Cryophallion

I think it best to play with it yourself - they have a free 30 day trial of filemaker on their website. Instant web publishing is enabled in this trial, so you can see if it will work for you.

And so the problem arises. Before, I had customers linked to the projects table by customer name. Under projects, you would use a drop down to select the customer from the customer name in the customer table. Now that value list will not change the linked customer id that is linked to the other table. I can't lookup the id, because it is the primary key. The customer does not want to have the customer id as the drop down (I do know I can list he customer name in the drop down, but the id is stores, and they want to see only the customer name, no the id, when they go to the layout). This happens several places in my database, and I am just wondering how I can get it to work the way it used to (which was wrong design wise, and probably would cause future problems, but did work functionally). I have also been looking for a good tutorial on all this, but no one seems to have one that uses proper ids, but only shows the customer name. Any help would be appreciated. (I repied because I believe this still applies to relationships as the underlying problem, not to value lists). Thanks

As the beer ads say: BRILLIANT! It worked perfectly, and was exactly the kind of solution I was looking for. I had never come across the replace function before, and thought I would have to export and re-import with serialized. The idea of using the lookup to put it in was just the trick to do it right. Thank you so much for helping me with this - everything is back to working fine... until the next problem rears its ugly head. Thanks again.

So, after making a functional database, and then putting it to use, I showed it to a programmer I know. I had put ID numbers on most things, but it looks like I didn't use them properly. The database is linked by text name, not the id number. Therefore, in a projects tab, I have the customer name for the project linked to the customer name. From what I hear, this is bad design, and I want to go back and fix it. So, I created a field in customers for ID. I want to link this to the projects table. Can I link it to the company name field, or do I have to create a customer id field in projects so it relates to customers properly? I can do the latter, but it will take redoing all the value lists, lookups, etc., which will take a while. I just wanted to know if there was a proper way to retroactively. I don't want to have to go back and fix it again after this, so I want to make sure it is perfect now. I shall now go and change my skill level to "moron". Just when I thought I had the hang of it....

Beautiful. However, I think I may have found one of my problems. When you set sliding up, a little arrow appeared in the field. When I set it up, it does not appear. Is there another place I need to click to enable sliding other than the sliding menu? Or is there an error in my install? This could easily explain why my sliding would not work, and why I was having so many problems. Bfrost, you will not be a newbie for long. Thanks so much for all your help, and your examples.

Well, I have tried what I believe was discussed above. I've tried almost 20 things since I started this, and I must admit I am starting to get fustrated over something that should be pretty easy. In an attempt to do what you recommended, I made a report, and made the top and bottom info from the PO itself, and the po items in the body field, in list form. However, sliding doesn't seem to work. The records that are only 1 line long still take up the 3 lines I have alotted. I know I'm close, and I appreciate all your patience and help. I have attached another file to hopefully aid you in understanding. I made it rought just to test the idea - the printout is not meant to be polished yet. Thanks PO_test_5.zip

I think I already tried that, but with no success, as I need to print multiple items from the po items table per po. If I go to a related record, I have only been able to get to a single related record. I'm sorry if I'm not getting it yet, but I am trying (which should be obvious with all the stuff above I've tried). Is there any way you could upload me a sample of what you are referring to? Sorry to take up all so much time on what should be a simple thing for me to figure out.

The way to do this is through the realtionships. I will use a item choosing file as an example. Start with your first value list (I used item category). Next, make the second value list (for me , item). This needs to be related to the first field for this to work (category in the items table, etc). In the define value lists area, check the bottom left botton for "only related values", then pick the relationship to filter through. I used different tables for each of these (item category, then items, etc.), and had them directly linked to one another. You may be able to do self-relationships within a table instead, and may have to use one to many realtionships for multiple levels. I would say do it by levels. Get the second level working and filtering first, then try to do the third, instead of trying to do both at the same time (and therefore not being able to easily troubleshoot). Good Luck

Sorry for the doubling of the post, but I thought it would reflag the topic due to the edit. I was wrong, and I apologize for the etiquette faux pas. However, I will not repost the file. I try not to be TOO much of a jerk. Update: I just tried to make a report based on the purchase order items layout. I then put all of the purchase order information in the header, and the items in the body. Unfortunately, it wouldn't show only the related items. I didn't even bother trying the sliding due to this. Then, I tried putting a merge field in for the po items. Same problem - not related data. Attached is a sample file, with most of the company information removed. (I know the database itself is far from perfect - I need to use the setvalue instead of globals, plus it isn't the best design, etc.) As a side note, I was trying to do a conditional dropdown followed by a lookup, but it only looked up after the first drop down (i.e., item category, then item by category, then the lookup for description, unit price, etc). Any ideas out there for that? (And I will probably start a new thread, but the database is already up here, so I thought I'd throw it out). Thanks for all your patience.

I wanted to add a conditional value list then a lookup to my database, but I have thus far been unable to get it to work. Here is the concept: I have a category value list. After selecting the category, a relational value list is used for the item. I then want a lookup used for description and unit price. However, the lookup happens as soon as I seect the category. Anyone know a way around this?

The way I have it set up is as follows: I have a layout that is for purchase orders. It includes the number, vendor, etc. Under that I have a portal that leads to the items for the purchase order. Each item is its own record in the purchase order items table. Therefore, I cannot simply go to the related record - as there are many of them. Plus, I need the information in the purchase order table (vendor, number, ship to, project it is linked to etc). Either way, I need to have both tables in the layout, and multiple items from the purchase order items table. Therefore, I used a portal. Is there another way I should be setting it up? Would it help if I uploaded an empty template of that part of the database? Update: I just tried to make a report based on the purchase order items layout. I then put all of the purchase order information in the header, and the items in the body. Unfortunately, it wouldn't show only the related items. I didn't even bother trying the sliding due to this. Then, I tried putting a merge field in for the po items. Same problem - not related data. Attached is a sample file, with most of the company information removed. (I know the database itself is far from perfect - I need to use the setvalue instead of globals, plus it isn't the best design, etc.) As a side note, I was trying to do a conditional dropdown followed by a lookup, but it only looked up after the first drop down (i.e., item category, then item by category, then the lookup for description, unit price, etc). Any ideas out there for that? (And I will probably start a new thread, but the database is already up here, so I thought I'd throw it out). Thanks for all your patience. Project_Database.zip

Let me see If I understand: You are viewing an "events" Layout. In it, you have a portal that shows people. You go to type in the portal, and suddenly, there is another row added as soon as you type. In that case, the second row will not be added... as long as you don't type anything in it. It is filemaker simply allowing you the place to create another record, but is not actually creating that record. For me, this results in a arrow appearing below my last record (since there is an arrow to go to the contact). However, there is no actual record associated with that line. Hope that helps.

The problem comes when I try to print the field - I'm ok with the way it displays on the screen. Even if I add a carriage return, the portal will not resize that row to accomodate the extra text. Good thoughts though.

I am using FMP Advanced 8 v 2. I created a company database, and included a purchase order function. The purchase order page has a portal to a purchase order items table. We imported our list of items from quickbooks, since we are now using the filemaker database. However, a number of the quickbooks items have descriptions which are too long for the portal window. I wish the program would text wrap, but it appears it won't. If I make the field big enough to fit all the text, then all the fields become the same size in the portal, and it becomes too large to print. I have tried using merges, but that doesn't automatically resize the size of the portal row. I tried doing it with sliding, but that didn't seem to work either. I thought about merging out to a word document, but I don't think the relational info in the portal would work. I also tried the roman style wrap, but it doesn't solve this problem. I have to believe that there is a workaround for this, but I have yet to find it (I saw some softwrap extensions for the Mac, but those obviously won't work for me). I would think (but would probably be wrong) that it should be pretty simple to add this feature to filemaker. Why has no one clamored for word wrap? If you know anything that may help me with the wrod wrap in a portal, please let me know.