Customization Keys & Tables

Almost everything you can tune about how Aeon behaves lives in two kinds of settings: keys and tables.

• A key is a single named setting with one value — for example, RequestLimit holds the number of active requests a user may have, and PhotoduplicationEnabled is simply Yes or No. You change a key by editing that one value.
• A table is a list of related rows you build up — for example, the Custom Dropdowns table holds every dropdown choice (states, departments, ID types) your patrons and staff pick from, and Local Info holds your contact details per site. You change a table by adding, editing, or deleting rows in it.

Most of the time you don't go looking for "keys" or "tables" by name — you go to the Customization Manager to accomplish something ("raise the request limit," "add a new department to the dropdown") and Aeon puts you in front of the right editor. This page explains how those two editors work so you recognize what you're looking at and know how to save, undo, and add to each.

When you'll use this

• Someone asks you to change a system-wide setting (a request limit, a default address, an SMTP server) — that's almost always a key.
• You need to add or remove a choice from a list staff or patrons see (a department, a country, a cancellation reason) — that's almost always a table.
• You changed a key and need to put it back the way it was — keys keep a change history you can revert from.

Where this lives in Aeon 7

In the legacy desktop Customization Manager, keys and tables sat together in one explorer tree, and a small icon next to each item told you whether it was a key or a table. The Aeon 7 web client keeps the same two concepts but organizes them differently: Keys is a single section (under Data & Fields), and each table has become its own purpose-built editor elsewhere in the Customization Manager — Custom Dropdowns, Custom Flags, Local Info, EAD Mapping, OpenURL Mapping, Web Form Values, and so on, each grouped under the category it belongs to. You won't see a generic "tables" list; you'll see a named editor for each one. See Customization Manager Overview for the full map of sections.

Editing a customization key

Open the Customization Manager and choose Keys (in the left navigation, under Data & Fields). The Keys section is a two-pane view: a browsable, searchable list of every key on the left, and the editor for the selected key on the right.

Find a key

You have two ways to locate a key:

1. Browse — the list is grouped into categories and subcategories (for example, System → Email, Web Interface → Limits). Expand a group and click a key to open it.
2. Search — type into the search box at the top of the list. Type at least two characters; Aeon matches against the key name, its description, its category and subcategory, and its current value, and shows the matches as you type. Use the up/down arrow keys to move through results and Enter to open the highlighted one.

For example, to change how many active requests a patron may have, search for RequestLimit and click it.

Change the value and save

Once a key is selected, the right pane shows its name, the category it belongs to, a description of what it controls, and its value:

• Most keys show a Value text box. Edit the text directly. The value is required and can't be left empty, and it can hold up to 2,000 characters — a counter appears under the box so you can see where you are against that limit.
• Yes/No keys (Aeon labels these Boolean with a small badge) show a toggle switch instead of a text box — flip it on for Yes, off for No.
• A few keys offer a fixed set of choices and show a dropdown rather than a free-text box, so you pick a value instead of typing one.
• Keys that hold a credential behave differently enough to be worth their own section — see Keys that hold passwords and tokens below.

As soon as your edit differs from what's stored, an Unsaved changes badge appears.

1. Open the key — for example, RequestLimit.
2. Change the value (type a new number, or flip the toggle for a Yes/No key).
3. Click Save changes. A confirmation appears and the badge changes to show when it was saved.
4. To abandon an edit before saving, click Reset to snap the value back to what's in the database.

Unsaved changes are guarded

If you edit a key and then try to switch to a different key, navigate away, or sign out without saving, Aeon stops you with a Discard unsaved changes? prompt. Choose Stay here to go back and save, or Discard & continue to throw the edit away. Closing or reloading the browser tab triggers the same warning. Nothing is saved until you click Save changes.

Undo a change with the change history

Aeon records every change made to a key. Each key's editor has a Change history section at the bottom listing who changed it, when, the previous value, and the new value.

To roll a key back to an earlier value:

1. Open the key you want to revert.
2. Find the entry in Change history whose Prev (previous) value is the one you want to restore.
3. Click Revert on that entry.

The revert is applied and saved immediately, and it's recorded as a new history entry of its own, so you can always step forward again.

Revert is unavailable in two situations: on an entry that would set the key to the value it already holds, and on any entry for a key that holds a credential — see below for why.

Create a new key

Most installations never need to add a key — the full set comes with Aeon. Occasionally a feature or an add-on calls for one. To add a key, click the + button next to the search box. In the Create customization key dialog, provide:

• Key name (required, must be unique)
• Type — String Value for free text, or Yes / No for a toggle
• Value — the starting value
• Description — what the key controls (recommended, so the next person understands it)
• Category and Subcategory — where it should appear in the browse tree

Click Create key to add it.

Keys that hold passwords and tokens

A handful of keys store credentials rather than settings — your SMTP password, the LDAP bind password, the reference-request import password, and the payment-provider token, merchant ID and response token. Aeon treats these as secrets, and three things work differently as a result.

You can't see the current value. The box masks what you type, and the key's details show its current value as Hidden rather than the value itself. Aeon never sends a stored secret back to your browser, so there's nothing to read even if you look.

Leaving the box alone keeps the existing secret. Because the value you're shown is a placeholder rather than the real thing, saving the key without touching that field leaves the stored credential as it was. So you can safely change a different aspect of the key, or re-save after an unrelated edit, without wiping the password.

Revert is never offered on these keys. The change history records that the value changed and who changed it, but shows the values themselves as redacted — so a revert would write the redaction placeholder in place of the real credential. Aeon disables Revert on every history entry for a secret key rather than let that happen. To put an old password back, type it in again.

Getting a credential wrong is quiet

Because you can't read the stored value back, a mistyped password isn't visible on this page — it shows up later as mail that won't send or a directory lookup that fails. If you're changing one of these, it's worth exercising whatever depends on it straight afterwards.

Editing a customization table

Each table has its own editor, reached from its own entry in the Customization Manager navigation — for example Custom Dropdowns under Data & Fields, or Local Info under Operations. The editors differ in their columns (because every table holds different fields), but they all work the same way: a list on one side, and Add, Edit, and Delete controls for its rows.

Using Custom Dropdowns as a representative example — it organizes its rows into named groups (one group per dropdown, such as Department or State):

Add a row

1. Open the table's editor (for example, Custom Dropdowns).
2. Select the group or list the new row belongs to (for Custom Dropdowns, pick the dropdown group on the left — for instance, Department).
3. Click Add Entry.
4. Fill in the fields in the dialog (for a dropdown entry that's a Label Name and an optional Label Value).
5. Click Add.

Custom Dropdowns also lets you start a brand-new group: click the folder-plus icon above the group list, name the group, and give it its first entry.

Edit a row

1. Find the row in the list.
2. Click the pencil (edit) icon on that row.
3. Change the values in the dialog.
4. Click Update.

Delete a row

1. Find the row in the list.
2. Click the trash (delete) icon on that row.
3. Confirm in the Delete Entry prompt — choose Delete to remove it permanently, or Cancel to keep it.

Table deletes are permanent

Deleting a table row removes it from the database immediately and can't be undone from the web client — there's no per-row history or revert for tables the way there is for keys. Double-check before confirming a delete, especially on rows other parts of Aeon depend on.

Each table has its own page

Because every table holds different columns, the dedicated guides cover the specifics — for example Custom Dropdowns, Custom Flags, The Local Info Table, The EAD Mapping Table, and The OpenURL Mapping Table. The add/edit/delete pattern above is the same across all of them.

Permissions

Editing keys and tables requires the matching configuration access for the section you're in. Keys and the core data tables (Custom Dropdowns, Custom Flags, and similar) require the Data & Fields configuration capability; tables that live under other categories (for example Local Info under Operations) require that category's configuration capability instead. If your role doesn't include the configuration capability for a section, it won't appear in the Customization Manager navigation, and a direct link to it shows a "You don't have permission to access this customization section" message. Configuration access is granted per role — see Editing a Role: Configuration Capabilities.