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zParts - Electronic Parts Inventory System

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bacterozoid

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This will probably sound like an ad, but it's not, since this application is free and open source:

https://sourceforge.net/projects/zparts/

This is a project I've been working on for the past couple weeks and I finally sucked it up and got some hosting. It's in development and so it's certainly not bug free, but I would love to hear any suggestions you may have. Either post a note here or go to the Tracker on the sourceforge page to add a bug or feature request.

Maybe this will turn out to be neat, or maybe it'll flop and be useless, I don't know. Thanks and enjoy!

Edit: You will need to have Java installed to run the .jar file at this point in development.

Readme:
Code:
zParts version 0.9

Contents:
- Known Issues
- Usage

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Known Issues
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- Often the program will fail to load the parts list panel properly. This is characterized by a lack of buttons on the right side of the window as well as no column headers. If this happens, restart the program.

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Usage
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1.	Creating part categories
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Part categories are used to organize your parts. When you first run the program, you will see the "All Parts" category and nothing else. To add subcategories, click on the "All Parts" category, then click the "Add Category" button on the bottom left, or go to "Edit > Add Category", or press "Insert" on your keyboard.

In the window that appears, you can name your category. For example, you may want a category called "Resistors". On the right side of this panel, you can add columns. By default, all columns of the parent category are inherited and cannot be removed. You can add new columns. You may want one called "Color Code" for this category. Optionally, you can rearrange column names. To do this, click and drag an item in the list to it's new position. Note that you cannot rearrange columns once you have created the category.

Once you are finished, click the "Save" button to create your new category. The main window will update with the new category. You can now add more categories if you wish. For example, you may want to add a subcategory of "Resistors" called "1/4 Watt". Follow the same procedure to do this.


2.	Deleting part categories
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To delete a part category, click on the category in the tree, then click the "Delete Category" button on the bottom left, or press "Delete" on your keyboard. Note that deleting a category will delete all parts in that category. You cannot delete a category if it has subcategories.


3.	Adding parts
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Once you have some categories, you can add new parts. To add a part, click on the category you wish to add the part for. Now, in the "Part Details" panel on the right, click the "Add Part" button or go to "Edit > Add Part". You will be prompted to name the part. For example, you may wish to add a new resistor. A good name might be 1k, for a 1 kili-ohm resistor. Type your name in, then press OK or hit ENTER. Notice that your new part appears inside the table with the name you entered listed under the Name column.


3.	Editing parts
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There are two edit parts, and they both edit different things. The first is directly editing them in the parts table. To edit a part here, simply click the cell you wish to edit, then type the value. Note that you cannot edit the "Name" or "Subcategory" columns.

For advanced part details, select a part in the parts table, then click the "Details" button. This will open up a window that allows you to add an image or datasheet to that part. To add an image, click the "Set Image" button and then browse to the image file of choice. Supported formats are .jpg, .jpeg, .gif, .png, .tif, .tiff. To clear the image, press the "X" button next to the "Set Image" button. The image will appear in the left side of the part details window when one is set.

To set a datasheet, use the same process. All file types are supported as datasheets. Click "View Datasheet" to view the datasheet for that part. It will open in the default editor of your operating system.


4.	Deleting parts
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To delete a part, select it in the part table, then press the "Delete Part" button. 


5. Viewing an image or datasheet quickly
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To avoid entering the details window to view the image or datasheet, two icons have been placed in the main window. They are located just to the right of the "Delete Part" button. When an image or datasheet is set, the icons will light up and become active. Simply click on one of them to view the image or datasheet.


6.	Sorting parts
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To sort a column of parts, click on the column header. zParts supports specialized sorting by using common suffixes. You can enter values like 10k, 20m, 10M, 15u, etc and they will sort correctly by value. Supported suffixes are p, n, u, m, k, M, G.
 
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