Mark Jones

At church last night. I work with boys of all ages and my group is 7th grade to high school. After flying drones that dogfight. I asked them this simple question. How do you convert Millimeters per second to Inches per minute? Also how do you convert Millimeters per minute to Inches per minute? Some used their smart phone and asked that "Google Lady" as my grandkids say. Others looked at me like a cow looking at a new fence post. As usual they all said Oh...that's easy. I asked a high school math teacher that just retired. ummmmmm.......well....errrrr... I just GRIN at them. You all have helped me so much over the last 30 years. What is simple to you comes hard for many. I know my skills are limited in many ways and in other ways way exceed the average person. In real world. What I do works. It may be Chitty Chitty Bang Bang... but it works for me and the hundreds of folk that I keep track of all kinds of stuff with. Here is a video of the chitty chitty bang bang Laser Settings Database I hammered together this last week. As I learn I modify and change it to work better. Love Filemaker Pro. https://drive.google.com/file/d/1sHcok1JJIuylvDKaa0sa4fLNZ41OjYVX/view?usp=sharing

Thanks Comment. Has Lorretta been teaching you people skills. She told me I didn't know how to program. Ha! My 4th grade math teacher told me I was a A student 55 years ago give or take a few unimportant digits. You're in your gifting in Filemaker programing. What seems like a no brainer to you is a brain freeze to me. However, if you were to come into my fields of expertise you would be thinking your the 4th grader. Ha! Your smarter than the AI program that gave me the first calculations. I could take what you gave me and make it work and after figuring out I had it wrong was able to go in and fix it. It's working great. Thanks so much. No one really appreciates being told they are dumb especially on Valentines Day. I forgive you. Thanks for your help. Mark Jones http://readyrangers.tzo.com

I must have it backwards. This is what I am working towards. Input the inches per minute in one field then calc the millimeters per second. Input the Millimeters per second in one field then calc the inches per minute. My millimeters understanding is down to this. 6 mil is 1/4" 12 mil is 1/2" much past that and I am lost as a goose. I have a chart that converts inches to millimeters and fractions but the speed thing has me pulling my hair out. Some lasers use millimeters per second and others use Inches per Minute depending on the software. When I see the mm per second I am wanting a quick way to get the conversion for that number into something I can use in my Sofware.

Ok. My eyes are blood shot and my brain hurts. GRIN! I have been working on a laser settings database. I make all kinds of stuff for our Church Scout Program called Royal Rangers. I do it for not for profit. You guys and gals have helped me many times over the past 20 to 30 years and THANKS again for that. In this filemaker pro 12 file I have a layout #6 that I am trying to get this calculation to work that converts Millimeters per second to inches per minute. I found a site that tells me how to do it and that screen capture is on that same page as my calculation attempts. Can one of you kind folks nudge me back from my headache and show me the error of my ways on this calculation. Here is the file link. https://drive.google.com/file/d/18zUhImOSzi35xzcTjCKTAwXDk8Yk5Ii8/view?usp=sharing I am still using the last edition that creates runtimes. I would like to upgrade to a newer version but loosing this one feature keeps me from doing so. I love the filemaker program. It allows "NON programers like me" to still make some really cool stuff. Thanks again for your time. Happy Valentines Day! Mark Jones

Thanks so much. You and LaRetta have been so helpful for so many years. What seems so easy for you both is a world away from my mind. Thanks for sharing your gifts in this area. Will chew this over and over and over again and see if I can clunk this into my calendar program. Appreciate the time and good work. Mark Jones

First off I am not a programmer. I am a woodworker that gets clunky stuff to work. GRIN! So I have a calendar in my Church Boy Scouts Program called the Ranger Database. I am not for profit but have been doing this since Filemaker 3.0. I enjoy making clunky stuff that serves the needs of our Royal Rangers. I am using FM 18 Advanced and still publishing solutions. My eyes are bloodshot looking for a idea on how to make a date like 01-28-1959 automatically show up each year by only one data entry. Have a field next to the date field that says Annual date and it would then create on the fly that same date for the next 10 years. I would appreciate a nudge in the right direction on this. Any help is very much appreciated. Thanks! Mark Jones

Thanks Comment. I just made 5 layouts and used the pause script step and some format options and color changes to jazz it up a bit. It looks hokey but it works. Many years ago I believe it was you that gave me some help with a picture booklet for our Royal Rangers Group. That help brought in donations for our District Royal Rangers for many years almost a 1000 in donations over the years. Were still using that booklet code however we only update every so often now. Thanks for the help.

I have a Random Number Generator but was wanting to jazz it up with something like a Wheel of Fortune spin to it as it cycles through numbers for a few seconds. I am retired and have FM from 3.0 up to 18 now and my skills are so I have been told here " you don't know how to program" yet I am still at it falling all over myself trying to get something clunky to work. SO! I help with a Church Scouting Group called Royal Rangers. I made some give aways out of wood and we pulled numbers out of a hat to give them away. I wanted a virtual way of picking random numbers that can be displayed up on a screen to add some excitement. Right now I am just switching between layouts with a pause in my script to get a effect. Yet it's pretty boring. Any suggestions on how to jazz it up.

Thanks for the information. I saw it being done both ways on youtube help videos and was curious. Filemaker is a great product and does so much. Mark Jones

What is the advantanges or disadvantages of using ID files as a Numeral or a Text. I am seeing both being used and since I am brand new to relational databases using id _kp and _kf fields I am trying to get started right. Thanks. I did search the forum for this info and didn't find it. It seems to work either way in my experiments. Mark Jones

Thanks guys and gals. What I have working now is way ahead of where I was a month ago. There is always a better way but often there is many ways to get something done. I did pickup some great tips from the files. Even changed several things that worked great. The date range was a great help. I have been updating several of my file that use date ranges. I keep plugging away in my ole set ways. In 34 years at at&t one doesn't stay set in their ways long. Technology changes..but I have learned that somethings just work better for me and I use those ways. NOT TO SAY I won't use the record ID's as I have already started my main files with them..but it's a new way and putting it to work for me in my database files may take some time. Yet I will adapt. . So Larreta..don't write me off. I may apprear to be full of baloney and not smart enough and that is quite often true....yet I keep after it. Give it some time. You may grow to smurk and then grin when I ask a really stupid question. Yet look out.. I out preform most folks. Mark Jones

Thanks for your help. It may not have been intended but I did come away with a less than a properly normalized response. No biggie. Just caught me off guard. Sorry for any ill will I may have caused. Mark Jones

Wow! I see what the world is going to. I saw some of this while reading other posts around here. Seems the enlightend no longer have room for us that have said from the git go we are not programers and your methods are way above our methods. YET keep in mind our methods do work and have worked well for over 20 years. So now that we have established the fact again that I am no programer but I do use Filemaker since 3.0 to 12 and have spent several thousand dollars so I can give out for free over 35 solutions that do work and are a blessing to folk and yes your right I have not engaged in Record ID's and relational tables that are locked in by a id. YET I do get along fine with the Full Name ID relational for my purposes. I am seeing the dissadvantages of the ID number versus the full name. Import and export is a major one. I did examine yours and Dougs badges files and they did do what I had asked for but they did a lot less than what I already had and was more of a hinderence (because of my limited programing skills as we all know) so I stayed with what works. I take what works for "me" and put it to work even if it's a flat database system. I used to think I could come here and get some questions answered. Only a few times have I come here to ask. Yet in the past I never had this kind of attitude to deal with. Kind of like feeding a dog that bites. Will be more careful next time or take it underground. There are folks that still like to help and over look the fact that most don't know as much as they do. I do appreciate the help and your indulgence to discuss these things. Just please keep a open mind. Mark Jones Also keep in mind. I daily visit folks business and residences that have had weeks of poor or no broadband services. Realizing my niche in this is I can fix it where others fail badly at it does not give me the right to talk down to them. It's just not their expertise. So even if they are cranky.. I help if I can. Mark Jones

For 20 years with the Flat file format I have been able to export and import records with ease and no loss of data. I tried exporting records into the relational badges files. With out using the Full name as the "ID" the data is a mess. I get folks send me excell records that have been easily imported into the records. Filemaker does a excellent job of this. The relational lookups while I see they have their place also have a major draw back in the design as well. Not so easy to work with or get data out of them. The Flat file system using Full Names as the ID with relationships works better in this case. Yes in the place of duplicate full names. That could be a issue but it rarely happens in my 2000 folks to track. I did get the badges files to go with mulitiple portals even showing 20 records but the label layout using a find is working the best for me at this time. I am still playing with the badges files and may modify them to use full names so they will import and export data where needed. Even the badges work better using the full names lookup. Mark Jones

I have been publishing runtime files since 1995 ish. Upgraded to FM 12 from 11 a few weeks back. Did some work on my runtime and updated some stuff and added a few new features. My runtime called the Ranger Database is a free "church boyscout" program that has over 33 relational databases that track all kinds of stuff. With the new FM 12 the old sav files I created several years back had to be remade. My programs started when filemaker didn't have multiple tables in the same file so I have a bunch of files. Most of my databases are Flat. Perhaps 10 of them are relational. Relational are cool for quick lookups and fancy data entry but are a pain for imports and exports. I have enjoyed going over the forums these past few weeks finding nuggets of "help" that I have added to the solutions I give out for not for profit. Filemaker has helped our Royal Rangers keep track of all kinds of stuff and there is always something better and easier on upgrades. The runtimes compiled nicely and this forum is a good source of ideas. I did find that Youtube offers some great help as you can see what is being done and I was able to pickup some good stuff there. Some of you folks on here are out of this world when it comes to programing with Filemaker. For us down to earth folks. Thanks for putting up with us beggers that need your help making our solutions work for us. I am putting up a update on the server right now and it went really smooth. Thanks for a great product Filemaker and thanks to all of you that help us make it work for our needs. Mark Jones

Thanks LaRetta. I am starting to go relational and am adding record id and idfk serial numbers to my database files. This worked like a charm to update my previous entries. I also picked up quite a few tips in the past few days making things work more effecient. Your scolding made me step back and look again for the good. Thanks. Mark Jones

Lee thanks for coaching me on the file uploads to the forums. I have been uploading stuff for lots of years and many forums. Each time I did follow the correct proceedure as you outlined. I tried from various computers and various connections. Cell and DSL. I fix Broadband lines for at&t. Not sure why it was bombing out. File sizes were below the 50 meg size and were both zipped and unzipped. Something was stopping the process. Perhaps Avast. It's only here that I had the trouble. Again thanks for the help. Mark Jones

In the portal layout how would you address a boys merits that had 30 merits in one awards ceremony? The label layout seems to over come the limitations of the advanced relational tables. I am not stuck in my ways it's just sometimes the new ways are not as flexible or most likely I don't see the answer. GRIN! Can the 8 layout portal container fields be extended to unlimited amount of portals? So if the boy has more than 8 merits they still display on the next page? That would fix the delima. My abilities in programing are not any where close to the vast majority here. Yet if there is a way I can generally stumble across it. GRIN! I do appreciate the time you and Doug have put into the portal setup. I have already learned some things from them. Mark Jones

Thanks LaRetta. I can make it work with the flat file labels layout for now. I just have to manually enter the boys name and have the script continue. It's flat but it works. GRIN! I did look at both Doug's and your sample files. The relationships and tables are interesting and I have not really done any thing above Flat database work. I make scripts that cut and paste the info into the data files. It's clunky but it works. I am able to track all kinds of stuff using the flat database system most of my data base files only have one table in them. I am not a programer that is for sure. If your Broadband is broken..I can find and fix any fault..but programing... does not come easy. You and Dougs simple database files with these merits are way above my level of programing. Yet Filemaker allows me to do way above the rest of the database programs I have seen and I love the power and simplisity of the program. Mark Jones

That file you downloaded yesterday where i was having the layout handle issue that you told me to change the fill to non transparent. That layout is a label layout. I have it working for one boy at a time where it finds the boys merits by date range then prints it out to a pdf file. I would like to do this automaticly. Can you look at that RRadvane.fmp12 file and see what I am trying to do. Much appreciated. Mark Jones

I changed the fill on those container fields. While doing that I notice when I right clicked on the boys picture container it didn't give me the option of fill. It showed up in the inspector and once clicked white fill it showed up on the right click as a option as before it wasn't a option. Thanks for figuring this out it was getting frustrating. Mark Jones

I figured this was a new feature that I had not ran accross yet. I must be doing the same thing in most of my other 35 files. It's a common thing in these files as well. Will play with it and see if I can fix the issue. Thanks for your help. Mark Jones

Layout mode - Body part, - Container Fields that hold graphics. Handles are slow to respond. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=88HoO0EQowM Here is a video on youtube that explains it. Sorry for the hum. Mark Jones

I appreciate the help. This is a video of what I am trying to automate. Ideas on how to do this? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cxpUV_pIS1Y