puterco

You have few of those in your filemaker templates folder. Here's another great source for technique & developer files: www.fmfiles.com

The easiest way to prevent items from printing is to go to layout mode, select the objects and select sliding & printing from the format menu. There you can select whether you want to print those objects or not. Very simple, you don't have to write a single script You wanted to make them visible/invisible based on a criteria. I'm not sure if there's a way to make an object invisible via script but you could do this simply by duplicating the original layout and modify it to print the way the criteria allows. Now based on the criteria you would simply go to a matching layout and print. if field criteria=1 go to layout (criteria 1 layout ) if field criteria =2 go to layout (criteria 2 layout) (Btw that's not a real script etc I just made an example)

Stupid mistake, I should have used ";" instead of the ";". Anyway, I figured it out and my solution works more than fine now. It's great that FM allows the user to copy paste text in calculations. I just copy pasted every single calculation to a word processor and "search & replaced" all "," with ";" (There were over 300 of those).

Thanks for the quick reply. (I gave you a 5 star rating, You've helped me quite a few times). I just got home from work (It's 18:12 here in Finland) but I'll try your advice tomorrow. Those limitations shouldn't be a problem since I'm only using 7 digits in the datekey due FM having 31.12.3000 as the max date. (heh, not a typo, 12.31.3000 in your format) Suddenly everything seems so clear...

First of all sorry about the long post but here goes. I have a customers DB and a Tasks DB. Customers DB has two portals "past tasks" and "future tasks" I used the "smart ranges" technique (http://www.onegasoft.com/articles/smartranges/index.shtml) and it works fine. But I would like to see only the past/future tasks regarding the current record (customer). In order to do so I need to add customer ID to the already complex multikey. That's exactly where I need help. My customerID is in this form (CuID1,CuID2...) Here's the calculation field for future dates portal in the mainDB: Substitute(Middle(" 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9"; (Int(Mod(Date; 10^1)/10^0) + 1) * 2 - 1; 20); " ";"

In a nutshell I'm trying to create two portals in my solution, past tasks and future tasks. I have two DBs; Tasks and Customers which works fine but I'm having problems with the multikey filtering... I downloaded SmartRanges from www.fmfiles.com and it's a great technique file but I just can't get it to work in my solution. I have set up identical fields in my solution but when I try to copy any of the calculations it displays a dialog "this number cannot be evaluated and highlights "," (just after the 9 in the first row) in the calculation which looks like this (Range calculation field): Substitute(Middle(" 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9", (Int(Mod(Start, 10^1)/10^0) + 1) * 2 - 1, (Int(End/10^0) - Int(Start/10^0) + 1) * 2), " ","

Not enough sleep and not enough coffee... I though about my problem and I figured it out, I just needed to create a "go to related + print" script and create the invoice layout in the line items BD with all the relating items (products) displayed as list. I don't even know why I tryied to do my invoices via portal. Anyway, Ignore my post. Or even better someone should delete it. zZzZzZ..

I'm creating an invoicing DB and have our and clients basic info in the title header and the actual bank transfer template in the title footer. The body only has a portal to "line items". I've set the portal to slide/reduce which works okay. The portal is 50 rows so that all the possible products fit to the invoice. I've set it up so that if all the portal rows don't fit in the body it continues on another page (in preview mode) this works fine if I only have one record in the whole DB. If I have more records those portals also print in the preview mode, why? I can prevent this ******* thing by omitting the current record and viewing omitted (although FM still prints the other records as blanks). This however isn't smart since I might want to search all the invoices for today and print them and I just cant manually omit and print each one individually not to mention start sorting those blank papers. How do I prevent the other records appearing in the preview mode/print. Please don't tell me this is just a limitation with portals. If anyone has a link regarding this or can tell me where to find an example/template please let me know. Thanks.

I have a DB with customers and related DBs tasks and contacts. Every record has an ID. Customers have a CuID1,CuID2...and so on. I'd like to know how to avoid duplicate IDs. If I have CuID3 in an otherwise empty DB and I want to add more records starting from CuID1, FileMaker won't skip over the CuID3 it simply creates another CuID3 record without any notices even though I've set the field to UNIQUE. If I manually duplicate a record it works fine (ID+1). I've set the RecordID field to "autoenter serial (+1), unique, prevent modification, etc". How do I avoid the duplicate ID. This is really bugging me since it totally messes up my relationships and I have to sort the mess manually.

Thanks for your reply. Since my range varies depending on the record (tasks) I really need a script to set the global fields content. The main DB has records of different clients with a portal to tasksDB where I store tasks relating to that client. I want to see all the future tasks for a specific company (customerID) (> or = today). I can't input the date range manually since it could be years. What I need is a script that would define the globalfield on the mainDB. In addition to the customerID, I've set two fields (today) and (end date, which is a MAX calculated value from tasksDB "tasks_date" field) to filter the portal. Unfortunately my scripting skills are a bit limited when it comes to looping scripts. How do I create a script that would automatically calculate the range from (start date) to (end date) and set the global field to match the result. Thanks a lot, You've already been a great help...

I have a customers DB and a tasks DB which are related (each customer has a unique ID). I've created layouts for past tasks and future tasks. I have portals to "tasks DB" in both layouts and I want to filter the portal to show "*today" tasks in the other layout and "<today" in the other. Can I use "*" or "<" operators to filter portals? What do I need to filter my portal as described above?

Great tip about the transparent rectangle in the top corner! Here's what I've been doing. I simply select the objects and take a look at the object size palette and memorize the location of the top and left sides (example: 45px, 130px) of the objects. Now that I paste the objects to another layout I simply enter those numbers quickly using tab to the 'object size' palette and they are perfectly in place. I'm not sure but I think that this could even be automated quite a lot using a macro program like quickeys etc. Anyway, I'm sure you guys were familiar with this tip but I thought I'd post it anyway.

Good point Liveoak. I though about that one myself and I also stumbled on couple of other minor problems like Unique IDs, etc. Most likely I'm going to implement some sort of manual import/export feature which allows the user to simply add new records etc to the database, I think I'll leave the rest to plain manual input at least for this first release of our solution. As I browsed through this site I came across very good points and if anyone is interested about this topic I suggest they do a complete search of this site using words like "sync" or "synchronization". There were tons of great posts...

Hi, I just did couple of searches and browsed through couple of other sites and what I've found is that REAL synchronizing is way too difficult for me to implement to our first solutions release (multiple DBs to synchronize with the main DB located on the server while the main DB also keeps constantly changing). I did find the info I was looking for so don't bother posting any replies unless you've found a solution which will ease the living of all FM developers... (The search feature of this forum is great)

I have a situation where our "Customer" DB is on a server and everyone at the office run the DB over appletalk etc. Sometimes though we have to take our laptops, palms etc and go see a customer on the field. So we need a copy of the "customer" DB on our own HDs in order to update it on the field (TCP/IP connections only work for a handful of people) so I'm looking for a way to easily sync the database on the laptop HD and the server when one comes back to the office. The problem is that the DB on the server changes a lot and if our consultant has been on the road for a few days he can't just import his DB on the server. One problem is that each customer has a unique ID and if we have added 5 cards to the serverDB (auto enter serial) and our consultant has added one client then we have duplicate ID on the Laptop. In this case we would have to create a new record and import the information to it but is there a way to automatically change the duplicate ID to the next free one on the server DB? Is REAL synchronizing a difficult thing to do since it's a feature we really need to implement to our solution. I checked scriptology for tips but I didn't find anything special. If anyone knows any solutions please post a reply. (I'll go check scriptology once again while hoping for someone to reply) TIA

Filemaker sorts numbers so that 10 comes before 9 etc: ID: Record: 10 Record C 8 Record A 9 Record B I quess this isn't a big problem but if I only have <20 records it bothers me in list view those rare times when I sort something by their IDs. Is there a way to easily make FM sort numbers properly? I know that I could manually add a zero before the nine, but I would rather hear a different tip.

Were you just sarcastic about my message or is there actually a "specify message" script that might help? I haven't seen too many solutions with document management so I'm wondering how to do that. In a nutshell I want to create a field where to store store links/addresses to local files so that I could easily launch them from filemaker but I don't want to open these files through a netbrowser (can't use "go to url"). I want similar functionality as if I directly double clicked them in the OS.

I'm developing a project management system and document management features have appeared on the wish list. People want a field where they could store aliases, shortcuts, or links or whatever.. to different files regarding the project so that one could launch the file by clicking on it in FM. I asked couple of days ago how to do this and someone pointed out that this could be done via applescript, or a thirdparty windows scripting system (whitch is not possible because this database will be used on PC and Mac, and the server just might be linux) I was thinking about using the "go to url" function (file:///MACHD/File1.txt) etc. But since browsers only know so many filetypes they fail to open them in their correct applications. So is there a way to launch items from Filemaker via "go to url", or something similar so that it would bypass the netbrowser? Does FM 5.5 offer any new solutions to this prob or am I doomed to start playing with the MIME etc types in the browsers. Thanks...

Every time I copy paste something out of one layout to another, Filemaker (Mac 5.0) always positions it about 20pixels to the upper/lower left, or right from it's original position. Is there a way to avoid this because I have tons of layouts and I'm waisting valuable time trying to align all the objects to match the other layers so that the transition from one layer to another would be seamless. Object grid also seems to vary from one layer to another. This might be a stupid question but I can't think of one logical reason why this would be considered a feature rather than a minor bug. TIA...

I'm currently creating a database to keep track of all ongoing projects. I was wondering if it was possible to create a field to store links to all files related to a certain project. Example: I'd like to keep track of all the word and powerpoint documents, in order to do so I could store a link pointing to each of the files to easily launch them directly from filemaker. Like an alias/shortcut inside filemaker. Can this be done?

I'm developing a database solution where employees store their daily work hours allowing me to create reports on hours spent on different projects during different time spans etc. I'm looking for a template to see how it has been done and to either refine it to meet our needs or more likely create my own solution. I just need a few tips to get started. So if anyone knows any good templates or has a solution ready for me to play around please post a message or E-mail me directly. (BTW. If anyone happens to know any good sites with free quality templates I'd be happy to hear about it) Thanks in advance.

Thanks a lot. I added a hidden field in the form like you suggested and I'm not getting error messages anymore. Maybe I should send my paychecks to you guys. You have been more than helpful. Once again thanks.

Additional info: I just did some additional troubleshooting and noticed that If you perform the search in netscape using "ENTER-key" to submit you get the error #4 every single time but if you click the submit button with your mouse it seems to work. Pressing enter or using the mouse doesn't seem to have an effect with MS IExplorer It just occasionally reports #4 error. This is weird. Any help will be appreciated.

I have published a database using custom web publishing and when somebody performs a search FM sometimes gives an error message (err #4). There were 49 error#4 in the FMlog. As I said this doesn't happen all the time maybe every 15th search gives an error message. What could be causing this? It's frustrating that people who perform searches sometimes get these errors. If there are problems with the HTML code I suppose it would either work or not. Now it works mostly? The server is a G4 with FM4. Thanks for any help

It was around 03:00am when I posted my message. I have been quite busy building a commercial online business-to-business catalog. Sorry about posting it in two places but hey, It was 3am and the ******* thing was supposed to be ready the next morning. Anyway I managed to get it to work before the deadline so thanks for your help