I am looking for a script method to deny field modification based upon the user's scripted pasword level. I know I can do this with the standard FM password system (groups/passwords), but my db uses a scripted pwd system (because of the type of users and security). In short if a user scripted pwd level = "viewer" then view only, no additionals, deletions or field modifications.

Any Ideas? Thx

Our security guru Mike Blackwell (Old Advance Man) often warns that security systems that don't use the built-in FM features are much less than secure. He has given several sessions on this at the FileMaker Developers Conference. Your best bet is to use the tools in FM to control record by record Browse, Delete, and Modigy access and/or Group settings.

One way to control access is to attach a button to each field and not allow the user to click into the field based upon the access allowed. You will need to disable the tab order to prevent tabbing into the fields. Another is to create a different layout for each level of access and disable "Allow Entry" for fields to be protected.

-bd

In its simplest form:

Allow User Abort [Off]

If ["fieldname = "viewer" "]

Go To Layout "a"

Else

Go to Layout "b"

End If

where fieldname is the field which stores the access level and where Layout "a" is formated with fields which are read-only, etc, and layout "b" would be for those with a higher level of access. Additionally, Layout "a" would need a link (button/script) to allow the user to navigate to the next layout/task.

While OAM might "...often warns that security systems that don't use the built-in FM features are much less than secure.", among other factors one needs to consider from whom the db's are being made secure (crackers or clients with limited computer knowledge) in order to determine the design of security.

In FMP 5.5 they introduced some new status functions that I have used. Status(CurrentRecordAccess) returns a number corresponding to the record access privileges assigned through the Overview dialog box.

0 - No access

1 - Read only

2 - Read & Write

Status(CurrentLayoutAccess) same description but on the layout access.

Thought this might help.

John

Causing a lot of overhead, and irritating advanced users there is a good method for dealing with this. Create display layouts that use calculating fields to show the original data. So for example: For field