Medusa

Personally I think this book is the best Filemaker book I have purchased and is well worth the money. There are tons of exercises that walk you through each step with knowledge check questions at the end of each chapter. I wish I hadn't waited so long to buy it.

Just updating my own question (following the purchase of the Book) for anyone in the future wondering the same thing. The boxed version & download versiosn are completely seperate products and you will not be able to download whioe waiting for delviery of the boxed version (if this is what you choose to purchase). An electronic version of the book is contained on the DVD which accompanies the book itself. So... you get the best of both worlds. My book arrived next day after purchase also :)

Thanks for the reply. I suppose I am only importing into two tables anyway, so what I'm doing is just as easy. I was just trying to think of a way to automate it more.

Dumb question but... Can you join technet in order to "learn" filemaker via the "free" server version without actually owning Filemaker?

I am contemplating buying the Filemaker Training series and am wondering if purchasing the "boxed" package also allows for download also (which would be useful while waiting for the package to arrive), or are they strictly separate items (download vs boxed). Any advantages to either, beyond the obvious?

Hi, I am pretty new to Filemaker so please be patient with me:) My problem - I have a layout which shows multiple records in form view, where each record consists of multiple related tables (Events & Persons). I can obviously type an entry directly into the layout and it populates both tables. So, how do I do this as an import since the import only allows me to import to one table at a time. I am currenlty able to do this but it takes a lot of manipulation since I have to create the data first in the "persons" table in order to get their "key" and then add that key to a new import file to populate the "event" table with. What techniques can be used to automate this? I have heard mention of creating an import table and somehow looping through this table to populate my layout. Is this right? and if so, where can I find a more detailed explanation of doing this. I hope you can make some sense of this rambling.

Fantastic! Thank you so much for taking the time to help me out.

Much better. Many thanks Lauren. One other minor problem : I'm using CenterWindow("vertical") & CenterWindow("horizontal") to position the window but it doesn't actually center the window in the centre of the screen as I'd expect. Any ideas on that one? Your help is much appreciated.

I have a solution where I have several "small" master data layouts that I have linked to custom menus. the custom menu runs a basic script which opens a new window, loads a layout and resizes the window. The problem I have is that if my start point is my main interface which has a much larger window size the transition to the new window is pretty jerky. If I have a utility (small) window as my start point the new window works fine. Anyone have any tips here for calling "new" windows of a smaller size.

I'm struggling with importing data where there are related fields to be linked. I have an excel file which I want to import. Each row of the file contains information which relates to an event i.e. Date, place, etc and also information on a related person i.e first name, last name etc. The tables Event & Person are related tables. It seems I can only import into 1 table at a time so how do I go about populating both tables from my Excel file and linking them so the fields appear correctly in my layout.

Ah! Thank you!! I haven't looked yet but I do recall structuring this and then later deciding to do the notes differently, so sounds logical. I didn't figure this was an issue since I hadn't used any feilds from that "instance" on my layout. I did say I was new to Filemaker :

Forgive me if this is basic stuff but I'm pretty new to this. I have a List layout with fields from several related tables. I am able to create records in the layout without problem, however when I go to delete the record I get an error which says "The operation can not be performed because one or more related tables are missing" See file attached. Affected layout is Births:1837. Thanks for taking the time to look. Archive.zip

What I'm really trying to get is almost like a menu or folder system. My idea is to have a main table which is EVENT. There will be various TYPES of EVENTs and each type will be part of a CATEGORY. I'd like each layout to relate to records of each TYPE of EVENT. I guess all I really need is something like the standard layout selector BUT I want to hide the status bar. I was hoping for some other suggestions about how others navigate large numbers of layouts. What are the choices?

I am trying to build a solution which will contain many layouts, some forms, some lists, some tables. What is the best method for navigating through these layouts. I want to have a number of categories and each category will have a number of layouts associated. i.e. a category of Census would have layouts for 1841, 1851, 1861, 1871 etc. Thanks for any advise you can offer.

Thanks for taking the time to explain is such great detail. You've convinced me that my intial setup of using field values rather than a value list is the best way to go. However, what I don't like is the implementation of how this is managed. First, the pop-up style option seems to obscure a large area of the form when completing it. Secondly, there is no way for the user to maintain a "new" value easily from here. I assume I need to do something to call another form, have the user input the new value in the related table and then somehow bring that new value back to the oriinal input field. How are others implementing this? My ideal solution would be to have an input field which validates against the related table so that any value which already exists picks up the id of that value that already exists. If a value is not recognised it adds it to the related table. Any ideas on how this could be implemented? Are there any alternative plugins handling pop-ups etc that you know of, that give more options than the standard pop-up/drop down box.

I'm a bit confused about how best to implement repetitive values. My scenario is I have a "Person" table and each "Person" has a "Role". There will be a limited number of roles. In a "Person_View" layout I want to implement a filed which allows me to choose a "Role". Question is: should the "Roles" be a linked table or just a value list. I would want the interface to show the actual role, NOT just a role id, and I want the user to be able to add a new role. Currently I have this implemented as linked tables but I'm not getting how I have the popup display the role name after selection rather than the role id. Plus, I don't see how I add a new entry to my role table via the popup. So, what the best practice hear, tables of fixed value list? and what are the pros & cons of each. Hope this is clear enough. Thanks for any help offered.

Many thanks for the attachment, whilst not perfect this does look like a workable solution, and since it's only for my own use I can live with a little awkwardness in having to rebuild the index. I will give your other suggestion of multiple relationships a go and compare. Again, many many thanks for sticking with me on this one and for your time and effort with the attachment.

10's of thousands of records but single user only.

Unfortunately the data entry will be continuous. Seems like the only option is to develop source independant solutions (seperate tables for each source) and then analyse/search each seperately. NOT ideal. Thanks for your help anyway.

By entering ALL data before analysing do you mean all data per record. OR are you saying I'd have to have recorded every peice of information before I analyse. This is an ongoing data collection excercise. New information emerges continuously but each peice is a new record. I'm pretty new to this so sorry if I'm being dumb. Another posibility I wondered about (though don;t have the skills as yet to implement is the possibility of having a seperate "index" table. The idea being I could strucutre tables for each record source and copy appropriate information to an index table on saving a record. I don't like this for a couple of reasons. Duplication of data and the handling of the index update (creation of records, are there multiple people to enter in the index, how to handle changes etc). Look forward to hearing your ideas on repeating global fields.

Well Ideally I'd like to enter data in a table format, almost Excel like. Name: Date: Father: Mother: Place: John Jones 21 Jan 1857 Frank Jones Martha Jones London Fred Jones 03 Mar 1861 Frank Jones Martha Jones London Jane Jones 17 Jul 1901 John Jones Elsie Jones Hull

This link below will show some examples of certificates from where the data may originate. http://www.maesbury.org/broadplace/ancestors.html FYI I am researching a surname study and as such record all instances of a given surname. So I need to record all data from many sources of information, birth certificates, marriage certs, census returns, wills etc. Many kinds of events with many people and roles. I would like as a minimum to be able to report an index of all names. Unlike other genealogy databases I am not trying to link families together in to trees, but just record the references to the individuals. I may have a birth cert, marriage cert for the same person, but do not need to use the same person ID for both events, I just need to know the details of each event. Hope this makes sense.

I knew this was too simple an example. I have a BIG complication. So, each event can have multiple Persons i.e. Birth: Contains the Person born, the Father & Mother. So for arguments sake 3 People. Marriage: Has Bride, Groom, Brides Father, Grooms Father & 2 witnesses. 6 people. You get the picture. I would like the Name index to show ALL people whether bride, groom, witness etc etc. Now the only way I can see this working is with a portal for the people in an event and a ROLE for each person. BUT I don't really like this solution because I'd like to have forms that look like a birth certificate, a marriage certificate etc. Any ideas, how I might achieve this? Thanks for any further input.

Thanks for the quick suggestions guys, there is actually going to be more event types than this and much more detail but I think simplifying things in this way has made the solution more obvious. Thanks again.

Not sure this is the right place for this query. I'm a beginner with Filemaker but have some experience with databases. I need an index/report which will cross multiple tables, let me explain. Lets say I want the following tables. a: Births b: Deaths c: Marriages Each table would have a first and last name. I will need to be able to show a form or report which is an "index" of all "events" by name i.e. Births table has the following: Fred Jones 2 Feb 1945 John Jones 7 Jul 1973 Deaths table contains: Fred Jones 15 Jan 1963 Anne Jones 12 Mar 1801 Marriages table contains: Jane Jones 21 Aug 1847 Sally Jones 14 Sep 1891 Ken Jones 18 Apr 1921 I need an index report which shows ALL entries, how would I structure this? Anne Jones 12 Mar 1801 Jane Jones 21 Aug 1847 Sally Jones 14 Sep 1891 Ken Jones 18 Apr 1921 Fred Jones 2 Feb 1945 Fred Jones 15 Jan 1963 John Jones 7 Jul 1973 Any help greatly appreciated.