorting, and search — all configurable per collection.

This guide walks through the view options available, how to set them up, and how to get the most out of them.

View Modes

MDCollections offers different ways to display your collection items. You can switch between them at any time depending on how you want to browse.

List View

List view shows your items in a compact, scannable format. Each row displays the item name and key properties. This is a good default for collections where you need to see details at a glance — like a tool inventory with conditions and locations, or a book list with authors and dates.

Thumbnail View

Thumbnail view displays your items as a visual grid, with each item represented by its thumbnail image. This works well for collections where the visual is what matters most — art prints, vinyl records, trading cards, or anything where you want to browse by image.

The thumbnail shown for each item comes from the Thumbnail Property you configured in your collection settings. If you haven’t set one yet, go to your collection settings and choose which image property should be used.

Switching Between Views

Tap the view mode button in your collection to switch between list and thumbnail views. The app remembers your last selection per collection, so your book collection can default to list view while your art collection opens in thumbnails.

Stacks — Grouping by Property

Stacks let you group your items by any property in your collection. Instead of one long list or grid, your items are organized into groups based on a shared value.

How Stacks Work

When you enable a stack, MDCollections groups your items by the values of the property you select. For example:

• A book collection stacked by Genre shows groups like Fiction, Non-Fiction, Sci-Fi, Biography.
• A tool collection stacked by Room shows groups like Garage, Workshop, Kitchen.
• A wine collection stacked by Region shows groups like Bordeaux, Napa Valley, Barossa Valley.

Each group is collapsible, so you can expand the ones you’re interested in and collapse the rest. Items are sorted within each group based on your current sort settings.

Setting Up Stacks

Before you can use stacks, you need to tell MDCollections which properties are eligible for grouping.

1. Open your Collection Settings.
2. Find the View Stacks configuration.
3. Select the properties you want to be available as stack groupings. Any property works — tags, text fields, dates, or any custom property.
4. Press Save.

Back in the collection view, you’ll now be able to select a stack grouping. Choose the property you want to group by and your items reorganize into stacks instantly.

Switching Between Stacks

You can switch which property you’re grouping by at any time. If you’ve set up multiple stack-eligible properties, tap the stack selector to switch between them. Go from grouping by genre to grouping by year to grouping by condition — each gives you a different perspective on the same collection without changing any data.

Choosing Thumbnails

The thumbnail image is what represents each item in grid views and on item cards. By default, MDCollections uses the image property you designated as the thumbnail property in collection settings. But you have control over this at both the collection and item level.

Setting the Thumbnail Property

In Collection Settings, choose which image property generates thumbnails. If your items have multiple image properties — say, a front photo and a back photo — you can pick which one appears in grid views.

This applies collection-wide, so all items in the collection use the same property for their thumbnail.

Sorting Your Collection

Sorting controls the order items appear in your collection, whether you’re in list view, thumbnail view, or inside a stack group.

Sort by Any Property

Tap the sort button to choose which property to sort by. You can sort by:

• Name — alphabetical order
• Date properties — chronologically by date added, purchase date, or any date field
• Number or currency properties — by value, price, or any numeric field
• Any custom property — whatever makes sense for your collection

Sort Direction

Toggle between ascending and descending order. Sort books A–Z or Z–A, sort by price low-to-high or high-to-low, sort by date newest-first or oldest-first.

Searching Your Collection

Search lets you find specific items quickly, no matter how large your collection gets.

How Search Works

Tap the search bar at the top of your collection and start typing. Results filter in real time as you type, narrowing down to matching items instantly.

Configuring Search Properties

By default, search matches against item names. But you can include additional properties so searches are more comprehensive.

In Collection Settings, find the Search Properties option and select which properties should be searchable. For a book collection, you might include title, author, and tags. For a tool inventory, name, brand, and category.

The more properties you include, the more ways you can find an item. If you search “Makita” and brand is a searchable property, every Makita tool shows up — even if “Makita” isn’t in the item name.

Putting It All Together

The real power comes from combining these features. Here are a few examples of how different collections might be set up:

• Book collection — Thumbnail view showing cover art, stacked by genre, sorted alphabetically by title, searchable by title, author, and tags.
• Tool inventory — List view showing name, brand, and condition, stacked by room or storage location, sorted by name, searchable by name and brand.
• Wine collection — Thumbnail view showing bottle labels, stacked by region, sorted by vintage year, searchable by name, region, and varietal.
• Trading cards — Thumbnail view showing card fronts, stacked by set or rarity, sorted by card number, searchable by name and set.

Each collection can have completely different view settings. Experiment with different combinations until you find what works for how you browse and organize.

Tips

• Set up stacks early. Even with a small collection, grouping by a property helps you see how your data is organized. It also reveals missing or inconsistent property values — if an item shows up in “Uncategorized,” you know a field needs filling in.
• Use thumbnails intentionally. Pick the image that helps you identify items at a glance. For books, it’s the cover. For tools, it might be a photo of the item itself. For wine, the label.
• Combine sorting with stacks. Items within each stack group respect your sort settings. Stack by genre and sort by date to see the newest additions in each category.
• Keep search properties focused. Including every property in search can create noisy results. Stick to the fields you’d naturally use when looking for something.