Personally, I've always been dismayed by how portals are positioned within the world of FileMaker instruction. When I see other developers teach about portals, they start with the primary use of portals and then stop. They talk about how portals are there to show related data and that's about it. No way! That's certainly not the end of things. Portals are one of the primary ways to present data however you wish.

If portals were limited to simply showing related data based on a normalized schema structure, then we'd never have the flexibility we have within FileMaker. If you approach portals from the mindset of using them as a display tool, then you come up with all kinds of things you can do. There are three primary uses for portals - at least, this is how I personally think about them.

In this video, I show you what those three key uses are and how to actually implement them. If you're a beginner, then understanding the native portal is certainly the starting point. From there, you progress to the power-developer who uses the Multi-Key global and VirtualList approaches to using portals. This video covers all the core uses and gives you the foundation you need for using portals within FileMaker.

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