Calculation Engine (Define Fields)

Greetings, I've been using Filemaker for the past month or so and have had success in accomplishing most of the tasks that are necessary for the analysis of a recent survey project. However, I have come across a problem whose only answer is quite cumbersome to implement. Perhaps somebody has a better way... In my survey, we asked respondents to give us their top three service providers from a list of 41 companies. The companies were entered in as text in three fields (Company1, Company2, Company3) each with value corresponding to the amount spent with that company (Company1Spend, Company2Spend, Company3Spend). The problem comes in with calculating who the top 3…

Is it possible to limit the number of new records that can be created in a table? Thank you again! Moosh

Hi there, Is there a way that FM tracks the current date always, without having to paste it into a field? I am building a real estate database and want to specify the end date of a lease, and then do this end date (in future) - current date = remaining days left on the lease Thank you! Moosh

This one shouldn't be as complicated as it's becoming... If you want to import a GIF or JPEG into a container from the web, Troi's URL Plug-in takes care of that nicely. But what if you want to import a TIFF or a PDF file? I've also tried using 8.5's web viewer ability, and I don't seem to be able to directly copy from it into a container field. It'll give me either the URL of the image I want or the raw data of the image, but no image. Help!

Is it possible to make the equivalent of a pop-up menu field within a custom dialog? I have to get a value that is valid only if member of a value list through a custom dialog... any clue?

I need some help with subtotaling information in portals – let me explain specifically: I have a file called “Players” and another called “Games.” There also another file called “Sessions” – there are join files for PlayerSessionJoin and GameSessionJoin. Essentially, on portals in sessions, there can be multiple players and multiple games. For example, let’s assume there are three dates in sessions – Jan 1, Feb 1, Mar 1 Let’s assume there were the following games at each session: Jan 1 – Monopoly, Risk, Chess; Feb 1 – Risk, Sorry; Mar 1 – Monopoly, Sorry, Chess. Let’s also assume the following people attended each session: Jan 1 – Al, Bob, Carl, D…

I have two tables. Table A and Table B. Table B shows through a portal in table A. The condition is: Link: Number to Number. In table B i wish to view all records greater than that shown in table A . NO problem... I can do this Is it possible to make a calculation field to show Values ony within say 50 of the number in table A from table B? If so does anyone know the calculation?

Heads up from another list. On an Intel Mac, 8.5 Advanced: Get (SystemPlatform) returns 1 8 (and all previous) Get (SystemPlatform) returns -1 We will need to use Abs(), like we do with Windows.

Is there a way to lock down a field after, say, 24 hours, and can this be applied to an entire layout? Thank you

Maybe I haven't had enough coffee yet, but I don't seem to be able to figure this out today. It's probably the most basic calculation possible. I have a field where I need 'yes' or 'no' answers and the totals. Since FM7 doesn't recognize 'yes' or 'no' and I don't want my users to have to deal with 1 and 0, I've been creating a calculation "if (field) = "yes", 1,0)" then totalling that field (summary, total of (field)). How do I do this without the middle calculation field? Just total the yes and no responses directly? TIA

Hi, I am just today starting out with Filemaker. I have a couple of questions that may help me on my way. I wish to create a 'Category' table, containing 'ID', 'Name' and 'Parent' field. I would like to be able to do the following. Validate that the 'Parent' field is not the same as the 'ID' field and limit a drop down list to only show records that have a 'Parent' field of zero/null. If anyone has any pointers, I will be glad to hear them.

I want to have specific field do one of 2 things... If the value is greater than 0 I want the text to be green or have a green image behind the text. If the value is less than 0 I want the text to be red or have red image behind the text. Personally I would prefer the text to change color but I am at a complete loss of where to start.

Hi to everyone: I have the following problem: I have FileMaker Pro 4.0 in German as well as in English. Now, I created a new database with the German product and created a calculation field, which uses the "DayName" function (in German the function is called "TagName"). This returns e. g. a German weekday name. So far, so good. Now, to transfer the database to English, I bought an English Filemaker Pro version (4.0) and ran the database on an US-computer (US version of Win XP). However, the calculation field still returns the GERMAN name of the day (e. g. "Sonntag" instead of "Sunday"). If I create an entirely new database, everything works fine and I get Englis…

Hi, Just simple question. How can I achieve a primary key compose of many fields? My goal is to avoid doubled record in the table. The user should not be able to enter twice or more, the same record but the data in one field can be reused in another record. The table is composed of 5 or more fields: Tab1 Id_tab Year StartSession Duration Description … The primary key is supposed to be composed of Year + StartSession+Duration – it’s unique but separately the data of one field can be reused in another record: 2006 01/01/2006 10 Regular 2006 05/01/2006 15 Summer …… I did unique all of the fields which composed the pk but whe…

Please help: i have thousands of records with a formatted date field. I need to duplicate this field and its content for all records and then change the date format of the new fields, so i have two date fields with the same date values, but in different formats. After that, all entered date in the first fields should automatically appear in the new date field with the new format. Is this possible? Thanks.

Hi Everyone I am pretty new to FMP so please keep that in mind, if you try to offer me any help or suggestions. I am a genealogist and would like to create a database that will help me keep track of documents I possess on each ancestor. Further, I would like to click a button for a particular record that would take me to a table or layout where the actual document is scanned into. To explain a little better, I hope ....... Each record of the database will be for one ancestor and will contain such fields as Name, ID#, birth date, death date, relationship, etc. I can figure out all of that. What I need to know is how to create a large field that will contain…

Using FM Pro 8... I'm trying store about 1000 precinct maps of our county in a DB. I want to query the DB so that I only export a limited number of maps at a time. For example, export all maps in House District 35. So I've create some text fields that categorize each map by House District, Senate District, Cong. District, and finally Precinct. However, there are actually two types of maps per precinct (TypeA and TypeB)...and possibly 5 maps that cover one precinct. Any way to ease up the import process? But more importantly, how would export a group of these? Thanks....

Hi there everyone. I'm not too sure if FileMaker can do this but why not ask. I have a variety of 6-digit course codes (ex. SNC3U8). I would love to have a field that looks at characters 4 and 5 and just shows those results. These characters will always be 5 and 6 and show a level to identify the course with. Ex. Course Code: SNC3U8 Course level: 3U Thanks for your help everyone!

I have a runtime (Dev 6) which requires lots of user input. I'm trying to find an easy way to validate each field for proper text useage (not all UPPER or lower). The following works but it's going to take forever to do for each field. Is there a better way? If(first_name = "", "", not Exact(first_name, Upper(first_name)) and not Exact(first_name, Lower(first_name))) Thanks for any thoughts!

Can someone please take a look at my file and tell why my validation by calc is not working. Thanks Validation99.ZIP

Anyone know of a plugin that will let me extract quicktime metadata like FPS, duration, data rate, etc? Thanks!

Hi, I starting using FM about 3 hours ago and as such am a numnut beginner and getting very lost. I have created a database for customer registration for internet access. I would like by way of a submit button like to at the end of the data capture be able to press a submit button and have the contents of that record e-mailed, printed, saved as a PDF and have the next record come up. I have managed all except that when the e-mail dialogue box comes up, there is no data from the record?, also can I automate the saving of the PDF file name to a specific directory with a filename taken from an automatically generated field in my data?? Secondly, Can I randomly generate …

Linked to all my orders I have necessary artwork that I have supplied to me by means of a pdf file. Why can I not view a pdf as I can a .jpeg file? Otherwise, how can I link to the pdf documents so I can view the related documents. Is it possible to ensure that only the related pdf document has a link to a unique ID field within filemaker??

I'm using a calculation to format phone numbers. Unfortunately, it seems that if I make a field a calculation field, when a user enters data into this field from the web, the field always comes up empty. Ok, that makes sense. So I've changed it to a text field. Let's call it PhoneNumber. Now, when the user types in her phone number, it accepts the text, regardless of the format. Then, I've created a new field called PhoneNumberFormatted. I've made it a calculation field that bases its result on the data in PhoneNumber field. However, the field does not automatically calculate this data for me. I have to go back into the record, change the text in PhoneNumber, and onl…

I've searched the forums for information about using a mask to hide user input to password type fields, but not found anything. I'm in the process of setting up a Separation Model system to have a secured back end. Because it's a SM app, the Accounts and privileges can't be globally set, since the clients will be adding their user information to the back end only. Therefore, I was planning on having the UI file open and then prompt the user (on a normal layout) for a user name and password, which will then be used to log in to the back end. But I don't see any way of masking the user input on the password field. I have tried setting the field's foreground to the back…

Let's say you have 100 records and a field that stores a city name. I want to be able to take all the different names and sum them in one field so that they are seperated by a comma, basically creating a string. i.e Boston, Los Angeles, Phoenix Is that possible? Any help would be appreciated. Thx

This must be simple... I am doing a very basic calculation within an invoice table. The figures Net Total: Calculates all the total prices. I show this as 2 decimal places. The tax is calclated.... also shown as 2 decimal places... but when I add The net total + tax .... the sum is rounded up from the actual figures up to 4 decimal places which results in what looks like an incorrect calculation.... in terms of 2 decimal places. for example: I want to show: 255.22 + 44.66 = 299.88 instead I am getting 255.22 + 44.66 = [color:red]299.89 obviously because the calculation is adding three or four decimals and rounding the fi…

Hi I am abit of newbie when come to database design. What I am trying to do I think should be quite simple. Here it goes. I have two diffrent tables one called computer details which has few fields below. ComID Unquie ID ComName Model Network No Serial No Subnet IPAddress The other table is IPaddress which hs the following fields. ID_IP Unquie ID IPAddress Subnet The relationship between the two tables is IPAddress. So far stright forward. Now we have over 750 IPAddress spread over serval subnets. The IPAddress table will never be modified once its populated. On the layout we have the Computer details and the IPAddres…

I have 3 fields that I would like to pull information from that result in information populating a 4th field. I was wondering if someone could help me make this happen. 3 current fields: Degin_Number: Serial number, unique, auto-created on new record generation. Design Name: User Generated Text. File type: Drop Down List. I would like to combine the 3 fields into 1 field called "Full_design_Number" that takes the design number and combines it with the first 3 letters of the design name and the entry from the file type list. Example: Design Number = 123456 Design Name = Mission Beach File type = emb Full_Design_Number = 123456mis…

I have a calculation field that subtracts one timestamp from another to capture elapsed time. The formula for this field is: (STOP TIME - START TIME)/60. The result shows how many minutes have elapsed from start to stop. I would like this field to display as minutes if the result is less than 60 minutes and hours & minutes if the result is more than 6o minutes. For example: 45 minutes = 45 minutes 90 minutes = 1hr-30 minutes Any ideas how to accomplish this? Thanks, Jarvis

Hi, Just getting into FM 8. Some really nice changes. I love variables, but I'm confused on one point and the documentation is of no help. In the SetVariable dialog box there is a field for repetition. Does this mean the variable can be repeating? If so, this really makes it a very useful thing in that you can create arrays. But I can't seem to make it work this way... Or does this refer to the repetion number of a field that you are using to set the value of the variable? If this is the case it seems like this could be accomplished with the getRepetition() function, and is a lot less useful. Any clarity anyone can provide will be most appricia…

Hello I have a file that has addresses in it like the one below Glenwood Cemetery Address: Glenwood Ave, Oneida, NY 13421 Phone: (315) 363-1420 I would like to automate putting the first line into a field called business I would like to break up the second line to the fields "address" and " city" and "state" and "zip" fields accordingly and I would like to remove the word phone and put the third line into the field ' phone" Thanks very much for your help The word address, is always there as well Thanks

I have a database that records donations. I need to show the calendar to date amount given by each person and the fiscal year to date amount given. These are two separate fields. The fiscal year runs from 4/1 to 3/31. How do I do a calculation to get these 2 amounts?

I have a nested case set in my address book that returns one of three counties if the zip code falls in certain ranges. If the zip code does not match any of the ranges I set up in my calculation, is there a way to let the user input the county himself? I guess I'm asking how one could enter text into a calculation field, or if that's possible. Here's my calculation, FWIW: Case (Student Zip ≥ 98130 and Student Zip ≤ 98288; "King"; Student Zip ≥ 95602 and Student Zip ≤ 98293;"Snohomish"; Student Zip ≥ 98329 and Student Zip ≤ 98499; "Pierce") The problem with this method is that zip codes don't exactly line up with counties, and we may have a s…

I’m a newbie with very limited experience and am working on FM6. I am a photographer and desire to create an a automatic licensing form for my images. I have created an input area with 13 fields of the variable data I will need to enter. I then created a text box and used the fields as merge data with text to link it so it looks like a correct sentence. That is my "merge document". Works great. But now I want this "license" to be able to be used in another database and have absolutely no clue how to get the merged text into another DB. So I am obviously not doing it right Any help would be greatly appreciated.