jamesooooo

Ok, thanks for the suggestion! James

So if i want to go to filemaker developer I should just wait for the new version to come out? seeing as how i will have to pay full price anyways ? i went on the filemaker website and it lists filemaker developer 6 as $499 i would hate to but it then 7 comes out and i have to shell out another $200 or so a month or so later to get 7. James

So, it seems like 6 isn't much of an improvement over 5.5 it sounds. at least for a windows machine. but you think if i get 6 now i may be able to get a free upgrade to 7 when it comes out? that wouldn't be bad. anyone know what the cost to upgrade from 5.5 to 6 is? and is it possible to upgrade from pro 5.5 to 6 developer? James

Whats the difference between Filemaker pro 5.5 and 6? is it worth upgrading? or just wait for the next version? just wondering if i could be making my life easier now. hehe James

I am using windows xp. I will look into the plugins. and suggestions on one?

You got it don.. hehe I looked at that example Lee thanks. It just runs a loop that sets a field to status(currenttime) but i tried that and it stops me from being able to run other scripts etc. is there a way around that? i put a pause in there.

Is this not possible? or is it so easy i am missing something?

Is there a way i can display the current time on the screen in real time? i tried a calculated field with status(currenttime) but it is like a clock with no battery. hehe and ideas? i want to use it to display something in real time based on the current time.

Thank you very much Ugo!. I will look at it.

well, because scheduling can be very on predictable. it just adds flexiblty to the scheduler but as i have learned its making it tough for me to make it work. It seems whatever way i try this I have a ton of typing. I intend to make it so that whatever a tech does it will showup in this display. so i think i will have records in the job file for when he is at the shop or some other time not on a regular job. so i can make a report to see if techs are spending too much time not being productive etc. just a thought. the reason for it is lots of them i have worked with before i had my own company tended to waste alot of time and the company suffered for it. i want to be able to see where the waste is. and this like going to get gas or pickup parts etc may only take 15 minutes. so i figured that would be a good cutoff time instead of a field for every 30 minutes. but of course it makes things rough trying to figure out the best way to do this. I was thinking maybe I could do the following : have the jobs file which has the jobs info which would have the techs name and the date of the job and the job number and the time started and ended plus other info. and have a line items file related to it that will use say 15 relationships and have each of the 96 calculations use a case function to check the related records in jobs to see if the container field has an image in it if so then it equals that. why 15 relationships? well i figure in a shift i can't see having more that 15 different events go on. now what i think need to do to make it all work is be able to have 15 relationships that i can predict. like the job number being the date&serialnumber but the serial number would reset each day. so relationship 1 would always be the shedule date&1 and the first job of the day would always be the schedule date&1. i don't know how to do that as of yet. i only thought of this the other night and havent had much time to think about it. basicly have a calculation that used the case function to check the 15 relationships to the related db which would check all 15 possible jobs for the day to see if there is an image in that field. and all 96 fields would do the same check. in this way I hope to show and image in the given field if in any of the jobs that day fell in that time frame. can i have a case function leave the contents of a field alone if say isempty(pm8) is false?

OK, If i understand this right each person will have his or her own db which will have a record for each project he or she does and it will have 5 fields in it call a1,a2,a3,a4,a5 and each of those will have a value between 1 to 5 right? and you want to total up those ( a1-a5 ) for all the records and then get that devided by the number of records?

yea, i have a bit of a project going on. the 96 container fields will serve to draw a line in a portal showing the time frames that a service tech has been doing different things in the course of the day. I have found out what i want to do is pretty complicated and have been trying to figure out what to do for about a week. thinking till my brain hurts.

Hmm, would this work if i had 96 container fields? i will have to repeat this calculaction in 96 fields. each record has 96 of these fields. and the file doing the checking will have 96 calculation field result being a container. thank you for all your help.

How could i make that work with 15 related records? say, have a case check the containts of the same field in 15 related records and only = the one field that has an image in it? and if none have an image in it just leave it empty.

How can i have a calculation field thats result will be a container check 15 records in a related db and if one of them has a bitmap in it then the calculation field will then contain that bit map otherwise leave the field alone? did i say that right? hehe basicly i say 15 because thats what i expect to be the max number of related records in any given day. then i want to check the related field in the related record to se if its empty. if so check the next related record and so on till i either have no more related records or i find one with a bitmap in it. i need to have it in a calculation field because i intend to have another db look at the results through a portal. is this possible?

Thanks for the ideas, I will see what i can do

Opps, is tough.. I got the filter to work doing what use suggested. Ok, I will try to explain my project clearer " not easy for me. hehehe ) Ok, i have 2 portals in my layout in the DB schedule. the first one does the following : 1PM 2PM 3PM 4PM 5PM 6PM 7PM etc, customer -------------- Ok, what its doing is looking in the DB named jobs and in jobs there are a bunch of calculation fields 96 to be exact. named like this : pm1 pm115 pm130 pm145 pm2 etc. and each has a calculation that if that field lands in the time window that the job in that record ( in jobs ) it will equel a global field wich is a container that holds a bitmap of a line. so what ends up happening is if you make a record in jobs and give it a schedule time of say 2pm till 4pm then the calculation fields pm2 thru pm4 will have a bitmap in them with a line and the portal in schedule will diplay them as one long line from 2pm to 4pm. and it will have the job number and customers name as well. so when i look at the portal i will see all the jobs scheduled for the day with a graphical line to help with seeing the schedule mapped out for the day so i don't schedule too many for any given time frame. ok. hehe now. i want to have the second portal do kinda the same thing. but, instead of having it displaid by job numer and customer name i want it to display by the tech, so it will look something like this: 1pm 2pm 3pm 4pm 5pm 6pm 7pm joe tech --------- -------- -------- bob tech ------- -------- -------- ------ were each of the lines you see on a techs line in the portal represents a job he did. kinda tricky as i bet you can see. I think i need a line items type of db wich will hold the techs name and the date and the time frames he has been working on jobs then display them in the portal in scedule. i think thats what i need to do. what do you think?

Sorry, i posted after you. I was in the middle of my post when a friend came over. hmm. i will try that, but i am still going to try and find a work around to get the values from different jobs into the same portal line. the reason for what i want is to make it draw a line something like this: 1pm 2pm 3pm 4pm 5pm 6pm 7pm 8pm joe tech ------------- ---------- ------- Each line represents a job he has done today or say a lunch break or a trip to the shope etc. i have done this with the jobs list and it works great. but i only had to draw 1 line per portal row. as each row was a job with only one time frame. but the techs portal will have multiple time frames per row as his shift goes on. i have been go nuts trying to figure this one out. i use a container field that has a bitmap i made of a line in windows paint and a bunch of calculation fields in a row that will equal that conrtainer with the bitmap if the field is in the time slot of that job. works really nice. just this one that has to look at into from multiple records to draw more that one line if tough.

OK, i have another idea. I can use count(relationship::field) and find how many matching records in my line items db. is there a way i can use a calculation field to check a given field in each of those records ?

Hmm, Can I get data from a portal in line item and display it in another portal in another db? meaning can one portal look into and get data from another portal?

OK, I am working on a scheduler for my company and hit a stumbling block. i have a general idea on what i think may work but need advice from some of you FM wizards. . OK, i have a db that is called jobs. it has all the information for a given job i enter in when a customer calls. Then i have a db called schedule that has a portal to jobs and lists the jobs that are scheduled and draws a line across the screen to show visually the time slot it is in say 8am-10am ( scheduled window for my arrival time at my customers home ) that works great. now what i want to do is have another portal ( i think thats the way to do it ) that will list mt techs ( only me atm and show what they have been doing and or are doing that day. like i click a job in the first portal and it takes the job from the first portal and puts it in the portal on the row with my name and draws the line starting at the time i was dispatched. then repeat that over and over all day as i get dispatched to new jobs. so i would have all my jobs on one row. and the other techs would have the same. i have been thinking about this for days and its a real brain teaser for me. I was thinking of doing the following maybe someone can tell me if they think i am going in the right direction. Ok, i add another line items type db that has a portal to jobs and it has using the date and tech name to know wich files records to bring into the portal. then schedule looks to line items and the portal in it for the list of current jobs assigned to me for the day. i know this doesn't cover all the things i need to do but does this sound like i am heading in the correct direction? also how do i make it so the first portal in schedule only list records in the portal if a given fields value is "Unassigned" ? any help would be great. my brain has been cooking for days on this one.

Thanks for your help. i decided to just live with the fact it is showing X amount of rows and use a scroll bar. I plan to have another portal under it now so it seems like the way to go.

I would think you would say something like : if year(status(currentyear)) - n_year < 10 , "EXEMPT"

I'm Not sure i understand. what i want to do is be able to show only one row if there is only 1 related record and 2 rows if 2 related records and so on.

Can i setup a way to make the portal show only the number of rows that actually have data? right now all i know how to do is set how many rows to show. i would like it to change depending on how many records are found through the portal. is this possible?