Documentation
Glossary¶
Terminology used across CatalogueCanvas and this documentation.
Admin¶
A privileged user, authenticated by password + session cookie, with full access: upload, edit, organise, configure, and publish.
Bulk actions¶
Operations applied to multiple selected items at once: add tags, clear notes, favourite/unfavourite, download as ZIP, add/remove collections.
Collection¶
A named grouping of items (e.g. "Sketches 2024"). An item can belong to many collections. A collection can have a cover item, a title, and a description.
Content hash¶
A SHA-256 hash of an uploaded ZIP used for deduplication — re-uploading identical content is skipped instead of duplicated.
Default library¶
The library that receives new uploads unless another is chosen. Can't be deleted while it's the default.
FAIR¶
Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, Reusable — principles for scientific data. CatalogueCanvas addresses the Findable principle through full-text search over all metadata and a JSON-LD metadata record per item.
Favourites¶
A built-in system collection, always present, toggled per item via the heart icon. Can be turned off in Settings. Unlike normal collections, it can't be edited or deleted.
Full backup¶
A downloadable ZIP containing the SQLite database plus all stored assets across every library.
Full-text search¶
The catalogue search, backed by a server-side index covering each item's title, description/note,
tags, and the full contents of its uploaded metadata.json / metadata.toml. Results are ranked
by relevance, with prefix matching.
Ingestion¶
The process of turning an uploaded ZIP into an item: dedup check, preview selection, WebP conversion, SVG compression, file storage, metadata read, and ID assignment.
Item¶
A single catalogued work, created from one uploaded ZIP. Has a WebP preview, supporting files, a title, tags, and Markdown notes.
Item ID¶
A unique, human-friendly identifier auto-assigned at ingestion, of the form word-NNN
(e.g. lantern-042). Checked against the database to avoid collisions.
Library¶
A storage location (a folder/path) where item assets are kept. Multiple libraries allow storing items across different discs or paths. One library is the default for new uploads.
LLM description¶
An AI-generated summary of an item's preview image, produced by an OpenAI-compatible vision LLM (local or hosted). API keys supplied per request are never stored.
LZ4¶
A fast compression format. SVG source files are stored LZ4-compressed on disc and transparently decompressed when viewed or downloaded.
Metadata (metadata.json / metadata.toml)¶
An optional file inside a ZIP. If present, its contents are read and stored with the item, and included in the full-text search index.
Metadata record (JSON-LD)¶
A machine-readable description of an item in JSON-LD (schema.org VisualArtwork / Dublin
Core), served at /api/items/{id}/metadata and linked from the item page. It embeds the item's
persistent ID as @id / identifier, standard terms for title/description/tags, and the
uploaded metadata — making items findable and harvestable by external tools.
Multi-user mode¶
An optional mode in which users sign in with a username and password and hold either the Admin or Reader role. Every user's password must be unique. With it off, the instance uses a single-password admin login.
Notes¶
Per-item free text written in Markdown, rendered as formatted text with a raw-edit mode.
Portfolio¶
A curated, ordered set of items published as a slide-deck. Has a title, description, a slug, and one of four presentation themes (Ledger, Kinetic, Brutalist, Riso). Can be marked Public to be viewable without logging in, or exported as a static site.
Static site export¶
A self-contained .zip of a public portfolio — a single index.html with the chosen theme
baked in, the WebP previews, and a README.txt. Uses only relative paths, so it can be hosted
on any static host with no server.
Preview¶
The WebP image generated from an item's main image. The source image is chosen by priority: PNG → JPEG → TIFF → SVG.
Public portfolio¶
A portfolio marked Public, reachable by anyone at /p/<slug> with no login. Private
portfolios return "not found" to non-admins.
Reader¶
A view-only role available in multi-user mode. Can view the whole catalogue and download files (individual files, item ZIPs, bulk ZIPs) but cannot modify anything; admin-only menus and controls are hidden.
Slug¶
The URL-friendly identifier of a portfolio, used in its public link /p/<slug>. Auto-generated
as three words (e.g. quiet-amber-loom) or set manually. Must be unique.
Tags¶
Free-form labels on items, addable individually or in bulk.
WebP¶
The image format CatalogueCanvas converts previews to — small and high quality.