I have asked a similar question about a year ago. Like most of us, I love Filemaker - except for 2 key issues. Firstly, unless my field borders are set as 50% black I find the "jittery" edges of non-calc, unlocked fields highly annoying. Surely there must be something that can be done about this? I am so opposed by this built-in functionality that I virtually only design with 50% black borders which is understandably very limiting. Has anyone got any idea how I can get around this (and I dont mean writing multiple scripts that go to the fields - especially since you have to write this with Scriptmaker as it can't be defined directly with the "format button" - which is another curiousity)

Secondly, generally speaking FM is very shaky. Going from layout to layout etc. never looks great unless one is incredibly minimal with ones design. Any thoughts?

create a self-relationship 1=1

position a one-line portal of exacly the same size of the field underneath every field - Bingo, no borders flashing.

as to your second problem:

i am not exacly sure of what you mean.

If you have complex layouts which have slow redraw, try

a "freeze window" before "go to layout "xx""

As far as FM being shaky you're right, and you also outlined the solution: design every thing very precisely, take into account the 3-pixel offset when using list layouts and your layouts will not shake anymore ... they'll still redraw but that's another story

Thanks Christian!

That is amazing! It defenitely solves my situation.

Pete

I still have the bottom border of my fields flashing. I've only got left and top borders on. How can I tweak it so this trick will still work?

JT,

As opposed to the visibility trick, this one needs the "one line portal" to have borders set on. As you can't specify the Portal borders (LRHL), you won't avoid flashing if left and high borders are set on but the Portal Borders are transparent. May be associating several portals set to 1pixel for high and left borders ?

Yeah, that's what I was doing, the constant::constant one row portal. I think I'll work on it some other time. It doesn't seem worth it to do the 1 pixel thing, but I want to maintain the smooth looking fields, so maybe I'll have no choice but to do just that.

You guys rock! Thanks for that solution... I have always hated the flashing field thing.

Brian