User guide¶

Sleeve & Shelf keeps track of where every record in your collection stands, and helps you decide where it should stand. This guide walks through the app the way you use it: from getting it running, to browsing your shelves, to letting it propose a new layout.

🗺️ The five sections¶

The menu has five sections. Each opens on its first screen; the other screens of a section are tabs at the top of the page.

Section	Screens	What you do there
Dashboard	Dashboard	See what is waiting for you, and the steps towards a new layout
Collection	Browse / Search · Unplaced · Discogs sync	Look up records, place the ones without a spot, bring the collection in from Discogs
Shelves	Layout · Proposal · Showcase · Versions · Cabinets	Rearrange the shelves, let the app propose a layout, manage top-loaders, go back to an earlier layout, describe your cabinets
Sorting	Artists · Families · Clusters · Rules	Decide what the sorting goes by: an artist's cluster and start year, which artists stand together, the order of the clusters, and fixed places
Settings	Settings	Width estimates, the Discogs token, light or dark

A number next to a section or tab tells you how many things wait there for a decision — matches to confirm, suggested families, albums without a place, shelves that are too full.

The ? beside the tabs opens the part of this guide about the screen you are on; Help at the end of the menu opens the guide itself.

🔁 A typical round¶

flowchart LR
    A[Buy a record] --> B[Sync with Discogs]
    B --> C[Fetch styles and years]
    C --> D{New artist?}
    D -- yes --> E[Check its cluster<br/>and start year]
    D -- no --> F[Put it at its<br/>suggested spot]
    E --> F
    F --> G[Browse your shelves]
    G -. now and then .-> H[Generate a proposal<br/>and accept it]

Most days you only browse. After buying records you sync, and each new album gets a suggested spot among the albums already on your shelves. Once in a while — after many purchases, or a new cabinet — you let the app propose a whole new layout and compare it with what you have.

💡 Words used in this guide¶

Cluster: A group of artists that belong together by sound, such as Jazz: Hard Bop or Slowcore / Lo-fi Indiefolk. You name them; Discogs styles only suggest which cluster a new artist belongs in.
Era band: The decade an artist started in: before 1960, 1960s, …, 2020s and later. Within a cluster, artists stand by era band.
Family: An artist's other names, bands and side projects that stand together as one: Chet Baker, Chet Baker Quartet and Chet Baker & Crew.
Location rule: A fixed place: a cluster, family, artist or album that always goes in a certain cabinet.
Showcase: A top-loader shelf that holds a sample of an artist's albums, facing front.
Proposal: A sorted layout the app worked out. It stands next to your real layout until you accept or discard it.