satone

I'm building a database that, among other things, relates records in a CHILD table to those in a PARENT table via an ID#. (The ID# happens to be a concatenation of three other fields in the PARENT table.) The thing is, I entered 20 records in the PARENT table and about 35 related records in the CHILD table before I discovered the beauty of foreign key fields!! So anyway, I set up a foreign key field in the CHILD table. I know I did something right b/c, when I look at the 35 or so pre-existing records in the CHILD table, I see the drop-down list and can select ID#. HOWEVER when I create a NEW record in the CHILD table, I do NOT see a drop-down list next to ID#. No field, no box, no nothing.... So...... Wondering what I'm doing wrong? Any thoughts?

Oh I see. That makes sense. So Destination table = parent table and Related table = child table?

Yeah, I get it now... thanks to your example. The problem was, back before I had discovered the magic of portals, I tried using a regular old lookup field. Then, when I went back to try to implement the calc field as you guys suggested, I accidentally rerouted that to look at the truncated notes calc, rather than the active portal. Anyway, thanks for your help!!! Quick question to make sure I'm using the terms right.... Destination table: the place where you want the text displayed (also called a child table?) Related table: the table that's storing the text (also called a parent table?)

Thanks DJ, your solution was interesting b/c I can edit the NOTES field in the SUMMARY layout. With a Calc field in the SUMMARY layout, I don't seem to be able to edit the notes, just read them. It does seem strange that you can't truncate exactly. I get that it's easier with a monospaced font. But even with a variable width font, it would seem not that hard. I mean, the program already knows how wide each letter is. Is there a way to just tell it what font you're going to use, and say, "truncate at 10 cm" or whatever? That way, if you type "lol" it know how much space to use and if you type "www" it knows how much space to use. Just a thought.

Thx!!

Thanks for all your help!! comment and DJ, thanks for the examples. They helped me figure out exactly what I was doing wrong. I'd like to reply directly to some of your comments, but I can't figure out how to do the cool quote thing. (Newbie to message boards as well as FileMaker ) Pls help!

Hmmmm.... Tried that, but still not truncating. Destination table: SUMMARY Related table: QUESTION TO SOLUTION In the NOTES field of SUMMARY: Case( Length( question to solution::Notes ) > 52 ; Left( question to solution::Notes ; 52 ) & "..." ; question to solution::Notes ) Is there some other setting I have to change or something?

OK so I tried the new calc field. I must have done something wrong b/c it's not truncating... Here's what I want to do: Goal: In the Destination table, look at the NOTES field from the Related table. Copy the text, truncate at 52 characters, and add an ellipsis. Here's what I did: 1: Create a new Calc field in the Related table called NOTES TRUNCATED: Case( Length( NOTES ) > 52 ; Left( NOTES ; 52 ) & "..." ; NOTES ) 2: Reroute NOTES portal in the Destination table to look at the new field NOTES TRUNCATED in the related table. Here's what is happening... The NOTES field on the Destination table is, in fact, displaying the NOTES field from the Related table. So something must be going right..... But it is def not truncating. :/ Any thoughts? DJ -- the Notes field does not always exceed 52 characters... in fact it's often empty.

Thanks very much! One quick newbie question tho... where do I put this calculation? Btw I created a portal for this info in Layout View of the destination table... therefore, I cannot actually see this particular field in the Manage Databases view. Will gladly undo that if needed. :)

Hi, I have text that exceeds the portal size. I'd like to crop the text, but include an ellipsis to indicate that there's more to read. Any thoughts on how to do this? Thanks!!! :)