sidcam

Ok, stupid newbie question (and I'm just not "getting it" reading the manuals or FM's knowledge base). Thanks in advance to those who help. I have two tables (Table A; "Customer Data" and Table B; "Product Desired"). Table A is the table users will use to enter in their data. Every record in Table A needs to have a one to one relationship with a record in Table B (and only one). Up until now I've give every record in Table B a unique serial number (Serial Number Field) that was related to a drop down menu field in Table A where the user could select one option and marry the table records. Works fine. HOWEVER, I want to significantly increase the options in Table B and have the ability to add and change records in Table B without having to constantly update Table A's relationship field options in the drop down list. I would also like to make the selection process more user friendly than a single drop down field- i.e. let the Table A user(s) see/sort through the whole list of options in Table B with product photos (container fields in Table and a description field (again, field in Table . Basically a catalog page. A Portal seems to be the obvious (if not only) answer. However I can't seem to get the table relationships to the point where I can see/sort every record in Table B (in the portal) and then select the record that I want the one to one relationship with. (I should note that the portal will always need to show the full catalog so users can come back and make changes later). If I understand it right I should need two relationships between the two Tables- one that is a one to all relationship (for the portal) and a second that is a one to one relationship (for the actual records). I tried to create a second ID field in the two Tables that were both "1" so the Portal could see everything but I can't figure out how to reestablish the one to one relationship. I've also been thinking the solution is to have Table A see everything in Table B via the portal and then have some kind of select and copy option that duplicates one record in Table B to a Table C for Table A's use (that only allows one record which is then deleted and rerecorded when a new Table B option is selected). Am I completely making this harder than it should be? It seems to me this should be an easy no brainer task.

I'm developing on Windows XP. thx

I've tried the calculation field already. The problem is it sticks on the first "<" of the html code and then gives me the error message "A number, text constant, field name or "(" is expected here." I set up the result to be text but I'm pretty sure it's going to have the same problem no matter what. Basically it's trying to read the html code as it's own calculation code (because they use the same symbols). The template is several pages of " I figured I could slice up the html code in fields located in another table and then string them together with the data fields. But I still can't get it to do a clean export without commas, tabs, or formatting of some kind which is why I was going to see if I could get it all back in one field via the calculation field. So far, no dice. I haven't read up on containers yet (they're new to me). Not sure if there's a solution there. Thanks for the help though!

Oh, and thanks in advance for any help you may be able to give me! Sid

I need to create a simple runtime application that allows (non-technical) users to create customized HTML template(s) on their own PC for uploading to their own websites. Basically the user will click through a couple of screens inputing data into fields (their name and contact info, etc). FMP then needs to output the data fields within the context of an HTML-type file template (it's HTML, but it's not an HTML page- it will be uploaded to a content management product so the headers and end tags are removed). Ideally I would like it so all the end user has to do is a simple "select all" then "cut and paste" from a screen within the runtime application because they aren't sophisticated enough to do anything else. Having FMP output to a txt file is the other alternative. Unfortuantely I've got the database created but I can't get it to output the end file. Originally I created it so the "output page" was a seperate layout using mail merge. It LOOKS perfect, but I can't do a select all for the cut and paste. It also prints to a printer perfect, but I can't get it to output as a file. All of my Export attempts create a file of the fields (and not the mail merge layout screen). Even when it comes close the Export adds or reformats things just enough that it damages the HTML file and it doesn't upload correctly. I've been able to print the layout to Acrobat (using Acrobat Pro, not the PDF export feature), but Acrobat isn't an option on my end user's computers (and PDF exporting is turned off for the run time products). I would prefer not to have to install a "print to text file" print driver which I have found online (but haven't tried yet). Installing anything on the end users PC's makes this problematic. I've just begun experimenting with setting up the HTML template(s) as fields within their own table and using mail merge that way- then having FMP e-mail the file to the users. However it looks to me like all of the "<" and ">" of the html template will keep FMP from merging properly. Troubleshooting this has become just time consuming enough I thought I would stop and ask for help before I dedicated more time to it. Does anyone have any suggestions or fixes? Is this just impossible to get FMP to do? I'm using the 30 day demo of 9 (I own 8.5) and if it works I'll be upgrading to 9 Advanced to make the runtime.