Filter Relationship by type of child record?

[Steve Martino]

Hello Forum.  Seems like I'm getting back into FileMaker.  But I'm pretty rusty and forgot many things.

I have the following relationships (probably wrong for what I am trying to accomplish):

The 'DataEntry' TO's are just for presentation/ U/I for iPhone, and the 'Gallons_VL' is used for a condtional value list.  The 3 Main TO's are JOBS, TIME & GALLONS.

A JOBS record can create 2 different types of child records-TIME or GALLONS, never both for 1 specific JOBS record.  TIME and GALLONS Layouts are each based on JOBS with their own portals.

The problem:
Say I have 8 JOBS records, 5 with TIME child records and 3 with GALLONS child record.  Regardless of which JOBS layout I'm on (the one with the TIME portal or GALLONS portal), all 8 records obviously show up.

Hoping for:

What I would like to have happen would be when I step thru the JOBS records on the JOBS w/TIME portal records layout, only show those child records, and the same when on the JOBS w/GALLONS.

Things I've tried:

1.  One TO for JOBS to TIME and one TO for JOBS to GALLONS-didn't work unless I didn't set it up right.

2.  Putting a 'Type' field in JOBS and TIME, and JOBS and GALLONS, and trying to match on that.

3.  I could just do a Find for 'Type' on record load/or creation...seems clunk'ish'.

4.  Put the Time Portal on one Tab Panel, Gallons Portal on another Tab Panel, on the same layout and hide/show proper tab panel.

5.  Or do I need one TO group like above, and another for TO group connected by 'Type' and use that for presentation.

Any guidance or pointers would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks

Steve

[comment]

It's hard to advise without knowing what these entities represent in real life. Assuming that the basic structure is correct - i.e. that the two types of JOBS are sufficiently similar to belong in the same table, and that TIME and GALLONS are sufficiently different to warrant separate tables, I would say you could either select the correct layout for each record by using the OnRecordLoad script trigger, or use a single layout and show the relevant parts for each type, as per your suggestion #4.

I don't see why you would want to browse only records of one type - but if you did, you could do so by selecting the layout and then using the OnLayoutEnter script trigger to create a found set of records with the corresponding type. Or select the type by a button that calls a script that does both.

Note that TO's do not automatically filter records. A layout associated with a TO can show any record in the TO's base table - and will do so unless you either perform a find or use GTRR.

 

 

 

Edited August 17, 2021 by comment

[Steve Martino]

Thanks (again and again) @comment.  Greatly appreciated.