wrolpi-help/docs/modules/inventory/index.md

Inventory

Overview

The Inventory module helps you track physical supplies — food storage, fuel, tools, or anything else you want to count and organize. The main page (/inventory) is a spreadsheet-style table where each row is an item and each column is a field you control.

You can keep as many separate inventories as you like (for example, a "Food Storage" inventory and a "Fasteners" inventory), each with its own set of fields. Inventories are stored as plain configuration files, so they survive reboots and can be backed up, edited, or restored like any other WROLPi config (see Where Data Is Stored).

A new WROLPi comes with a starter Food Storage inventory pre-filled with a recommended one-adult, one-year supply, so you have an example to explore right away.

Each inventory has four tabs: Items (covered on this page), Summary, Ration, and Export.

Inventory Types

When you create an inventory you pick a type. The type seeds a starting set of fields — you can add, remove, rename, reorder, or retype them afterward, so the type is only a convenient starting point.

• Food Storage — Brand, Name, Category, Subcategory, Size, Count, kcal per unit, and Expires.
• Fuel — Name, Fuel Type, Container, Size, Count, Purchased, and Location.
• Tools — Name, Brand, Category, Count, Condition, Location, and Notes.

To create an inventory, click the + button, enter a name, choose a type, and click Create.

Use the dropdown at the top of the page to switch between inventories. The buttons beside it let you rename the current inventory (the pencil), customize its Fields, open the Food Catalog, import or restore the inventory (the Restore button), or delete the inventory (the red trash button).

Adding Items

The Items tab holds a persistent empty row at the bottom of the table for entering new items. Entry is keyboard-first:

• Tab moves between the fields of the new row.
• Enter saves the item, clears the row, and returns focus to the first field — ready for the next item.

This lets you add many items in a row without reaching for the mouse.

Editing and Deleting Items

• Click any cell in an existing row to edit it. The cell's current contents are selected so you can type over them immediately.
• Bulk delete — select the checkboxes on the rows you want to remove, then click the delete button.

Searching

A search box at the top of the Items tab filters the rows by any field. The filter only applies to the Items tab — the Summary, Ration, and Export tabs always use the whole inventory, so the filter never silently hides data from your totals.

Arithmetic in Number Fields

Any numeric field (a number, a quantity's magnitude, or calories) accepts a calculation. For example, to record a box of nails that weighs 400 g including a 20 g box, type 400 - 20 and press Tab or Enter — WROLPi evaluates it and stores 380. Only basic arithmetic (+ - * / ( )) is supported; a plain number is left untouched.

Customizing Fields

Click the Fields button to open the field editor, where you control the columns of the current inventory.

For each field you can set its Label, Type, reorder it with the up/down arrows, toggle whether it appears in the mobile view, or remove it. Use Add Field for a blank field.

Field Types

• Text — free-form text.
• Number — a number (accepts arithmetic).
• Quantity — a number plus a unit chosen from a dropdown (mass, volume, or length). The Summary can sum and convert compatible quantities (for example, ounces and pounds together).
• Date — a calendar date. Items with a date in the past are flagged as expired.
• Select — a dropdown of options you define (enter them comma-separated, e.g. screws,nails,bolts).
• Location — a text field with autocomplete suggestions pooled from every inventory (basement, attic, …).
• Calories — calories per unit; detected by the Ration estimate and the Summary.

Count by Weight

Counting many small, identical items (screws, nails, rounds of ammunition) one by one is tedious. The Count by Weight button adds three linked fields:

• Unit Weight — the weight of a single item (weigh one, or weigh four and enter ÷ 4 as arithmetic).
• Total Weight — the weight of the whole lot.
• Count — automatically calculated as Total Weight ÷ Unit Weight, rounded to a whole number.

Enter the two weights and the Count fills in for you. If the weights use different units (e.g. a total in kilograms and a unit weight in grams), WROLPi converts before dividing.

Food Catalog

The Catalog button opens a shared list of known food items used to speed up data entry. Each catalog entry records a name, category, subcategory, package size, and the total calories for one package of that size.

When you type a Name in a food inventory that matches a catalog entry, WROLPi pre-fills the matching fields (category, size, calories, …) for you. The catalog is shared across all of your inventories.

Mobile View

On a phone held in portrait orientation, the Items tab shows a condensed, read-only list of your items. Rotate to landscape (or use a tablet or desktop) for the full spreadsheet editor. You choose which fields appear in the mobile view with the Mobile toggle in the Fields editor.

Importing and Restoring

The Restore button opens a dialog with two ways to recover or refresh an inventory.

Re-import from disk reloads every inventory from its config file. Use this after you edit a file by hand, or after copying an inventory file in from another WROLPi — your changes are picked up without a restart.

Restore from a backup uses the dated backups WROLPi saves automatically whenever an inventory changes. Pick a date, then choose:

• Merge — add items from the backup that aren't already present, keeping your current items and fields.
• Overwrite — replace the inventory entirely with the backup.

A preview shows exactly what will change before you apply it. The restore is itself backed up first, so it can be undone by restoring the most recent backup.

Where Data Is Stored

Each inventory is stored as its own configuration file at config/inventory/<name>.yaml in your media directory. These configs are the source of truth: WROLPi loads them on startup and keeps them up to date as you make changes. You can back them up, copy them between WROLPi systems, or edit them by hand — your changes are applied the next time WROLPi reads the file.