Robert R

Assuming that you have disabled the menu commands by passwording, then the only way to add a new record is through scripting. Look for a "New Record/Request" in one of your scripts. Use a different script for editing, than the one used for adding.

Why couldn't you just create a calculated field? There are functions that convert numbers to text. Then just add a "$" to it.

Will they have to change their own for each database? With 15 databases, that could get tedious...

Haven't really had any problems since switching to TCP/IP, but things have been slow, so it really hasn't been well tested. We'll see what the future brings.

Portals with thousands of records are not likely to perform well. Portals with sorts based on calculated fields will be slow. Do NOT do finds in a portal. A portal finds ALL related records; keep the the number of related records small.

Another thing. How many users do you have? Are you running File Maker Server? or are you sharing files... what else is the host computer being used for?

If you're searching on non-indexed fields, that will slow it down. When do you notice the slowness?

After rereading your message, I am not totally certain I understand what you are trying to do. Are you creating a database that checks for duplicates in other databases which you did not create? Like a utility for FM users? If that is the case, you may have to do a secondary comparison of your own design to search for characters that must not be ignored.

I'm not an expert by any means, but I know that FM ignores certain characters, when doing a comparison, by design. Putting in an extra space does NOT make an item unique. You need to do your database a little differently... maybe you could either combine fields, or create calculated fields to index on...

I'm new to filemaker, so there is probably an easy answer to this. I inherited a program that requires the user to start a new record by entering a number. The number has to be "not empty", and "unique". The problem is the user can't get out of the screen (cancel) the input without first typing in a number. This is annoying in the extreme. Any ideas?

Nevermind, I discovered that the Max() function will do this. By the way, thank you for all of your help.

I don't want a user to be able to change the system date and thus fool the system into allowing multiple deletions. Maybe a better way to do this is to only allow deletions of recent records, i.e. the last 5 or so... Is there any way I can find out through a script what the next or last number of a serial field will be?

How can I prevent the user from deleting records from the menu while allowing him to delete records through a command button? I only want the user to be able to delete records created today. Where does FileMaker get today's date from? Does it get it from the FileMaker Server? Or the users' computer?

How do I change the caption on a command button?

A difficult but clean solution: design the systems such that each "edit" is actually its own transaction (record). When viewed together, you would see what transactions each has done. This only works if "Transactions" are never edited. They can only be updated by adding new transactions. Kind of like a phone log. Probably not practical in most cases. Just a thought...

Thanks.

I'm really stumped. I'll change all of the computers to use tcp/ip and see if that helps. You say you're using 100+ computers... are you using FM Pro 5.0v3? And if so, were there any commands you had to bypass or bugs you had to work around?

Did you know that by changing "Available Commands" in the password screen, that you can limit access to the menu items?

When any field in a layout is restricted, the layout will be restricted. Pg 572 in the File Maker Pro Bible. I think you need to grant access on the file level before you can restrict access on the field level. I haven't read anything yet to suggest otherwise...

Is there a quick way to change the password used by a particular group on all databases at the same time?

The problem only seems to happen when there is more than one person at a time using the database. Isn't the whole point of FileMaker that it is supposed to work with multiple users?

Do you mean to say that in order to change passwords, I have to copy the files from the server to my local drive, and then afterward copy them back? How can I do this? My computer is a pc, the server is a mac...?

How can I change the access priviledges from a workstation?

Some computers on our network are using appletalk, some tcp/ip. I'm not sure about the computer in question. My experience is mostly with PC's, not Macs, so I'm not even sure at the moment how to tell... I did talk to the operator however, and she says that her computer responds to any command very slowly and sometimes freezes. I don't see how this would cause access errors in FM though.

We have the server edition set up on our server(macintosh) and we have both PC and Mac users logging in using the password system. One machine in particular is having problems with occasionally being locked out of screens or fields to which it has access. Sometimes it works ok, and sometimes it acts like I'm using the wrong password. Has anyone had similar experiences? What could be different about this one machine (Mac)? Does too many open programs cause similar problems or poor network communication? The database itself has 8 or 9 tables with many relations set. I would appreciate any insight you can give me.