Nagasaki

I apologize in advance if this is not the place for this question, but here I go. My organization wants to make a searchable online database of objects that we record in a FileMaker database - basically we want people to search our objects by artist, style, etc. Our problem is that we are not sure what programs are necessary to mitigate the information from the FM database to the web. Does FM Server or Server Advanced fulfill this function? Our current webmaster wants us to buy a program to mitigate our FM data into a MySQL database, then another two programs to organize the information into a nice layout & then deploy it onto the web (I'm not sure if I can name the programs here). To me that just sounds ridiculous, to buy an extra 4 programs. Any advice? In the end, I am pushing for the company to hire someone who is a FileMaker expert to consult with us, but before that, I just want an idea of what programs one needs to deploy a FileMaker database onto the web. Thanks for your time.

Wowie wowie, you're right. I just did a tutorial from filemakeradvisor. So if I understand this correctly - if there is no relationship, then all the layout parts in a database refer to just one record. If there is a relationship, with each table having its own seperate layout, then each layout holds its own records?

Wouldn't that create a new record automatically in the student layout? Which would then remain empty because you never meant to create a new record there in the first place?

Hello, I am trying to get the relationship thing down, and one thing I don't understand is how to keep two tables in one database, when you want to create new records for each table one at a time. One of the most often used examples when trying to explain how to build relationships between tables is that of students and classes. I understand that you'd want one table for students containing all the relevant student id (unique id #, name, address, etc.), one for classes (all relevant class info like the title, time it takes place, as well as the unique id) and a join table (like enrollment or something). Well if they are all in the same database, on different layouts (like a student layout to enter student info, a class layout to enter in new class info, and an enrollment layout to show the two merged), how do you create a new record in the class layout without creating a new record in the student layout? My initial reaction to this situation would just be to create a seperate database for students and classes, but it seems like the trend here is to put them all in the same database in different tables. I just don't see how this works, and was wondering if someone could help explain. Thank you for your time.

I'm not sure if this is the place for it, but I wanted to toss out a question to those of you who do this for a living - did take extensive classes in it, or did you learn on your own? Do you have degrees in Computer Engineering or something similiar?

Just so I can learn how to do this multiple ways, I am also trying the portal route...let me know if I am way off here - I tried to set it up by have a self join through the field "decorative process options." It is a pop-up field attached to a value list of all the decorative process options we have. However, I can only select one item to show up on the portal - I try selecting multiple, and instead of adding it, it just replaces what I had selected previously. I know I am doing something (many things?) wrong, the question now is what?

Thanks for the suggestions everyone. I just tried LaRetta's and it worked like a dream, except I can't delete the selections once they've been made... does anyone know what to do about this? I asked LaRetta, but she (or he? ) is traveling and suggested I post it here to see if I could get some other feedback. Thanks!

Hello, Where I work we have a database of items, and when possible, we note how things are made. Instead of having people free hand write down what the decorative processes of an item are, we want them to choose from a menu listing the processes (like cross-hatching, stippling, incising, etc). The purpose of this is maintaining vocab control. Is there a way to choose multiple options from a drop-down menu? I want the user to be able to choose as many options as they need, but without have to show the entire long list of terms on the page (like I know I can choose multiple things using radio buttons, but I don't want to have 20 + terms displayed outright on the page because I think it would look inelegant). If I can clarify, let me know. After this, I tackle conditional value lists!

Hello, I have two linked databases that my boss would like to take home with her to work on. One is huge (153 MB), because we store images on there, and my computer freezes up while trying to burn it - I was just wondering from you experienced people what the best way to work around this is - to take off the pictures maybe and just save the written data?

Whenever I import from excel, filemaker will take all the blank spaces at the end of my excel sheet and create a ton of blank records - what can I do to keep this from happening? Thanks for reading this!

Something like that would be perfect! Here is what I have done so far to get myself there - I joined my invoice and contact management database by the field "full name." I then set up a value list in the invoice database that pulls values from the fields "full name" and "city" from the contact management database. My question now is - Is there a way to type into the the full name field in my invoice database, and as I am typing, have it jump down the list to automatically match the name? What I am trying to keep from doing is having to scroll through 10,000 contact names starting from "a." Also, if you can recommend a better way to set this up instead of what I just outlined, please let me know. Thank you!

Hello, I have two databases, Invoices and Mailing, each with one table. What we want to be able to do is link our invoices and mailing databases together. We figured the easiest way to do this is to link them through the full name field. So ideally, when someone buys something, we will enter their full name and their corresponding mailing information will pop up, assuming they are on our mailing list. This is all well and good, and I could join the databases in a heartbeat if it weren't for one problem - obviously there are many people who share the same full name. What I don't want to have happen is that I type in a full name that is shared by others, and just have the first record for that name populate the mailing info fields. Instead,if indeed it is the case that there are multiple people with the same name, I want to instruct the database to pull up a list with all of the records of people sharing the same name, so we can then say, "Oh, are you the John Smith that lives in Los Angeles?"etc. My question is, is this possible? Thank you in advance

I thought so, thank you very much for clarifying that for me.

Also, I forgot to add, if I already have 500 records with embedded images, is it going to be a huge pain to change that to a calculation that fetches it from another folder?

I heard that using embedded images will bog down a database and slow it up. Right now I only have about 500 records in my organization's db, but its going to grow, so definitely I am concerned about this. Some people in my industry use a type of database software where you can store the image in a spreadsheet and have the program grab that image. Is something similiar possibly in filemaker and will that save my database from a sluggish fate?

Thanks, I knew there was a way to do it, though I'm not sure if I can make it work. The field name that I wanted to import the image into is just called "Image." Basically each record holds information about a certain object, and each object has a number (which is displayed in a field called "accession number." From what I understand, I would need to change the "Image" field name to whatever the actual image was saved as, correct? Thanks for your patience!

Is there a way to insert many pictures into their respective records all at once? My coworker is looking for a shortcut from inserting pictures one by one into their records. I can explain that better, please let me know.

Hi, When you have images in your records, what file size and file format do you use? I am wondering because it was pointed out to me that once we start to get a lot of records in the database, it may slow down if the image sizes are too large. TIA!

Hello, The database I am working on now contains information for our gallery items. Each gallery item belongs to a specific collection, which is usually named after the donor. What I want to do is run a report where I can get the subtotal of each collection, and then a grand total of all the collections added together, so that at any given time I can tell what each collection is worth, and what our total collection value is. I created a field called Total_Value which is a summary field that takes the total summary of each item's value. However when I tried to layout the report, I couldn't get it to break down the information for me the way I wanted - which is to first show me what each individual collection is valued at, and then what the total value is added all together. I then tried to create a field that was the subtotal of all the subtotals in the Total_Value field, but it wouldn't let me create a summary field based on another summary field. Any suggestions to get this to work? I appreciate your time. TIA

Hi Mr_Vodka, Thank you very much for your modifications, I am taking a look at that file as I type. I might have some questions though, which I hope you don't mind - and I am definitely going to work on the relational model, I'm still not sure how it all works yet, but I'll do a test database to play around with it - thats seems to be the best way to study filemaker!

Hello, I was wondering if anyone could take a look at my revised file - first off, the guy in charge of the gift shop where I work is very resistant to the idea of keeping inventory in file maker, so I haven't done anything using line items instead of repeating fields. Instead what I tried to do was to do a calculation on the amount field. Basically it goes something like, if the discount field is not empty, then the product extended amount equals the price x quantity - discount rate x quantity x price (or something like that - the correct calculation is stored in the field product extended amount). The calculation works, but it will only calculate the first item I enter. I had the same problem with the tax before, which is why I had to set it up so that each item is taxed individually. I suppose I could set up the discount the way I set up the tax, but I was wondering if there was a way to make it work this way first. I have a sneaking suspicion that this is another example of why repeating fields don't work. Thanks! InvoicesCopy12-30-06.zip

So, if I am understanding everything correctly (that'd be a first!), using the line item format on the invoice would benefit us by displaying our merchandise from a related inventory table, so we wouldn't have to type in an item description each time? And also, when entering in inventory, we could flag particular items to be taxable or non-taxable?

I see...I am a bit out of my range here, can anyone recommend a good book covering this? I can't find anything on it in Filemaker Pro 7 bible. Thanks for your input everyone, I appreciate it.

Also, which fields do you consider the repeating fields? The name and address fields on the invoices that are separate from our mailing database?

So far we are keeping our inventory by hand, but maybe this would be a good way to push the guy in charge of that to start using filemaker to inventory. We kind of have a customers database in our mailing or membership database - and actually we are trying to think of a way to link the mailing or membership with to the people fields on the invoices, I can't just think of what field to use to link them (sometimes a membership or mailing is under one person's name, but then their spouse will come in and buy something, so name wouldn't necessarily work) Lol, issues abound! So per everyone's advice, I think I will try to set up a new invoice database using the types of tables you guys suggested, and ditch the pre-formatted filemaker invoice layout.