Oldfogey

Thanks Ocean West. Brilliant idea. Should get me going but still leaves me with dozens of FMP files half written in V10. Such is life!

I'm still using FMP 10. Well, I was until a few days ago. I made the mistake of deleting my FMP from WIN7. No worries - just re-install it. It keeps asking me for a 'qualifying product'. Although I have the CDs for a few earlier versions, I cannot find any of the associated paperwork; so, no luck. (We've been moving from house to house for a few years and lots of stuff has gone missing or been buried in unrelated boxes.) Please don't nag me about backup! My backup wants a password; guess where I keep a record of my passwords. Yep, in a FMP file. Does anyone have any idea how to get around the problem of missing 'qualifying product'? I haven't tried contacting FMP themselves, as I doubt if they'd like to help a v10 user.

Thanks for the suggestion, Olger. Does that mean you know that there is a problem? If so, my son would almost certainly have trouble with a runtime solution!

Does anyone know if there is a problem using FM10 Advanced to develop solutions while runnning WIN 7? I've been retired for a few years and supported one (ex)-customer using WIN 7 with no problems making minor mods. Recently, I got a request from my son to write a fairly trivial DB for his business. I've had funny glitches like a double-click on a button not letting me edit the button's text; closed the DB and re-opened it - no worries! Today I nearly went insane trying to get 'Constrain Found Set' to behave! On top of that, my memory isn't what it used to be, so when things do not behave as I think they should, I wonder is it me or the FMP/WIN7 combination or all three. Any clues? (To answer the obvious question, I cannot justify an upgrade to V12, especially as I'd have to pay full price.)

I've been sort of retired for a few years and my son has asked me to design a very simple DB for him. I have FMP V10 (Advanced) and Win 7. He has Win 8. Will a runtime v10 solution run on win 8? (I'd love to upgrade to V13 but FMP's prices are ridiculous for retirees, no matter how keen.)

Thanks, Iawaid. You had me worried for a moment. My field names are all fine. I'm guessing you objected to the '&'s. My 'Field1 & Field2' referred to the calculation. My fields are Field1 and Field2.

I just noticed that I am descibed as a 'veteran' here. On another forum I joined recently, they listed me as a 'Junior Member'. This is very confusing. I never know whether to wear hipsters or proper trousers. As for my hair do ... Wouldn't it be an idea for all internet forum moderators to come up with standards?

Can anyone throw some light on this problem? I have a simple table of addresses, linked to a person table. There are two auto-enter by calc fields. One is Line1 & Line2; the other is Suburb & State & Postcode. Really complex stuff. Both have 'do not update' unflagged. Both have do not calc if all empty. The basic fields are entered in a portal when new people are added. Recently, for a new batch of people, these calcs have stopped working on initial entry - but only for some people. On my system, if I change the Suburb, for instance, the calc works. At first glance, it looks as though the Address records in the portal are not being committed - ever! My customer is using V8.5 (on WIN XP) but, recently, I upgraded to V10 (on Win 7) In theory, this should be irrelevant but I can't help wondering.

Recently, I took my new laptop away from home with me. Amongst the many things I hadn't got around to doing was putting my password DB on it. I couldn't log on to the Forum so I ticked 'Forgotten password'. This was quite a few days ago and I'm still waiting for the promised email. Back home now and all is sorted but thought I should mention it. Does clicking that send an email from my machine? If so, that would explain it; I was using someone else's ISP, so no outward email. (Platform Windows 7, which isn't in drop down list.)

Thanks for that info, Comment. Looks very interesting and I just wish I'd seen it a few years ago. (Sorry about the delayed response; been sort of out of action.)

I've done a lot of work with labels/cards of all kinds of sizes. Only once have I ever found a standard FMP label layout work properly. I just use custom sizes all the time. Very little messing about required.

I'm guessing that your exports are scripted. Correct? If not, ignore this. Exporting from FMP can be a nightmare if you are developing or, worse, modifying a DB. Every time, you delete, add or rename a field, you need to re-code the scripted export. Otherwise, you are likely to get output you were not expecting. As far as I'm aware, there is no simple solution to this. If there is, I'd love to hear it.

I have a customer who is a bit worried about my long grey beard and glittering eye and wants some Australian contacts in case I drop dead. (Or if they get fed up with my errors.) It's a not-for-profit outfit but reasonably wealthy. Their office is the database secretary's laptop. She is located on the Gold Coast but commutes fairly regularly to Sydney, Brisbane and Melbourne. I'm in Sydney and, although it has been most valuable to meet physically during the main development stages, we've managed quite well using email and phone. I have sort of finished development of their main membership database. There is still a fair bit of work to do. One large(?) segment is just a table with some old copied layouts. The DB Sec didn't know what was required so I just copied the basics from their old DB. At this stage, I just want to hand over a few names, so if I can use your name or if you have any more questions, please contact me at info@softwareheaven.com.au or 02 9905 7006 after Sept 7. (FMP 8.5)

I think you'll find this is an undocumented feature in Excel. I don't remember the exact details but I had a problem with formatting empty cells in Excel 2003 - it just wouldn't take properly. I remember! (I think) I formatted a group of numeric, or maybe date, fields; the group included some empty cells. When I entered data into the empty cells, the data stayed unformatted. Sorry to be so vague but formatting was the least of my worries at the time.

My apologies for apparently ignoring you, Gentlemen. (If you don't tell me your troubles, I won't tell you mine.) This problem more or less resolved itself. Firstly, the customer is on XP, not Vista - phew! Secondly, the problem doesn't exist. There was a bug in my coding which necessitated multiple clicks on the 'Return' button; this became a time problem! Don't ask me how.