Dave Sandburg

Thank you very much! This was very helpful and I appreciate your thorough explanation. Dave

Saren, are you suggesting that I need to redesign each layout on a PC? There are 37 layouts that would require months to rewrite/redesign. Surely there must be a simpler way to make this useable on a PC...I hope.

Saren, Thanks for the reply, but I'm still confused. In fact, I feel pretty dumb right now. Once I "get" he system platform, then what? Where do I put this script step? Does this then require an "If" function? I sure do appreciate the help. Thanks.

I've developed a runtime app with FM Pro 8.5 Advanced that I hope to sell to a targeted industry. I developed it on a Mac and all works fine. But when I tried it on a PC with Windows XP some fields don't print where they are supposed to in a text layout. In both browse and preview mode these fields appear where they are supposed to, but when I print to document they appear several character spaces away or even on the wrong lines. Is there a simple fix to this that I'm missing??

Søren: Thanks for the response. But how do I do what you suggest? What are "carthesianly related records". From what little I understand of your reply it sounds like what I'm trying to accomplish. Thanks for any help you can give me. Dave

I'm sure this sounds quite basic, but I can't get it to work: I have a solution with two tables. The second table lists counties and tax rates. Using the first table the user selects the county to use from a "Counties" value list that gets its information from the second table. Once the county is selected the appropriate tax rate is filled in on the first table, again getting the info from the second table. So far, so good. That part works OK. But when I try to place a portal for the counties and tax rates onto a layout in the first table, I only get the county that has been selected from the value list. Why can't I see all the counties and tax rates from the second table? I've studied the manual and even the File Maker Pro 8 Bible for three days and I can't figure out what I'm doing wrong. Please help! Dave

Thanks Phil, but I have another question: In the County table I have two fields, one for county and one for the tax rate. So it appears that I have to create a new record for each county, correct? Or is there another way to do it? Next, you said that the only other thing I'd have to do is a "routine to add a County to the second table if it isn't available in the value list". I've lost you on that one. Can you clarify this?

This may seem like a simple question, but to me it's mystifiing: I'm creating a DB solution that will display a list of counties and their appropriate sales tax rate. On one layout the user will enter all the counties he makes sales into along with each county's tax rate. I want these counties to be added to a value list so the user can select the appropriate county when making a sale on another layout. When the county is selected I'd like to have the appropriate tax rate for that county automatically compute the tax. I've added a second table to hold the counties and tax rates but that seems awkward because the user has to create a new record for each county. Is there a better way to do this? If not, how do I get the counties into a Value List on the original table? Thanks for your suggestions.

I would like to restrict access via passwords to certain layouts in my solution. Is there a quick and easy way to do this? Thanks. Dave

Vaughan: I found the opener file you posted and I've been trying to make it work, but unsuccessfully. I have the same problem someone else reported: I get a message that says some settings are different and should I select File Settings or System Settings. I check one or the other button and the application quits. if I hold down the shift key I can edit the script. That's one problem. Next, one of your comments says to enter a script step to Perform Script [external]. This is where I loose it! What is an External script and how do I create it? I've looked in all my books on FileMaker and can't seem to find this. I know some may find this question pretty basic, but if you don't know the answer.... I've read a lot of the posts on this forum and note that many of the responses assume the questioner has a pretty good grasp of Filemaker. But there are some of us (I quess) that don't have that level of sophistication. So if you could give answers that us 'newbies' can understand it would be a great help. Thanks!! Dave

Vaughan: I've been all over this thread and the forum you suggested, but I cannot find the sample Opener file script you mentioned for FM 7. Maybe I'm just blind or it's getting late, but I sure would appreciate some directions for finding it. Thanks Dave

Lynn & Vaughan, Thank you, and every one else who responded to my SOS. This is very helpful and I think I'm at last on the right track. I am switching to Mac OS 10.3 Server and FileMaker Pro 7, but the conventions described should work. If not, I'll cry help again! Thanks

Ron F. I thought I was beginning to understand but now I'm not sure... If I run FileMaker Server on the server, I still have to have FileMaker Pro on each of the connected machines, don't I? So all of the file processing is done by FM Server and not the application on the client machines?? If that's the case, is it even necessary to have FM Pro on the clients?? Sorry if these questions seem stupid, but I am totally new to networks using a server. Guess I have a lot to learn! The server I am using is a G4 500. Do you think that's fast enough? There really isn't a whole lot of processing with these rather simple databases. Thanks so much for your help and suggestions. Dave

John & SR: Thanks for your suggestions. Please forgive me if I'm asking some stupid questions, but I'm not quite sure where I am. Let me explain: I have a server (a 4 year old Mac G4 tower) running AppleShare IP with an OS 8.6 system. On that server I have my FM6 databases

Thanks a lot, guys. Yes, this helps a great deal. At this point I'm running FM 6, not FM Server. But I'm planning to upgrade to FM7. Since I only have 6 machines on the network, I thought File Maker Pro 7 would be all I need. Apparently, I need File Maker Server as well, is that correct?? That would reside on the server and each client machine would still have to have the FileMaker 7 application?