two "shared" portals; different fields - strange display

[Raizel]

My FPro 18 advanced database is music contents. Table 1 is artist s. Table 2 is music (title of recording and other details) along with 2 portals. Table 3 which is track list and timing.

Table 2 relationship Table 2 recNoID to Table 1 FK_recNoID.

portal 1 has sideA fields; portal 2 has sideB fields. There is a gap equivalent to the number of portal 1 entries when viewing portal 2. Can't see option to upload image so hope I explained well enough.

[comment]

3 hours ago, Raizel said:

hope I explained well enough

I don't think so. I am purely guessing here. By default, a portal shows ALL related records. If an artist has 10 related records in the Music table, and only 5 of those records have data in sideB fields, then a portal showing only sideB fields will display 5 empty rows representing the other 5 records. You can apply portal filtering to remove those rows.

--
P.S. Having separate fields (or sets of fields) for sideA or sideB is probably not a good idea.

 

 

Edited May 7, 2021 by comment

[Raizel]

Quote

P.S. Having separate fields (or sets of fields) for sideA or sideB is probably not a good idea.

Should I be relying strictly on using a radio button that designates side? I know attempt at report meant creating another field "sideC" that combined the two sets of fields respectively.

Found drag n' drop to add image so here's what I have. The selection has 3 titles on sideA (left) and 3 on sideB (right) except there are 3 blanks (right).

Edited May 7, 2021 by Raizel
clarify

[comment]

53 minutes ago, Raizel said:

Should I be relying strictly on using a radio button that designates side?

Yes. It doesn't have to be a radio button but yes, there should be a single field for Title and a field for Side. Otherwise even a simple task like finding a recording by its title becomes overcomplex.

 

[Raizel]

I'm stumped how to merge the 4,600+ records, each with sideA or sideB for time, title, artist, into one field each, respectively. And still be able to achieve same layout.

[comment]

28 minutes ago, Raizel said:

how to merge the 4,600+ records

1. Create fields for Title, Artist, Time and Side.

2. Show all records.

3. Click into the Title field and do Replace Field Contents… -> Replace with calculated result:

SideA_Title & SideB_Title

4. Click into the Artist field and do Replace Field Contents… -> Replace with calculated result:

SideA_Artist & SideB_Artist

5. Click into the Time field and do Replace Field Contents… -> Replace with calculated result:

SideA_Time + SideB_Time

6. Click into the Side field and do Replace Field Contents… -> Replace with calculated result:

If ( IsEmpty ( SideA_Title ) ; "B" ; "A" )

Examine the results, and if they check out you can delete the SideX fields.

Make sure you have a backup before you try this, as there is no undo in case you make a mistake.

 

28 minutes ago, Raizel said:

And still be able to achieve same layout.

Filter the left-side portal by:

Side = "A"

and likewise for the opposite side.

 

Edited May 7, 2021 by comment

[Raizel]

I performed all the steps for the "sideD replacement main fields" - artist, title, time, comments (forgot). (How much easier it was to my effort of creating calc fields which had limited purpose and terrible results).

All the new sideD fields are on Layout 2 (Table: sideAB). Now I need to be able to display these on Layout 1 (Table: Music) which are the portals. Do I create the portal using sideD fields  with sortbeingby the new side field? I would like the display side-by-side as image shows, not list by each side.

[comment]

2 hours ago, Raizel said:

I would like the display side-by-side as image shows

As I said (twice), use portal filtering. 

 

[Raizel]

Apologies for repeating. I know these steps have been around for ages but are new to me. I've implemented such.

Thank you -- it's working! Will start new topic for next question.

Edited May 7, 2021 by Raizel
add