Emma in England

Oh, a complete change! Thanks so much. My Mac also has Windows, so in fact I'd only be installing it on the one machine... in a way! The client was perfectly happy to buy FMP, even telling me I wasn't charging enough for my work. I'm sure that isn't typical! Hoping to get some more similar work once I've gone to the expense of FMPA, although it's not my day job. Problem solved, thanks!

OK, I'm googling away and gather this feature has gone. So if I simply uninstall the client's copy from my Mac, will it run happily when installed on her PC or will she get licensing problems? Just want to avoid any potential embarrassment, not to mention a wasted journey.

Until recently, stuck on FMP 9, I could de-activate a computer by going to the Help menu. I bought FMP 12 for a client, and used a copy of it to do development work for her. Now I can afford (just!) to buy my own FMP 12 Advanced, I want to release the copy so that my client can use it. Does 'deactivate' still exist in FMP 12? Thanks Emma

I would import the Excel into a new table, and show it in a portal on the equipment's record. Do you have a record for each piece of equipment? And does that record have a unique ID? If so, does that ID also appear in the Excel spreadsheet? Or is each spreadsheet related to one piece of equipment? Since this is only once a year, would importing the spreadsheets manually be a problem? It could be automated if they have sensible names...

Sorted! I just needed to see where I was going, I think asking the question helped. Although the way I worded it didn't! I just added a calculation field to the related field so each word was a single value, with a return at the beginning and at the end, and in the home field put a return above and below the Postcode field, that way I could look for whole words. Sorry to be wasting your bandwidth.

REWORDED QUESTION I want to see in a portal records where ANY VALUE in a field in the home table = ANY VALUE in a field in the related table. So if the home table has 'LS WF BD' and the related table has 'Hillsborough' there will be no match (in spite of 'ls' occurring) but if home has 'LS Leeds WF BD' and the related table has 'Leeds Bradford Halifax' there will be a match I can manipulate either field to be return-separated values or something, if that helps. I just can't see my way ahead right now. Thanks, Emma

5 years on... and thanks from me! For years I've been writing import scripts with extra steps to find and delete the empty rows. Do I feel stupid. Funny how you ignore parts of Filemaker that you don't realise you need! THANK YOU!

Fenton, your ugly hack is the best option I've seen (apart from a long article about 'Field Aliases' which turned out to be an April Fool...). There is a truly terrifying option here http://www.filemakerhacks.com/?p=3520 but I think that is way beyond me! Ugly hack, here I come (hey if it all happens in the script and gets deleted after, who's to know?)

I'd love to be able to do this too.... The field names are not what I actually want to appear, plus there is a list of codes for the recipient of the spreadsheet to refer to which I'd like to keep.

Thanks Brian - I was just researching this sort of thing... but 'comment' has solved the problem for me! I have now got as far as changing: 25 32 40 41 42 50 61 62 into 25 32 40-42 50 61/62 Now somehow I need to work on that until it's: 25, 32, 40-2, 50, 61/2 Not to mention pulling the most heavily populated page to the front of the list and making it bold (in InDesign)! This is going to be a long struggle but I WILL get there!

Yes! You were right. Thanks so much. I'm wading about in stuff I barely understand, and missed that. I know it's a common mistake.... I wish I could describe this more clearly - I'm sure I'll have more questions! It's actually an existing system written in a very old version of Access....

Yes, I've done that. But the List function uses the unsorted values. I tried defining the values as a Value List, which sorts perfectly, but I can't see how to get that into a manipulatable field! I'm happy to try another approach. I've got my head buried in a text book and hoping for inspiration...

I am writing a database to create a complex and sophisticated index to a large catalogue. I have a table of Categories - these are the actual text that appears in the printed index. These are related to a table Page Entry which has a page number and a ProductName. The ProductName is related to one or more Categories. So, the Category 'Barbecue' appears on pages 25, 32, 40, 41, 42 and 50. I have to manipulate these numbers and eventually output 'Barbecue [tab] 25, 32, 40-42, 50' I have got the numbers into my 'Category' field by 'List ( Page Instances::Page No )'. However, if the entry on page 42 is added later than the one on page 50, I end up with: 25, 32, 40, 41, 50, 42 How can I force that list to sort numerically? Must I script a bubble sort? Sorry if I've got terms wrong, or if my whole approach is wrong - I'm self-taught and pretty much alone, so be kind and I'll try to learn!

Thanks from me too! Solved my problem.

I'm doing something very similar. I use a separate table for Products and Images. The images are not always named consistently, but usually start with the product code. I have a calculation field in the Images table which takes the first 'word' of the image and derives a product code from it. That field becomes the match for the relationship between product and image. This is also useful as there can be many images for one product. I've also added a script that placed the image straight into Quark when clicked, but that's another story (but a great time-saver).

More grateful thanks - I was browsing for the answer to something else, but this is a great tip. Cheers guys/gals!

I have a report that looks like this in preview: Fred Smith -this is the sub-summary part 1/2/09 8 hours - 1 record 2/3/09 8.5 hours - 1 record 3/3/09 8 hours Mary Jones 1/2/09 6 hours 2/3/09 7 hours 3/3/09 8 hours I don't want Fred's or Mary's records to split across a page, but I don't need everyone to start on a new page. At the very least I'd like 'Mary Jones' to repeat at the top of the next page if some of her records don't fit. I suspect this can't be done, but would love to be proved wrong... I hope the question makes sense.

This seems to happen with only one Word doc, I have flagged it to them and they promised to sort it! Add another doc, and all will be well.

OK, sorry I can't help with that! Hope you get what you're looking for.

You might want to look at http://www.binhex.co.uk/word_to_FM.html (we've used it very successfully, which is why my endorsement appears on the page!) However if you want this as part of a script step, without access to Applescript, it may not solve your problem.

Lots of food for thought there - thanks! I'll keep playing with it. More tables looks like the way forward, so far it's all been self-joins!

Re-marriage is indeed a problem. These wretched Victorian men would marry a woman, foist on her a child a year until they died, then marry another! I've gone up to '2nd Spouse' and will just have to duplicate other relationships. So far that's been the limit....

Thanks, that didn't quite get me there, but when I did another calculation 'MeAndSpouse', which was ID & ¶ & SpouseID for men and other way round for women, I was able to create a relationship based on that and yours! Thanks for pointing me in the right direction. Luckily the world economy is NOT going to depend on this database!

Just for fun, I'm researching my family and putting everyone into Filemaker. Each person has a 'Father' and a 'Mother' field where I input the IDs of the parents. I have a 'siblings' relationship where other individuals sharing the same Father and Mother are displayed in a portal. I would like to show an individual's children in a portal too. But I want a relationship where 'FatherID = ID' OR 'MotherID = ID' and that doesn't seem to be an option. I know I'm probably thinking of this in the wrong way, can anyone put me straight?

Isn't it great how after a break you see it all more clearly? No, I wasn't in find mode. But I was displaying the wrong field - it was one created by the original designer, which had the right sort of name, but I forgot I'd created a new one in case his was doing something important elsewhere! Now it all works great. Sorry to have wasted your time....