Should Anytype allow Objects without a Name relation?

General Discussion
1

This might be just me not understanding how AT works, so I’ll post it as a discussion before considering posting it as a feature request.

Here’s an example of what I mean:

Let’s say I want to track my runs using AT. So I create an object type “Run” with date, time, distance, pace and mood. I then create a set for those called “My runs”. From then on I can just add my runs directly in set view.

In this situation, it doesn’t make sense to me to “Name” each individual run… I just want the Set to show date, time, distance, pace and mood. However I can’t even hide the Name relation in the Set.

How would you implement what I described above without having this empty useless Name relation?

From what I understand, Anytype should allow users to create Objects with no Name, since not all object needs one. I assume each object has a unique identifier anyway (?). Again, I feel I might be missing something here, so please educate me!

2

Maybe it could be left as it is: if we don’t type a name, the object is named ‘Untitled’ by default. Additionally we could have an option to hide the name column in the sets.

2 Likes
3

@qualquertipo Since the name is kinda a mandatory relation shown in Sets, I’d go with adding the date manually as the name instead of a date relation. But the best way to go about this is to have an option to hide the name relation from sets. Or the team could provide us with an option of selecting a different relation as the primary relation?

4

@thiago_nascimentodf Opa! Yeah, I’d be happy to have them be named “Untitled” (as long as I eventually can pick a different Relation to be shown on top as the title when opening the object - in my run example, I’d prefer the title to be the date; or even better, something like “Run for 2021/03/12”, where the date Relation is inline in the title).

@lynxlove Does every Set need to have a primary Relation? In that case, either solution you mentioned is good. Allowing to pick a different Relation to be primary, or just allow hiding Name (even though its primary).

In any case, yes just being able to hide that column would be great!

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5

I’m not sure about the working but I probably guess it’s not required. Either way it would be great to have the ability to hide name in sets, Kindly raise a Feature request and i’d be happy to upvote it :grinning:

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6

@lynxlove, the Name relation seems to be required at the page design, because it is used as a navigation anchor to the object.

If we are going to be able to hide the name column we would have to provide another way to navigate to the object. I see some options to solve it:

  • have an extra column on the far left with a navigation icon;
  • being able to specify any column to be used as the ‘primary relation’;
  • being able to customize the Name relation (and any relation as well) with a calculation.
1 Like
7

True. All solutions you suggested seem good.

Better than having the Name relation be mandatory (and/or always visible).

8

Will do!

9

I don’t know if this helps you, but now that we have the Note Layout, you can have a Type with no Name field. You cannot disable Name field in Sets, I would consider this a Bug since there is no Name field in the Type. But the Name column a Set for a Nameless Type does at least just show the contents of the page/object, rather than nothing.

Also @qualquertipo if you made that other feature request, might be good just to link it here for others to find easier and upvote.

1 Like
10

Thanks for reminding me! It seems I never created the request. Sorry for that

Here it is: