I'm working on a project for a film production company. We're creating a system to manage many aspects of their production, from wardrobe and location approvals to continuity to creating a shooting schedule. As you can imagine, we'll be storing and organizing A LOT of images.

From what I can tell, however, FileMaker's ability to display images is rather weak. For example, I have created a file to track locations. Each record contains all the relevant location info. Photos are stored in a separate file and related to the location. Some locations have 500+ photos (we're working with the location mananger to get him to organize his photos better...), yet the best I'm able to do is a single column portal that seems to go on forever.

Is there anyway to create a "matrix" view, ie: 5 images across in a portal? What about a matrix view as a layout? Has anyone found a way to get around around this limitation? Basically I need to create something like iPhoto or Portfolio. Nothing fancy. A standard image browser view.

Any help would be much appreciated!

Thanks,

Rob

The trick is to setup a layout with a very small area, and then under layout setup, view in several columns. You then view the layout in preview mode. You'll need to create a script for this.

If you have FM 6.0, look for the template included called Image Catalog.fp5. There you will find an elegant, if somewhat more complicated implementation of this.

For a kick-ass image browser template, checkout the Troi-File-Plug-in version of the Image Catalog.fp5

u answered your own question:

"5 images across in a portal"

slef related file.....there is a sample by Ugo Di Luca on Horizontal Portal Scrolling

I hope it helps

Zilla !

Don't believe me if you wish. You just answered one of my questions....

OK, what I would like to know about the "Image catalog" template db is this:

How does the container field on the "Thumbnails" layout get configured to behave like a matrix of buttons, and how does it get connected to the scripts that switch you to the "Form" layout to display the image and its details?

I understand that the layout is being copied from the "List 3 x 4" layout in preview mode into the "Thumbnail placeholder" container field. I just don't understand how the "Thumbnail placeholder" field is functioning the way it does. That is: like a matrix of 15 buttons connected to 15 different scripts.

I've examined all the options/settings I can think of for all the fields and layouts in that db, but I can't figure out how that thumbnail view is functioning the way it is.

Thanks!

If you're talking about the FileMaker's Photo Catalog template, there are invisible squares on the layout, each of which is an button. In their template each runs a different script. Which is really obsolete (obviously only converted from 6 and not optimized). Each should send a different number parameter, all running the same script.

The Thumbnail Placeholder is a global container field holding 1 page of pictures. As you say, copied from another layout with columns in Preview mode, then pasted into in Browse mode.

I modified the 3x4 layout to 4x4 to get 16 pictures (128 pixel thumbs, with some text under). By the way, I tossed FileMaker's fancy text calculation and just put the text on the layout. I can see why they did it the way they did, but it's just not necessary.

You can also modify the forward 1 page script to get a back 1 page script; which I think is handy.