The Left Brain

So I have this script........ Set Variable [ $filename; Value:GetValue ( Get ( ScriptParameter ); 1 ) ] Set Variable [ $filename; Value:Get ( ScriptParameter ) ] Set Variable [ $pcdesktop; Value:Case ( Left ( Get ( DesktopPath ) ; 2 ) = "/C" ; "filewin:" & Get ( DesktopPath ) & "Style PDFS/" & $filename & "¶" & "filewin:" & Get ( DesktopPath ) & $filename ; Left ( Get ( DesktopPath ) ; 2 ) = "/U" ; Get ( DesktopPath ) & "/" & "Style PDFS/" & $filename & "¶" & Get ( DesktopPath ) & "/" & $filename ; Left ( Get ( DesktopPath ) ; 2 ) = "/M" ; Get ( DesktopPath ) & "Style PDFS/" & $filena…

I am trying to figure out how to XOR two bytes together in FileMaker. Example: I start with the binary values 49 and 50 which would be represented in binary as 00110001 and 00110010. I want to XOR them together (matching bits become 0 and different ones become 1) so that I end up with 3 (binary representation 00000011). This is needed in order to calculate an LRC (Longitudinal Redundancy Check), which I need to append to my serial commands (using troi serial plugin) to a credit card terminal. Where do I start?

Hi guys! Hope this is the right forum. My table called CASES holds all the cases we've done for clients this month. Here are two of the fields it has: DATE_IN (date) UNITS (calculation, it counts how many units were in the case) Does anybody know a quick way for me to see how many units in total we received in April?

Is it possible to restrict the result of a standard (not auto-enter) calculation field to unique values only?

I've been trying to post this question for a while, but I can't figure out how to explain it...so I'll just give it a try...I hope it makes sense. I'm in advertising. I build pages for ads & catalogs. To do this I'm given a SKU list, which contains all the possible SKU's for the ad/book. Every SKU has category and brand managers assigned to them, which is also listed in the SKU list. Once a page is built by my team, I'm given a page report, which is a simple list of the SKU's used on that page. Here's where it gets complicated... I have to provide PDF proofs via email to those category and brand managers for pages on which they have SKU's. My client wan…

I have a large file (currently 90k records) the gets added to each week (~9k records ) On import I am checking to see if the email address is the first occurrence in the database. Currently this is calculated via a self relationship. email = email AND recordID > recordID This way if the relationship show any records with a low ID and the same email the uniqueness is false. The only problem is an import can take 3-5hours (run on the server) Can anyone suggest a faster method.

Hope this is the right forum... In FileMaker 6 through 9... if one has existing Sorts that are based on relationships, it makes the existing Sort names in the left side sort box too long to read what they are. Is there someway to see the existing Sort names, without having to redo the entire Sort order? The Sort display box is too short to display long names.. and there's no horizontal scroll bar. I hope this is just me missing something and not such an oversight in the program that's not been corrected. Thanks in advance!

This has to be easy. database is in list format. I have an auto enter field set up. I need it to auto enter the numerical position of a record based on sorting criteria. It would list numbers 1-however many records are entered. example....if i have 3 fields Name, Age, Number of Kids. George-34-2, Bill-29-0, Nancy-55-6 If I sorted by age, the field would show a "1" by Bill If I sorted by No of Kids, the field would show a "1" by George. since the sorted value would be first. Any help is appreciated.

I'm working on taking data from an external mySQL data source and formatting it into a format I can use and display in FileMaker. The main table has two fields "items" and "ref_number". The field "items" uses CSV to list the items with a format of item name, quantity, for example: item one, 1, item two, 1, item three, 5, item four, 2, I'm trying to come up with a way to calculate this data into a related table to display the items in a portal (traditional invoice style). It would need to create a record (related to the original based on "ref_number" for portal purposes) for each item and set the field "item_name" with the item name and the field "item_qty" with …

Im trying to create a single script that could send me a mail with a lot of info based on the layout the user is currently on. For the moment i have like 18 scripts and if i have to make a change i have to change them all! So now i decidet to create a single script that could handel all layouts. My idea is to copy from objects set on the layout and past that in globalfields in order to make a $variable. So far so good, it works like a charm and i get all the variables i need! Untill! a object is empty, then the previous copy will be past into the global and i get the wrong variable! Iam trying so hard to get a variable direct from a object but …

I recently looked at SeedCodes new calender and it got me to thinking. Variables can be powerful and it reminded me of a project I did written in Lua using lua tables. I guess my questions are, is there any good documentation on Filemaker's variables? Can you set a specific index for a variable ($var[1], $var[2], similar to a lua table)? Is there a limit to the length that a variable can be? This could be used to do some amazing things (SeedCodes Calender is pretty amazing but have not pulled apart the free copy yet) but do not yet have a full understanding of how variablies behave in this context. I hope at least part of this makes sense.

Hi, I use to go in "Button Setup" select the "Open URL" option, specify the URL using a calculation where I put a field name. In that field name there was a "file path" store. Something like this file:///Volumes/Blabla/blabla/blabla/mymovie.mov In OS X 10.4, I believe, it use to, I soon as I click on the "button" it would open the file in Quicktime right away. Wich was perfect for my needs. Now, in Snow Leopard, it doesn't do anything anymore. Unless I don't put the actual file name (mymovie.mov) in wich case it bring me right away to the right location, then I need to manually double-click on the file. If there multiple files in the folder, it's not reall…

I am very new to Filemaker and am attempting to create a lending library. I work for a small television production and am trying to manage the props that go out to the various set/bays. My problem is this: Some props have multiple numbers, and can therefore be divided and lent to more than one bay. THe main problem occurs when I check the prop back in. When I do this, it automatically selects the first prop checked out. This may not always be the first one back in. Is there a way to assign the history assets that are checked out a number, so that script can be written to coincide with that check out? I apologize if this has been covered before, but I couldn't …

Hi there! I have a filemaker solution where a Cases table is related to a Persons table through a portal, to generate a dynamic value list for persons of the same case. From the Cases table also, several tables of Characteristics can be accessed by selecting the corresponding person that applies from a field with the dynamic value list mentioned before. What I need is that the field with the selected person gets updated in such a way that if a person is deleted from the Persons portal the filtering field will be cleared so no characteristics are shown from related tables. I tried to do this by an Auto-enter calculation of the match field checking whether the val…

I would like a replace calculation to divide a found set of records into user determined batches. Here is my calc Int ( Get ( RecordNumber ) / $div ) +1 This works great except the first group is always 1 short.

I have this task, I need to be able to write records to a history file everytime a user clicks on a specific button. Basically these records are for verification/evidence incase one party comes back saying that they didn't get any info to go ahead processing. The info can be passed back a forth between company A and B multiple times, so I need to be able to record every transaction. Currently I have it working on new records but if I try to flip the record back to "A" it doesn't write a record. 01 General: 01-0610 > Set/ReSet Style Release Date and Status If [ Style_Main::Style_Status_Ownership = "Company A" ] Set Field [ Style_Main::Style_Status_Own…

Hi all, this might be a bit of a stretch but I'm looking for a way to access a filemaker database file and performs queries or even make modifications like perhaps changing a database reference file or even more important query/modify import/export order of import/export scripts. I know this is possible since a tool like FMDiff does exactly that. Question is where to get this sort of information? Of course, I'd be creating a separate application in .NET/Java to access FM files. Thanks, Dali

I am looking for a way to automate taking Chinese simplified text in one field, converting it to Chinese traditional text, and copying it into a new field. I have a rather large FMP 8 database that has image captions stored in Chinese simplified text. Now, all the captions need to be in traditional as well. We are currently doing this by hand - copying the text into MS Word or OS X Stickies and then using the ChineseTextConverter tool in the OSX Tiger services. Then we copy the new text back into FMP. I was hoping that this could be automated using FMP script or applescript, but I don't know where to start. It seems that the ChineseTextConverter tool does not work i…

Hi I am a relative newbie with file maker... We quite a few price lists here based on simple calculations .... Example... cost x markup .... I am trying to get a round function that looks at only the last digit of a number and either rounds up to 5 or rounds up to 9 .. example 532 I want to look only at the "2" and round it up to a 5 ..... Forgive me for my ignorance......... I have no idea how I would go about this as I said I am a newb and any help would be great...

Hi everybody I am tmaking af database solution for a Faroese customer. The faroese has special characters such as "á". I would like to make a simple calculation, which returns a number based on the first letter of a textfield. This is no problem and is working fine, exept with certain special characters such as the á. I have made a simple "case" calculation and included the "Char" command to specify the unicode number for the letters. It seems like there might be some kind of error in FileMaker, because the ä is working fine, but the á is not??? Any ideas? Heres my calculation: Case ( Left ( tekstfelt ; 1 )=Char(65) ; 1 ; Left ( tekstfelt ; 1 )=Char(19…

Hi all, can someone help towards the following: I have a simple table with a description field (text) relatively small in length, that I want to use in order to produce automatically a list of keywords for every record. This list will be used afterwards as a filtering multikey value through a portal to search for records that have the same word (or parts of a word). I suspect it should involve the use of a custom function (probably recursive) in order to separate each word inside the description field and enter it in another Calculation field (automatically updatable) word-after-word separated by carriage returns in order for the filtering relationship to work. …

I am trying to fill web form fields in my IE browser, using the fields from filemaker. Is there a way to populate this data into the ACTUAL fields IN the browser. Once I review them on the screen I will manually post each page and apply a script to populate the subsequent page accordingly. Any ideas....

I would like to write a script to copy data from one file into another. The manual explicitly states that Variables do not keep their values when you go into a new file, so I am using the clip board. I have a relation between the files, but the link isn't established yet, that is what I am trying to do. Generate the common index key, go to the other file, create a new record, populate the key, then come back and copy some data (a picture) The end goal is to remove the pictures from the main file and put them into an external file to cut down on size of the main file. Thanks for your help Keith [email protected]

Not sure how I would go about this. I am trying to come up with a total sum for records during a specific month and year to be used with one of the chart plugins. I guess there are several ways to do this but trying to figure out the most logical and fastest way to do this as a calc. Trying to sum (JobTotals)from all records with 01/xx/2009 to one specific field. However I am trying to get this data for each month then take this field and use in chart to show for each month. I will be using a year drop down to specify which year and month but have that part figured out.

I am using Filemaker 7. I need to create a script that adds a hyphen to a phone number when I enter the phone number into the database. I want to enter 6314760134 and I want the program to give me 631-476-0134

Hey guys. I need to lookup a value from a seperate table where product sizes are defined. If a products size is say 1800x1200 then i need to lookup its price in the table where sizes defined in rows and columns. In this example the price 18757. Apprecate any pointers and help Regards Ron

Hi there, I am interested in building a self-managing and web-compatible login/registration module for a database. My users are a mixed bunch of FileMaker clients 8.0v3 and higher. Basically, I'd like the system to: 1. auto-login as guest or some other safe privilege set capable of executing what is necessary to make the following functionality work (i am guessing that would be the first step) 2. present a custom welcome page with login/registration options (similar to most modern web sites) 3. provide "forgot your login and/or password" function, and send passwords and account info by e-mail (is there a way to reset the password to some randomized str…

Hi guys, I have FMS Advanced 10 running on a dedicated server (IIS) and FMP10 installed on various machines on the same network, some of which are Macs and some of which are PCs. In my database I have date fields, among other things. My problem is that when entering a date in a date field on a PC, filemaker requires that the date be input in the form of DD/MM/YYYY whereas on a Mac it requires the form YYYY/MM/DD. This is also how the date is displayed on the respective machines, regardless of how I have actually entered the data. I need consistency here as much of the data entry is done by importing excel tables, and there are some date calculations being perfo…

Hi All, Small Problem...Defined a field called "CurrentMonth" and a field called "Day" which is a repeating field of 31 days depending on the current month. If CurrentMonth = January 2010 then I want to have Filemaker auto-enter the numbers 1-2-3...31, etc. into the repeating field of "Day". Any ideas?

I created a simple database with related PRODUCT, ORDER and ORDER_LINEITEM tables for a nutritionist. Some of the PRODUCTS are the same but contain twice as many capsules. Is it possible for the ORDER_LINEITEM to change automatically from one PRODUCT to another PRODUCT if more or less capsules are required for that whole ORDER.

I can't seem to get this to work. I have a 'status board' layout in the database where employees will enter a date (such as 12/28/2009) to indicate they have ran a report (or whatever). These are supposed to be done by a particular date (such as 12/29/2009) every month (the 21st of every month is a good example). I'd like a calculation that will trigger when this date elapses (so they have a date of 11/28/2009 in December when 12/21/2009 rolls around indicating they haven't done this yet) so I can make this a trigger in conditional field formatting. Is there a way to do this that I'm missing? Thank you!!

Hi there! I am goign to experiment implementing an image management application in FilemakerPro 10 Advanced. What I need to do however is to embed some more "serious" characteristics apart from the ability to preview images, document their position e.t.c. What I REALLY NEED is the ability to edit metadata for the images. Is there a way to manipulate information stored INSIDE THE FILE itself? I am mainly talking about keywords that will be stored inside tiffs and jpegs, so that even if in the future I stop using it and switch to another appication I will bee able to restore such data rather than having to harvest it through tables... Can anyone help me to th…

How could I replace the first word in a string? Thanks.

I'm trying to make filemaker writing data onto table every morning with script. It takes about an hour to be done. While it's writing data, I can barely use the filemaker but it's too laggy and slow. Is there any easy techniques that I can try and make it fast? What it's doing in script is just like this. It repeats this transaction for about 10,000 times . Go to Record/Request/Page [First]( Loop Set Field(Talble A;A) Set Field(Talble B; Set Field(Talble C;C) Commit Records/Requests [No dialog] Go to Record/Request/Page [Next](Exit Loop when its last record) End Loop

Hi, hopefully someone can help. The Vat rate in the UK changes on the 1st January and I would like to set something up so that I do not have to change it on my day off. In my database I have a "vatrate" field that is an auto enter at 0.15 at the moment. What I wanted to do was set it as a auto enter based on a calculation that was basically if the date is greater or equal to 1st Jan then 0.175 else 0.15. However I can not get it to work. I think it is to do with the status(currentdate) I am using Filemaker 6 and server 5.5 Any suggestions on how to do this Thanks

Not sure where to pose this question, but it looks like I will need to do some accounting the old fashion way of using the 4 digit codes and Debit/Credit principals. I think most accounting programs now have either dropped this support or maybe poorly implemented? But this shouldnt be a problem if your developing a fairly simple accounting system in Filemaker, right?

In case the Subject doesn't mean anything yet, here it goes: I want to setup a generic script which will toggle a field's value between "" (i.e. nothing) and "yes". If it's 'yes', upon clicking the field it makes it nothing; if it's nothing, click the field and make it 'yes'. I have a few fields which I want to toggle between these two values. I also prefer to script once for all these instances, and avoid having to script once for toggle_fieldA, then toggle_fieldB, then C, then D etc. Obviously I can't use the straight-forward SetField script step, because it requires the target field name, and I don't know it now, since I am trying to script for multiple …

What is the best way to show all of the users that are currently accessing the file that I'm in? Is it possible to display all of the users accessing the current file in a lay-out?

My question is how can I omit all multiple records with the same ID? I have a table that has service records in it. The records spans may years. I would like to drill down and see who was added and who dropped. I would like to simply pick a date range (I.E. 01/01/2008...12/31/2009) and omit all records with a customer ID that come up twice. This way anyone left over either dropped us last year to this or was added this year. Omitting multiples only removes the extra records and leaves the first record.

Hi all I scan in material test reports to a folder on a hard drive and these material test reports are in PDF format and the file name is changed to reflect the document unique ID. Then a user enters the material report information as the size of the steel plate and it unique ID into a FMpro data base and a link is created to connect this record to the PDF so when the user enter the record unique ID into a field and press the find buttom, the PDF form is displayed. this works great and I have been using it for two years now. But over the years I have had a couple of request to make the program job specific. Wen the users enter a job number in a field and press the find …

I want to create a 'dashboard' which will show the several most recent additions/changes across multiple tables. For example, I want to see a new contact added on 1/1 (contacts table), an agenda modified on 1/3 (event table), a participant who cancelled on 1/4 (registrations table) and a different contact whose address was changed on 1/7, assuming these are the 4 most recent additions/changes to the db. Can this be done and how might I approach it? As always, I very much appreciate your expert help.

Our current relational database has three separate 'notes' tables. Each note is it's own separate record and is related to a master record number (MRN) in the main table (employee information). We now want to combine all notes for each user (out of all three notes tables) into a single field (one single notes field). Notes contain date (timestamp), who added it, the note itself. So the new text note field will combine all three notes found in all three tables into one like so (for each employee): Notes for John Doe 11/1/2009: wahtever 11/2/2009: from second notes table 11/3/2009: from third notes table Thanks in advance!

I was looking for ideas on how to achieve this. I want to create a Inventory check out system using one table. So I would scan in the table about 20 items which have a serial number unique to the type of item it is. The scanning part is finished however the order of the items would always differ and never be in the same order. Based on what was scanned in (or checked out) I want to have fields sort these items based off the types of items and list them automatically under there type list. So the final product after all items have been scanned fall under their respective type of item. The serial numbers are based off a julian date and 3 alpha char…

Hi. I need to create a simple text field with 4 repetitions and have some data auto-entered on all of them. I thought it would be simple, but I still haven't figured it out. Any help?

Hi guys, im a n00b so please go easy on me if i have posted in the wrong section. im making a patient contact list with medical and dental history.. now all is good except for 1 thing. i have a jpg chart of teeth(similar to http://www.aboutcosmeticdentistry.com/images/toothchart-bw-photo2.jpg ), and i want to be able to click on a certain tooth and have it highlighted. this will tell me which teeth the patient has/doesnt have... if there is no way to do that, my only other idea would be to creat 28 different fields (each tooth) and have the fields sit over the tooth picture, and have a check box, but instead of marking the box with an 'x', is it possible…

use Conditional Formatting to highlight value changes since record creation

This might be of use to those of us who are managing websites with our Filemaker database. I have a database with about 1000 records in it, each one a unique keyword in my niche. I have another database which represents my webpages with one record being one page. Each page has the fields "Content" and "Meta Keywords". Could anyone point me in the right direction to compare the "Content" field against the keyword database and each time a keyword is found in "Content", it gets added to the "Meta Keywords" field (separated by a comma). Just a point in the general correct direction would be appreciated! :(

I am going to import a file from a folder on the users desktop. The scripts are in place to do so and working. I want to add a safety step that verifies that the file exists before continuing in the script. The only way I could figure do to this is to use Send Event and Applescript and to rename the file to itself. It will not harm the file, and should create an error message if it doesn't exist. Then using Error Capture, I get the determination whether the file exists. I can get it coded to rename the file, from test.tst to test2.txt and back, Send Event [ "cmd /c rename " & Quote ( GLOBALS::x_desktop_g & GLOBALS::x_desktopFolder_g ) & "" &am…

Is it possible to capture all sub-summaries values generated by a report and store them without the need to export them?

ok, so here's my situation. i've got a field that holds multiple id numbers separated by a comma. example: (yes, the commas have to be where they are) but the problem is that i need to make sure that someone doesn't repeat a number that is already there...like this: how could i stop that from happening?

Drawing a mental blank here. On duplication of record, what's the easiest way to have one or more Auto Enters recalculate prior to the duplicate being committed?

I receive a line of text via an import that is supposed to contain a dollar amount. The agreed "convention" is that it will either be a whole number amount (like 46 or 5600) or will contain two decimal places (e.g., 46.20 or 5600.88). Any other value, like 46.2 or 46.875, is not acceptable and must be flagged as an import error. Short of matching the parsed fractional amount against a value list of the 100 possible 2-digit decimals, is there a simple® way to validate this field? Thanks in advance for any help.

Hi Guys, got one that i cant figure out ... What i have is a quoting system that has a lot of existing records. Ive been asked to split these quotes up as they will now be funded by 2 different divisions. When i built the original i used a repeating field to enter all the various figures and create the totals. (i cant change the way this works as it wll stuff up the several 1000 quotes that have already been produced yeah) Now i need to isolate line 9 from this set of repeating fields, display that as a stand alone figure to be billed to one department, then display the rest of the repeating fields to be paid by the other department. is there a way to…

Hey there folks, wondering if there is a way to pull a photo in a Container Field through a relationship? I'm producing a Family Menue planner that has 3 tables, one for ingredients, one for meals, and the planner itself. The meals table has the title description, list of ingredients, and finally a photo of the dish. On the actual planner table I want the user to be able to select the menu item for the time of day, and have it pull the photo through a display it in a field once the item has been selected. I tried through Auto Enter, and it doesn't seem to want to work on a container field. Ideas?

I have a problem file. Everything is fine except that it refuses to display 'Arial' Font Face. I am working in 8.5 Adv I have recovered it 3 times but when i apply the calculation: TextFont ( "ABC" ; "Arial" ) it will only display Helvetica. Similarly it will not change a layout item to Arial (Says Arial in Format > Font but displays Helvetica and GetAsCSS/SVG ( Field ) displays as Helvetica too. This file is designed specifically for printing and has months of complex work in it. Has anyone seen this before? Really hoping there is a simple thing that i am overlooking. Recovered the file in FMP 10 but same result. Did identical calc i…

Hi -- Does anyone have a sample of a "StartUp Global Initializer Script" that will be used to init Global fields? Thanks in advance, Rich

I've been using the smtp feature in pro 10 advanced, and i can't seem to ever get it send personalized emails out, quicker than 1200-1500 per hour. I have an email list of 30,000, so this means, that if I want to email everyone, I have to let the script run for about an entire day, and then, I really can't use filemaker for other things, at the same time. If anyone has advice, I could sure use it. I know there are things out there like mailchimp.com, but i don't think they can personalize the email, and I really just wanted to use filemaker to do this all myself. If anyone could help, I could really really use it (somewhat urgently) also, when i s…

Can anyone help reduce this to a recursive calculation. The actual list is over fifty items. Let ( [ lst = "car¶dog¶apple¶kitchen sink¶ball¶tree¶table¶bottle" tab = " " ] ; If ( PatternCount ( specialty ; Substitute ( GetValue ( lst ; 1 ) ; "¶" ; "" ) ); "•" ; "" ) & tab & If ( PatternCount ( specialty ; Substitute ( GetValue ( lst ; 2 ) ; "¶" ; "" ) ); "•" ; "" ) & tab & If ( PatternCount ( specialty ; Substitute ( GetValue ( lst ; 3 ) ; "¶" ; "" ) ); "•" ; "" ) & tab & If ( PatternCount ( specialty ; Substitute ( GetValue ( lst ; 4 ) ; "¶" ; "" ) ); "•" ; "" ) & tab & If ( PatternCount ( specialty ; Substitute ( G…

Has anyone seen a custom function that will pick-out all items in a list that have a particular pattern. In my case I would like all the items that start with the word 'letter'

I am trying to write a script that generates vCalendar files. I generated the file by writing a script that saved the contents of a variable to a global, and then I exported field contents to a file. I programmed the text manipulations and calculations correctly to generate the content of the file, but when I opened the file with TextWrangler to compare it to a working vCalendar file, I noticed that the FileMaker-exported version was of format UTF8 whereas the working vCalendar file is Western Roman encoded. Does this matter and is there a way I can get FileMaker to generate a Western Roman encoded file?

This is a brain twister for me. Below is a lookup relationship that is working. However it breaks if cloned, or if the table data is deleted (ie. in order to load data into an updated UI copy). Global Table: user_id_g name_first_g name_last_g name_full_g etc. HR Table: kp_user_id name_first name_last etc. The Global Table is a scratchpad that is used by multiple scripts, tables, etc. The HR Table holds the personal records of employees. The relationship is set as kp_user_id = user_id_g The lookups are triggered by the opening script with: Set Field [Globals::user_id_g; GetAsText(Lower(Get(UserName)))] The lookups …

:frown: I am running FM Pro 9.0v3 Advanced on a Macintosh computer. I am learning FileMaker going through the tutorials. I am working on Lesson 7. There are two things specific in the lesson that lead into my question. One thing that is asked to be done is create a Radio Button. If one goes through looking at the lesson then you will see that the Value list with predefined values, displayed as radio buttons show the actual round button next to New & Continuing. After I create the Radio Buttons per the lesson steps, all I get is a transparent button. A user on a different FM website & forum suggested that the incorrect pen width could be selected & how t…

I have a database that records membership information including a membership expiration date. I wrote three simple scrips that find expired members, members that will be expired in 30 days, and members that will be expired in 60 days. I need to figure out the scripting to exclude the people that have expired for the expiring in 30 days list, and to exclude the people that have expired and the people that will expire in 30 days from the expires in 60 days list. can someone please help with the script to do this.... Thaks

Does anybody know if Filemaker pro can have a list of usernames and passwords, and with a click of a button you can go to a website admin page and it automatically logs you in with the username and password?

I need to generate a Manifest for Samples that have been logged in. These are done in batches usually once a day but sometimes more. Its rare we log them in twice a day but it happens. The manifest is generated after all the samples for one logging session are complete and needs to be printed. I feel like I'm stumbling over the first steps with this process. In the main table I've created a "ManifestDate" (looks like 20090806). Next I need to append a letter A for the first, B, C, D, etc.. for other manifest printed that day. This is where I'm stuck. I don't know if I can do all this in the main table, or do I need to create a Manifest table. I fe…

I am working on an inventory database to track medical equipment for patients. I started with the filemaker 10 template (even though I'm using 8.5) included with the filemaker downloads and modified it. One thing about the provided template is that it doesn't actually count your inventory. You must do it yourself and then input that number as the item total. Why bother with a program if you have to go over and count every time you need to know something about your inventory? I want it to count and give me a total for each item number - brand, but we also input serial numbers for these high-price items (we have very few separate inventory items). So I am also needing…

Hopefully not that tough, but I couldn't find another place to ask this. How can I suppress the FMP message: "Save Changes to this Record?" thanks

[color:blue]I've got a leftbrain torture for you, i just hope i can explain te problem clear enough... Here goes, I'm using FMP 8.5 Adv for small labels, which are saved as PDF, and in acrobat (with the aid of a imposer plugin) combined on larger sheets, and from there to a printing press. (All of the above is no problem at all, so you won't find any of this in the samplefile below) The problem is that each label (item) has its own printrun, and i'd like to optimise the sheets for the printer as much as i can. Therefore i'm duplicating some records so their printruns are lowered, and with that the surplus of the other items on that sheet are lowered too.…

Is there a way to search a text string for a list (value list?) of specific terms and replace them? Specifically: 1 - User entry - types text line 2 - Calc field with "Proper" function cleans text. 3 - Writes cleaned text to description field. . . . this part is running fine. The challenge is that we have some terms that need to be caps (ie. ABC, CBS, JVC, IBM, II, etc.) within the text string. Is it possible to have a running list of these terms that can be checked against? If found, it would replace only those letters with the all caps version. I would like to insert that function between 2 & 3. thanks,

Hello all, this is my first post here. I am looking for a conversion program to include in a solution I am working on, to covert a date to the Jewish calendar as well as from the Jewish back to Gregorian. Basically to be used as a simple look up as data is being entered in the Membership file. I have found a couple here, but not quite what I am looking for. Can anyone point me in the right direction?

Hi all, I'm building up a system for my small business to see if this would be good for me. I've got stuck at this problem here. I'm renting out video equipment and I started a database where every item is listed in a table with an individual ID. When somebody rents put something they got a sheet with all the items so they can check they've got everything. But this forces me to add a new ID for small things like power cables. I want individual numbers on big things but I want an ID that goes for the power cable, and I can mark that two of them are included. I can do that by adding the same ID. Now I need my list to list these not individually, but like "2x power cabl…

I have a simple database that I enter in the following information: Contract Start Date Contract End Date Frequency In Days Contract Obligation (Dollar Amount) What I would like, is for the following to happen: Evaluate the start date and end dating and divide the contract obligation based on the "Frequency in days" So if I were to put in 8/1/09 as my start date and 6/30/10 as my end date and "30" as my frequency with the obligation amount being $50,000.00 for FileMaker to calculate there would be 10 billable cycles based on those contract days and then to take the $50,000/10 to come up with $5,000 every 30 days. I'm having issues thinking throu…

I have another complex issue that I would like to figure out a solution to. So here goes... I have a reporting DB for our daily production reports. We have an excel spread sheet updated daily based on current inventory. Right now we have a script to import the .xls into FM and delete previous invenotry records. This is so we can select the item and the updated qty for that day. So the old files are wiped from system and new one imported. The obvious issue is that if the reports or inventory is not entered when its supposed to be it creates more work to fix the issue to be able to input the report. What I want it to do is be able to select the inventory b…

This seems to be beyond my skill set. I'm attempting to auto generate a client number based on the following criteria: First letter of first name Last letter of last name M or F for gender Two digit month of birth Two digit date of birth Last three digits of birth year Last four digits of SSN The fields I have are: NameFirst NameLast Gender DOB (date formatted XX/XX/XXXX) SSN ClientNumber (the field I need calculated) If the client information is Sally Jones ,05/19/1965, XXX-XX-1234 the client number is: SSF05199651234 Is there any way to do this in a calculation? Tom

I would like to automatically/dynamically generate a new field from the social security field of our database that only contains the last five digits (and no hyphens). Is there an easy way to do this?

Hi all, Hopefully an easy one for someone. I come from a .net background but am writing in Filemaker Pro for a variety of reasons and have got stuck a little. I am building a database file to hold player records for a football team. I have built a file which has a record for each player, with all relevant info on there. I want to build a 'list' box which the user can add game data to so that rather than one long text file, it would show asa datestamped info either as individual entries in a long list or as a long text file with individual datestamps for each entry so they can see what happened and when. Hope that makes sense. I'm using FMP 10 Adv on…

I typically develop what would probably be considered small business Management Systems that handle everything from prospecting to payment receipt, etc. The solutions are always fully locked down and are very granular and feature rich. Typically about 50+ tables, 200+ layouts, 2000+ fields, etc. Solutions typically include hundreds of variable situations where one user group's transactions are controlled one way where another groups transactions are controlled differently unless management sets a switch because management is out of the office, etc. This is just one very small example. My problem and question is that as FM adds new features, I find it increasingl…

Hi, I'd like to set up in a script where it will enter the date range for the current month as part of the Find portion of the script (FM 9). I have it partly figured out but, of course, the ending day is where I'm stuck at. This i what I came up with, so far: Set Field [TimeSheets Current::Date; Month ( Get ( CurrentDate ) ) & "/" & "1" & "..." & Month ( Get ( CurrentDate ) ) & "/" & "30"] Obviously, the beginning is easy, because every month starts with 1, but every month doesn't end with 30. What can I put in place of the "30" so that, based on what the current month is, the range will include all the days for the month? …

Not sure how mind boggling this is but I could use some assistance. I understand Count {field} this will give me a total of related records. What I need is a field that tells me if something is related record 1, 2, 3 and so on... so as I add records not only can I have a total but know in which order they were added. I've done it with a summary field but that requires me to sort the records, I like to do it without sorting if possible and have the data stored not always looked up. TIA

We have an editor layout that allows changes to be made based on permissions. It all works wonderfully on my computer. I can log in the various permission sets and they all function correctly. Now for the twister. When on another user's computer, logged in as their permission set (which just worked on mine), it does not allow for editing. The error message is: "costs_field" is defined to contain only specific values. You must enter a valid value. . . . . attached also. So, where do I start looking?

Hi Guys, i'll try to explain the question. I have a main table (this table contains the info about the job). I have a revisions table thats related to that job number - and i want to assign a revisions number to each entry - expect that when a new record is taken out on the main table - i need the revision to be reset back to 0. IE.. job number 123 (main) has (revisions) 1, 2, 3 Job number 124 (main) has (revision) 1, 2 Job number 125 (main) has (revision) 1, 2,3,4,5 hope that makes sense Cheers AL and so on. Im sure that thsi is a very easy thing to do, but im stuck on it.. any help would be very much appreciated Cheers Al

hi everybody, i'm new list member, may be can someone help me? here's the prob: two different tables (tab A see records; tab B use records) - from a layout ownig to another table, i can see a portal with tab A records and another one with tab B records - i just need to copy, record from portal A to portal B; just generate records with 1 corresponding value from portal A to portal B. i tried to set this script: go o portal A/go to first row/declare variable ($value)/ go to portal B/go to last row(for generate new record)/define field as $value all is working well except for this: if i trie to loop this i can't be able to go back from port B to port A after the fir…

I imagine this has been covered but I'm posting this because I seem to have no luck finding the useful stuff when I search FM Forums. I'm trying to find information about opening files that are stored in containers in their native application without having to export them. I'd like to be able to click on a PDF or Word dock have it open for some mark-up or editing then when its saved have the saved version be in FileMaker. If you can point me to any previous post or anything that will help me do this it would be appreciated.

I am looking for any guidance on how to set up a database for a unique purpose. The problem: In air traffic control facilities, we have postings on when restricted airspace is hot and what altitude clears it. It is currently done by posting this information on an excel spreadsheet displayed on an overhead. It is a royal pain and must be updated constantly. Example: We get times which are always in GMT with altitude info that looks something like this: airspace 1 - 320+ 28 0230 - 28 0400 ---------- 240+ 28 0400 - 28 0530 ---------- 280+ 28 0530 - 29 0200 So in this example, the airspace is hot below 320 thousan…

Hi, I've got a bit of an oddball question. I inherited an FM database with this job. I'm the fourth person to maintain it, and the first to actually document it -) However, the problem I'm having is with some donor and student reports. When I have donors with the same last name or students with the same last name, it skips printing that name and just combines the donations or classes under the first name listed. Any idea what might be causing this? They're all seperate records, so it looks like it just ID's the last name and thinks they're the same person. Thanks!

I could really use some help on how to build the correct relationship with some tables. My restricted table has several restricted areas each having many timed events. On the status board layout, I need to display the two most recent events for each restricted area. I will only display the calc field result, most current and the next one. I have attached the file, and to make more sense of it, I have attached the excel sheet we use now. That will make it easier to see what I am trying to do. Trying to display this info on a spreadsheet is a royal pain. Thanks Dave Help.fp7.zip rsctd_areas.xls.zip

Every database I've ever created relies on key fields. That's nothing unusual, I expect this is standard practice for everyone on these forums. Filemaker gives us a very easy way to generate these: by serial number. So the first record starts with 1, the next one is 2, and so on. Nothing strange there. The problem I often have with this is when you want to do complex tasks, such as merge two independent databases together, you have to do all sorts of jiggery-pokery to ensure that every key field is indeed unique. So today I started wondering whether it might make more sense to store a generated GUID rather than a serial number. Does anyone have any t…

I am sure that this has been covered before, and I am sure it's a simple calculation, but I can't figure out how to find it or figure it. I want to calculate the date of "Next Tuesday" (or Wednesday, etc.), regardless of what today is. So if today were 04/20/2009 (Monday), the date would be 04/21/2009 (Tuesday), but if today were 04/22/2009 (Wednesday), the date would be 04/28/2009. TIA! David

I have a client who wants to be able to pull e-mails into Filemaker. I have a table of Correspondence which is related to Job Orders. Correspondence records have been hand-typed notes about phone conversations, in person meetings, and e-mails, but now the client wants to actually save the e-mail itself in the record. The office is cross-platform with a mix of Apple Mail, and Entourage (both Win and Mac), Outlook Express. They're talking about moving to G-Mail for server though. Don't know if that's a factor. I suppose a container field holding either the e-mail itself or a pdf is the best way to do this, but I wanted to check with you folks first to see …

Hello I am asking if there is any way possible to collect quicktime movies in filemaker and automate a presentation from within filemaker. I would the user to be able to add movies and pictures and latter turn the whole thing into a finished presentation. Not simply playing the movies but having something like a director or keynote/powerpoint presentation that originates in filemaker and can be made into a nice presentation either within filemaker or as some exported file that plays in another program.

I wanted to know if anyone new how to achieve the following: 1. only show credit card fields when "CC" is chosen from payment type 2. upon CC fields displaying and entering data, the credit card number is masked as xxxxxxxxxxxx#### 3. after entered, when clicking on the number field, a password prompt is displayed.

Using FileMaker Pro 10 Advanced with FileMaker Server 10 Advanced running on Mac OS X Leopard Server, which is running our mail server. I'm trying to use the Send Mail script step to send an email via SMTP. As far as I can tell, the settings I'm using are identical to those being used within the Mail application to successfully send mail. The server address is the same (i.e., mail.company.com), the authentication method is the same (Password in Mail, Plain Password in FileMaker), the user name is the same and the password is the same. The script step keeps reporting that "The authentication failed." No SSL being used in either setting. The SMTP log says: Apr 15 …

Hello, I'm working in a database I just created that has 4 tables: Employee, Managers, Departments, and Office Locations. This is my issue: - I create a new employee record - This employee is also a manager - I would like to have a button that will create a manager record with the same Last name and First name as the employee I'm entering Is this possible? I came up with something close but its not quite there: If (Manager? = Yes) Go to Layout (Manager Form) New Record/Request Set Field (Empl: LastName; Mang: LastName) Set Field (Empl: FirstName; Mang: FirstName) Go to Layout (Original) Else End if I know I…

Here you go I have a calculation that give me the "Period of employment" of each staff member using the current date and their respective start date. The result is displayed like this : 1 Year , 3 Months , 10 Days. Now, I want to calculate their " Accumulated Vacation during their POE". The thing is . . . for the first 4 years, they get 10 Vacation days per year. After 5 years they get 15 days of vacation per year. What do I have to add so my formula calculate the first 4 years @ 10 days per years and then 15 days per year for the subsequent ? Also, I want my formula to add the Vacation days every months. . . Here what I got so far: GetAs…

I'm new to FMP and as I design my first database I am wondering if it is possible for FMP to build new databases based on user input. Let me explain. Say I am making a database for fantasy surfing. I want my friends to be able to participate in my database so I want to build it so each person can begin their own team database based on a few simple radio buttons asking what type of things they will want to track, what computer they are on, etc. Is this doable? Like a splashpage kind of thing that creates databases based on user input.

Many text fields in my database have Maximum character counts defined for them -- but only as a way to keep users from casually entering large blocks of text that might exceed what is provided for on most displays and printouts. But since larger blocks of content are sometimes necessary, I’ve enabled FMP’s feature to allow the user to override the limit, making it a “soft limit”. The problem is the phrasing that FileMaker uses in the popup dialog: “The contents of this field cannot exceed 100 characters. Allow this invalid entry?” This is confusing for the user. A larger entry isn’t “Invalid” -- it will be processed just fine. I would like to detune the mes…

I have been working on a tournament registration solution that allows participants to login year after year and register for competitive events. This is the first full year of publication and I discovered that the age of the competitor does not refresh at the start of the new year. This is problematic as the events that a competitor is eligible for changes with their age. How can I get FM to automatically "refresh" or update the age field on my competitors? Currently I have to manually re-enter a portion of the birthdate of each competitor to get the refresh to occur. Thanks for your input!

I recently upgraded to FM10 advanced. Ever since de-installing FM9, my .fp7 files are no longer associated with FM - Vista suggests they are Adobe Acrobat files - I tried to manually change the association, but it does not change. I browse and point it to the file maker exe, but once I OK out of it, it goes right back to Adobe. Has this happened to anybody else? Or does anybody know a solution? thanks

I'm currently rewriting my relational db from 7 files to one. Tedious, but getting there. I just ran into another issue. This application is for a day camp. I currently have multiple layouts, many are copies of others. It started many versions ago and I never changed it. I want to now. First off, I have another identical layout for each "possibility", for example, campers coming for first half, the header has "First Half", those for second half go on an identical layoout with the header of "Second Half". It's somewhat more involved but basically I have many of similar layouts. The second area of copies is if I have to sort differently. One layour would be for sorting alph…

I need an efficient way to run calculations on multiple records in one table against corresponding multiple records in a second table. Let's see if I can explain. Table one has dated contracts for pieces of equipment. One piece of equipment can have multiple contracts: Equipment SN / Date Start / Rate / Date End. A second Table has the same equipment, a record date, and miles run. This table (2) can have multiple records for each single piece of equipment: Equipment SN / Date Run / Miles Run. What is the easiest way to evaluate table (2) Miles Run against information in table (1) whether equipment was on contract or not?