Collections are a way to organize your work in PERRLA Online. A collection is like a folder you create yourself: you can put papers, references, and files into it, group related collections inside each other, and see everything for a project in one place.
What Is a Collection?
Until now, your work in PERRLA has lived in separate lists: papers on the Papers page, references in your Reference Library, files attached to individual references. Collections lets you pull those together around whatever makes sense for you – a class, a semester, a thesis chapter, a research topic.
A few things that make collections flexible:
- An item can live in more than one collection. Adding a reference to your "NUR 502" collection doesn't remove it from anywhere else. The same reference can also sit in your "Thesis" collection at the same time.
- Collections don't move or copy your work. Your papers and references stay right where they've always been. A collection is just another way to view them. Removing something from a collection never deletes it – it just takes it out of that grouping.
- Collections can contain other collections. You might have a "Fall Semester" collection with a collection inside it for each class.
Getting Started
Open Collections from the sidebar in PERRLA Online. You'll see two panels: your collections on the left, and the contents of the selected collection on the right.
To create your first collection, click New Collection, give it a name, and press Enter. To create a collection inside another one, right-click the parent collection and choose New Sub-Collection.
Adding Papers, References, and Files
There are a few ways to add items to a collection:
From the Collections page. Select a collection and click Add items. A panel opens listing your papers and references. Search or filter to find what you want, check the items, and click the Add button at the bottom. You can also drag items from this panel straight into the collection list or onto any collection on the left.
From your Papers or References list. Select one or more items using the checkboxes, then click Add to Collection in the toolbar. Pick the collection you want, or type a new name to create one on the spot.
From a reference's details panel. When you're viewing a reference, you'll see a Collections section showing every collection it belongs to. You can add it to another collection right from there.
Uploading files. You can add files directly to a collection – class handouts, assignment instructions, PDFs you're reading. Drag a file from your computer anywhere onto the Collections page, or use the Drop files here or browse button in the Add items panel. If you upload a PDF, you can later use its row menu to create a reference from it, and PERRLA will attach the PDF to the new reference automatically. Files you upload count toward your plan's storage.
Organizing Your Collections
- Rearrange by dragging. Drag a collection onto another one to nest it inside, or drag it above or below a neighbor to reorder. You can also right-click a collection and use the Move options if you prefer not to drag.
- Color-code. Right-click a collection and choose Change Color to pick a color. The collection's folder icon and its labels throughout the page take on that color, which makes it easy to tell your projects apart at a glance.
- Rename anytime. Right-click and choose Rename.
- Archive what you're done with. When a semester ends, right-click a collection and choose Archive. It moves out of your list but isn't gone – you'll find it under Archived below your collections, where you can restore it anytime. Archiving a collection never touches the papers and references inside it.
Finding Things Inside a Collection
When you select a collection, the right side shows everything in it:
- Include subcollections is on by default, so a parent collection shows everything inside its sub-collections too. Each item shows a label telling you which collection it actually lives in. Turn the toggle off to see only the items added directly to the selected collection.
- Filter by type with the All / Papers / References / Files chips.
- Search by title, or type # to filter references by tag.
- Sort by clicking the Item, Collection, or Updated column headers.
Clicking any row opens the item: papers open in the editor, references open their details panel, and PDFs open in PERRLA's PDF viewer.
Removing vs. Deleting
Remove from Collection takes an item out of that collection and nothing more. The paper or reference is untouched and still available everywhere else in PERRLA.
The one exception is files you uploaded directly to a collection. Those files live only in that collection, so removing one deletes it permanently – PERRLA will always ask you to confirm first, and the menu says Delete File so there's no surprise.