Memory Blocks

When you click on a valid block other than a Trailer then following dialog will appear:

The Block Status is used to set whether or not this block is to be programmed.  When Unused is selected all other dialog fields are disabled.  The Block Label is a convenience field to identify the use of the block.  It is not sent to the Mifare^® card.

The Data Source area is where the information to be written to the block is defined.  The pull down menu allows you to select either fixed text (which can be a number) which is specified in the box below it, or a field from the database.  Field names between echelons are from the database and those between vertical bars come from the company information area.

The Data Type area defines whether information should be stored as text or numbers.  Anything can be stored as text, including numbers.  But if the final application for the Mifare^® smart card needs the ability to add and subtract from a number then it should be stored as a Number data type.

When the Text data type is selected the Text Layout box becomes available.  Here you can specify how many total blocks the text will use.  All blocks must be in the same sector.  Each block can hold 16 characters. 

When the Number data type is set, the Number box becomes available.  Here you can specify a multiplier, an arbitrary address for the value and if the number is unsigned.  

The Multiplier can be used to help store floating point numbers.  For example, if the number represents money, you might select a multiplier of 100 so that 213.42 would be stored as 21342.  Remember that the maximum range applies after the multiplication has been performed. 

The Address is a number between 0 and 255 which some applications use to identify the purpose of the stored value.  Consult the final Mifare^® application to determine what this address should be. 

The number stored is an integer with a maximum range of  -32768 to +32767 unless the Unsigned box is checked, when the range becomes 0 to 65535.

The dialog looks like this:

When the Data Type is set to Custom the Customize button will be available.  The dialog will look like this:

For more information on customizing the format of data, please see Customized Formats.

When the Access Control tab is clicked, the dialog changes to look like this:

Here you can specify the access rights required to manipulate the block.  Some settings apply only to number blocks and one prevents any access to the block.  These settings are actually stored in the Trailer block, so as long as you have set the Trailer block access conditions to allow access conditions to be written, you will be able to change the access conditions of the associated memory block.  For more information on Mifare^® access conditions please see the Mifare^® documentation at the web sites mentioned above.