Initial setup

Once you have all of the dependencies (see Installation) up and running, you need to begin to design how you want your instance of ARK to work.

There are a number of things to think about before you begin editing the configuration files.

A Name

Every ark instance should have a name, typically this is something like 'Chersonesos ARK' or 'The LP Map Collection'.

What do you want to record?

ARK is designed to be a flexible system, therefore you can pretty much record/store any type of information. However, whilst not essential, it does help to have some idea at the start of the project as to what you want to record. Most archaeological projects will already have paper recording sheets and some idea of how they record in the field. It may be that you already have a computerised database structure that you want to recreate within an ARK instance.

The best way to begin designing your ARK instance is to think in terms of Modules and Fields